After posting a photo last week of my great-grandmother, Kina Cathcart, several people asked for more of her story.

I am dependent here on the years of research by my mother, Helen Yonge Lind, and my sister, Bonnie Stevens, who did the genealogical digging to further our understanding of our family roots. Had they been living, I would immediately punt a request like this over to one of them. But, since they are both gone, I’ll have to give it a try.

It’s not a happy story, really.

Kina was born in Hana, but there’s uncertainty about her birth date.

Her death certificate in 1913 listed her age as 47. The information apparently came from her oldest son, James Kahele. No birthdate is listed.

My mother noted the uncertainty in a note found among her papers.

Frin several sources, I have heard that she was a twin. From records of the Cockett family we have the birth of Kalua, a twin, born 1 March 1869. I have given Kina the same birthdate since she was reportedly a twin. Bt her son said she was 47 years old at death, and this would place her birth as circa 1866. Perhaps Kalua was the twin of another child in the family and Kina was born earlier.

Such are the vagaries of genealogical research.

Her father, Kahooilimoku, and mother, Kaheleualani, held property in Hana, and as I recall, Kahooilimoku was an awa farmer.

Kahooilimoku is listed in an 1880-1881 commercial directory as owners and planters of Awa on 25 acres located on Hana Road in Hana, Maui.

They were said to have been the first family to build a wood frame two-story home in Hana, but that could just be an ungrounded family tale.

Kaheleualani was one of 12 children of Kapehe, who was born in Kaupo circa 1829 but lived most of her life on the Keanae peninsula. Kapehe was said to be “something of a legend,” a kahuna lapa’au or Hawaiian medical doctor knowledgeable in herbal medicine, healing, and, another said, bone setting.

“In Keanae and other remote places, the kahuna lapa’au filled an important community role well into the 20th century, although they were not approved or licensed by the haole government,” my mother wrote in a note years later. “I remember when I was a child in the 1920’s there were Hawaiian neighborhoods where their kahuna lapa’au was favored over haole doctors.”

One family source told my mother Kapehe was considered e’epa, someone born with spiritual or psychic qualities, although this was disputed by others. She is remembered as tall and slim, “tall enough to hang gourds of food from the ceiling to keep them away from inquisitive children.”

Little was found about Kina’s early life, but when she was about 15, she was sent to Honolulu to attend school, possibly at St. Andrew’s Priory, which was established in 1867. She lived near the school with the Brickwood family. She became pregnant and was sent back to Hana, where she gave birth to a son in 1883, who was named James Kahele. It is believed the “Kahele” name came from the first letters of Kaheleualalani, Kina’s mother.

However, the uncertainty of the year of her birth means that when Kahele was born in 1883, Kina could have been as young as 14.

The following year (1884) Kina gave birth to Florence “Flora” Toomey, the first of two children fathered by William Dennis Toomey. In 1886, a brother, Alexander Toomey, was born.

My sister identified Dennis Toomey as “an English-born Haole, manager of Hana Plantation for a period in the 1880’s.”

“He was a planter and a landowner at Hana, Maui according to a Hawaii Directory of 1890,” cited by Findagrave.com. Land records show he purchased 6 acres of land from Kahooilimoku and Kaheleualani in 1885.

Kina’s mother, Kaheleualani, died in Hana in 1886 at age 37.

Kina then returned to Honolulu and met Robert William Cathcart, my great-grandfather, and gave birth to three Cathcart daughters as described in my earlier post.

Photo: Kina Cathcart c.1891

In 1888, the same year my grandmother, Heleualani, was born, Kina’s father, Kahooilimoku, and two of her younger brothers, Alapai and Kaaea, were admitted to the leper colony at Kalaupapa, records show. Kahooilimoku died there in 1890, Alapai in 1891, and Kaaea in 1892.

Cathcart left Kina shortly after the birth of the couple’s third daughter, Louisa, in 1892. He married Ellen Poaha in 1905, after the birth of four boys born between 1895 and 1905.

In 1905, at age 39, Kina married Kanu Puha. She died in Honolulu on August 1, 1913, of an acute infection at the age of 47.

In August 1915, James Kahele married Becky Keliiaipaha, Rev. Samuel Kamakaia officiating, according to a notice in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. He was been listed in the City Directory as a laborer. He died just three years later at age 35. Three years later, his widow, Becky, died. Her published death notice says the cause of death was typhoid fever.

And in April 1925, there was an accident at Makapuu Lighthouse. This description is from the book, “Brilliant Beacons: A History of the American Lighthouse,” by Eric Jay Dolin.

Early in the morning on April 9 of that year, assistant keepers Alexander Toomey and John Kaohimaunu were getting ready to change the watch. In the process of putting alcohol into the lighter that was used to heat the IOV lamp, a small amount of alcohol dripped on the floor. When Toomey struck a atch, the alcohol fumes ignited, causing a fiery explosion. Both keepers were severely burned, but Toomey got the worst of it, his clothes having caught fire, leaving him “charred black and crinkled.” As the head keeper was about to rush the two injured en to the hospital, Toomey’s wife begged to come along. Toomey, however, insisted that she remain at the lighthouse, since with all three keepers gone she was the only one who could watch the light. According to the Bulletin, before being taken away Toomey gathered his wife and children around him to recite the Lord’s Prayer, and then he turned to his wife and said, “Stand by the light and keep it burning.” Those were the last words he and his wife ever shared, for he died the next day.

Toomey was 39.