Kalaupapa survivor Ivy Kahilihiwa countered life’s hardships with faith and a smile

Ivy Strong

By Valerie Monson
Special to the Hawaii Catholic Herald

As a 9-year-old girl on the North Shore of Kauai, Ivy Laamea climbed a tree to survive the deadly 1946 tsunami that killed four members of her immediate family. Barely eight years after that, she was diagnosed with leprosy and forced to give up her son at birth. At Kalaupapa, she would reluctantly agree to have her two daughters adopted, feeling she had no other choice.

Such personal trials tested the woman who would become Ivy Kahilihiwa, but they would not defeat her. Ivy became one of the strongest women of Kalaupapa, finding her way forward even during the darkest days through prayer and her own resolve.

“All my feelings, deep down, I try not to think about (the hard times),” she said in an interview with this writer. “I keep myself strong. There is prayer — prayer makes you strong. What has happened, has happened already.”

Ivy died on April 13, 2023, at Leahi Hospital in Honolulu. She was 86. Even then, she had defied the odds. Five months earlier, Ivy was rushed to Queen’s Hospital and intubated, near death. Her will to live gave her more time.

Ivy’s granddaughter, Jessica Sanchez, who took a job at Kalaupapa in 2016 to be closer to Ivy, was not surprised that her grandmother proved everyone wrong again.

“Grandma was a fighter, but she was sweet and good-hearted,” said Jessica. “No matter what hardships she went though, she was always smiling. She was strong.”

Ivy Laamea was born in Haena on the North Shore of Kauai, her parents’ first child. Her doting grandfather, Kalei Kalau, gave her the name of Kuupolilauaeomakana for a lauae (fern) that “is not everywhere, it’s found in the wet cave,” said Ivy. He encouraged her to be independent even as a toddler, teaching her to swim in the ocean and as well as a river before she was 2 years old. Living up to her Hawaiian name, little Ivy explored the wet cave near her home, a place usually described as not a safe place for swimming.

She remembered how she would enter the cave, swim through a hole into a separate cave and emerge to find an inner world bathed in blue and green.

“All the flora, it was so beautiful, like nothing you’ve ever seen,” she said. “You never like come out.”

On April 1, 1946, Ivy was getting ready for school. Her mother was at home with Ivy and eight other children. Her father, a firefighter, was finishing the night shift in nearby Hanalei when the tsunami struck without warning.

“No one knew it was coming,” Ivy said. “The ground started rumbling. By the time the wave hit us, it was too late.

“We had an old truck. We all pile up, but couldn’t pass, water over the road. We turn around, there was a church, a Mormon Church. When we got there, each one trying to get up the steps. The (door) knob wouldn’t turn, the windows were shut. We can’t get in.

“All of us are outside the church. The whole family lined up in the yard. We could hear the wave coming. … It was like machine gun. I will never forget that sound.”

The wave — Ivy described it as being as “high as the pine trees” — ripped the family apart. Ivy, already a skilled swimmer, managed to grab a tree, climb above the surge and hold on for two hours until she heard her father calling.

Ivy was unable to enjoy her own rescue. She would soon learn that her grandfather, two sisters and a brother died in the catastrophe. Her mother’s leg was crushed by a boulder and partially amputated.

Their home was destroyed and surviving family members were separated, living with whoever could give them shelter. Ivy moved in with an aunt. She soldiered on.

Her life was slammed eight years later when she was diagnosed with leprosy and sent to Hale Mohalu in Pearl City. While there, she gave birth to a son, but because she could not keep a child at Hale Mohalu, she was forced to give him up. Her family took the baby.

Joy tempered by despair

Two years later, Ivy made the decision to go to Kalaupapa, a place that “made me feel to be at home.” A great-aunt who had been sent to Kalaupapa years earlier welcomed her. (Another aunt had already died at Kalaupapa.) Ivy married shortly after she arrived, then divorced.

During her second marriage, she gave birth to two daughters, the joy tempered by the despair of what Ivy knew would come next. Children were not allowed at Kalaupapa. Feeling she had no other choice, Ivy despondently agreed that her girls could be adopted by others who asked for them — and who she believed would care for them. The pain of giving up her three children tormented Ivy the rest of her life.

“I lost something that was supposed to belong to me,” she said. “The heart broken already. Things like that have not faded away. I say it to myself ‘It’s better for the child. … It’s better for the child.’”

One daughter, Kanani, was adopted by a couple at Kalaupapa, Laurenzio and Katherine Costales, the adoption made possible because Katherine — also called Kanani — moved to upper Molokai. Laurenzio kept his job at Kalaupapa to provide support. Eventually, young Kanani would hike down the trail to Kalaupapa and get to know Ivy.

Jessica Sanchez, Kanani’s daughter, felt fortunate to receive so much love and attention from all her grandparents at Kalaupapa. By the time Jessica started visiting Kalaupapa, Ivy had married Boogie Kahilihiwa.

“I’m the special one,” said Jessica. “I was lucky to have five grandparents on my mom’s side. Boogie took us in like he was our grandfather, too.”

Ivy’s marriage to Boogie almost didn’t happen. After the second divorce, she decided she was better off alone. No more husbands. Everything was fine until Boogie, himself widowed, began casting glances her way. No matter how strong she was, Ivy could not resist the special charms of Boogie.

“I don’t want any more marriage, but I don’t know what happened,” she remembered with laughter, shaking her head.

A Cadillac wedding

Even after Boogie proposed, they did not marry for four years. Because of Ivy’s divorces, she needed permission to marry Boogie in the Catholic Church. Ivy decided she might as well start at the top: She wrote to the Pope (Paul VI) for permission. Permission was granted.

“I almost fell down in Father’s house,” she said, describing how the Kalaupapa pastor, Sacred Hearts Father Philbert Vanfranchem, called her over to deliver the unexpected good news.

For the wedding at St. Francis Church on Aug. 27, 1977, Ivy wore a blue dress she picked out at J.C. Penney and a haku lei made of carnations, roses and pikake. Family poured into Kalaupapa from Kauai, Maui and Hawaii Island.

“I had so many people here I didn’t know who was who,” said Ivy.

Someone attached beer cans to the back of a Cadillac — the only Cadillac at Kalaupapa — loaned to Boogie and Ivy by the owner, Kalaupapa leader Jack Sing. The newly married couple took a celebratory spin around the settlement in style.

This would be the marriage that Ivy long dreamed about, lasting 43 and a half years through good times and bad, ending only when Boogie died in 2021. Ivy and Boogie were seldom apart, their names rarely spoken without the other. In 2012, Ivy and Boogie were named King and Queen of Aloha Night at Kalaupapa. The photo of them embracing on stage is an enduring image of their deep love.

Ivy was one of the settlement’s hardest workers, often juggling more than one job at the same time. She was a waitress at McVeigh Home, cared for blind residents at Bay View Home, cleaned the Kalaupapa Post Office, cleaned the State Administration offices, clerked at the Kalaupapa Bookstore, worked at the Kalaupapa Store and held three positions during her 20 years at the Kalaupapa Hospital: orderly, waitress and dishwasher. When she worked for Aloha IslandAir at the Kalaupapa Airport, Ivy was awarded a letter of commendation.

The family asked for privacy after Ivy’s death earlier this year. At a future date, according to Jessica, Ivy’s cremains will be placed atop Boogie in his grave, the couple united for eternity.

Valerie Monson, journalist and freelance writer, is on the Board of Directors of Ka Ohana o Kalaupapa.