“Yours Faithfully, Ambrose Hutchison: Recollections of a Lifetime at Kalaupapa,” edited by Anwei Law
“Yours Faithfully, Ambrose Hutchison: Recollections of a Lifetime at Kalaupapa,” edited by Anwei Skinsnes Law, published by Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa, 233 pages. Order at www.kalaupapaohana.org/new-book. Cost is $50 which includes shipping and handling. For more information, contact info.kalaupapa@gmail.com.
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
It would be difficult to invent such a character as Ambrose Hutchison. His father was an English doctor, physician to Hawaiian royalty, his mother a descendant of a famed Hawaiian kahuna or healer. At age 22 he was detained and — after a cursory examination by a single physician — sent to Kalaupapa where he was quarantined for 53 years for the “crime” of having contracted leprosy. Over his long lifetime he worked closely with, and outlived, well-known figures in the settlement’s early history including Father Damien, Mother Marianne, Board of Health official Rudolph Meyer, Queen Kapiolani, King Kalakaua, Queen Liliuokalani and Joseph Dutton, not to mention thousands of fellow patients sequestered with him.
Ambrose Kanewalii Hutchison was a real person, a firsthand witness to a most wretched chapter in Hawaii’s history, a resident superintendent of the Kalaupapa settlement, a vanguard among his people, an early advocate for the sainthood cause of Father Damien, and the author of extensive memoirs.
Those memoirs and other writing are the primary content of a new book, “Yours Faithfully, Ambrose Hutchison: Recollections of a Lifetime at Kalaupapa,” edited by Kalaupapa scholar and author Anwei Skinsnes Law and published by Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa, an organization of patients, family members and friends associated with Molokai’s Hansen’s disease settlement.
The 235-page volume is described correctly in the foreword as “the book no one else could have written.”
Hutchison penned by hand at least two copies of these memoirs in English when he was in his 70s, with poor eyesight and a right hand badly affected by the disease.
“Yours Faithfully” is a compilation of the most complete set of memoirs kept at the Damien Archives in Leuven, Belgium, with additional pages from the Hawaii State Archives and other writing from the Hutchison family and other sources.
Honest and straightforward
Hutchison writes in an honest and straightforward style, without pretense or embellishment, but with a simple, sometimes stark, dignity. Here is his description of Kalawao’s early days.
“Kalawao (on Kalaupapa peninsula’s east side) … became the dumping ground of all people (wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, and brothers) forcibly removed from their homes and all they hold dear in life from all over every island group. Left to themselves, cut loose from the loved dear ones at home without hope of ever seeing them again, the sick people settled down to play a new role in the drama of life … (a) scene leading downward straight to dissolute profligacy and dissipation.”
He told of “corpses being wrapped in a blanket or mat, fastened around the neck, waist and ankles with a piece of cord and strung on a pole. Then carried on the shoulders of two men to the burial ground. … then buried in a sitting position in a round hole grave for the hogs, if the grave is not deep enough, to uproot and devour the corpse as scavengers.”
The book arranges the memoirs into 49 chapters, which cover the historic as well as the mundane. It includes a wrenching description of his last visit to Father Damien before the priest died, and the lyrics of a song written for Father Damien by the boys of Kalawao.
The entry labeled “The Famed Father Damien” describes when the author, an Anglican, first met the Catholic priest — “a well-knit stocky man of medium height, dark hair, prominent straight nose, plump round smooth face and wearing gold spectacles, garbed in a black cassock.”
One chapter describes in affectionate detail the Mass, procession, benediction and luau for the Feast of Corpus Christi, when it becomes the occasion for a settlement festival presided over by Father Damien at which “all were Catholics for the moment.”
A sampling of other entries includes “Enlargement of the Kalaupapa Church,” “Visit of Queen Kapiolani,” “Mr. Ira B. Dutton’s Arrival in the Settlement” and “Gifts of Watermelon and Old Clothes.”
One passage relates the moment Father Damien confided in him about having contracted leprosy:
“Father Damien … had his left foot bandaged. Mutual greeting passed between us. Naturally, I asked the Father how he hurt his foot. Came the prompt answer, ‘I did it with hot water.’ ‘Hot water?’ I said, surprised. ‘Yes, while at the Mission I had taken a tub and poured some hot water in it to wash my feet. I put my foot into the water. I did not feel the heat and I did not know it was too hot. The result is as you see, I blistered my foot.’ He added, calling me by my name with a touch of irony, ‘I think I have the disease.’”
Hutchison describes his final visit to the bedside of Father Damien, on April 14, 1889, the day before he died.
“Full of emotion and sorely stricken with grief, I arose from my seat to go, found no words to utter as my tongue seemed to be tied to my mouth and he said again to me, ‘Be good to the Fathers,’ and I left him there, calm, patient in suffering and in serene contentment, never again to see him in life.”
The book closes with a variety of addenda, including a description of a visit of artist Edward Clifford, known for his famous portrait from life of Father Damien, Hutchison’s responses to inquiries about the virtues of Father Damien for his sainthood cause, and Hutchison’s last will and testament.
Hutchison died on July 17, 1932, and is buried in Kalaupapa, his home for more than half a century.
Law is the international coordinator of IDEA, Center for the Voices of Humanity, an advocacy organization for people with Hansen’s disease based in Seneca Falls, N.Y. She is also the author of “Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory,” and “Father Damien: A Bit of Taro, a Piece of Fish, and a Glass of Water.”
“Yours Faithfully” is a handsome, soft-cover book printed on heavy glossy stock with photos and illustrations on nearly every page. It was designed by Henry Law.
