Bishop Larry Silva will celebrate a memorial Mass for the late Kalaupapa patient Clarence “Boogie” Kahilihiwa at 10 a.m. April 20 in the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace.
Kahilihiwa was a resident for more than 60 years in Kalaupapa where he had emerged as a leader and advocate for those quarantined there for having contracted Hansen’s disease. He died on March 5, a month before his 80th birthday.
Kahilihiwa was born April 9, 1941, in Kalapana on the Big Island, one of 11 children. He was given his nickname by one of his sisters who said he looked like “one boogie man” when he put on the gas mask Hawaii residents were equipped with during World War II.
He was only 9 when he was diagnosed with leprosy, later called Hansen’s disease, the fourth child in his family to contract the disease. He was sent to Hale Mohalu in Pearl City, a residential facility for treating people with leprosy. He moved to Kalaupapa in 1959 at the age of 18 to be close to his siblings.
He could have left when medication found him negative for the disease, but he remained for the sake of those older patients whom he said needed an advocate.
He is buried in Kalaupapa.