Hawaii Anyone?

Loch  View Cemetery
Pearl City, Hawaii

Do want to know what I'm going to do? 

Let's start with what I WANT to do. I look at that heap of broken headstones and I want to put them back in order. Among them might be my great great grand aunt and uncle, Elsa Skar, and her husband Christian Christophersen of Norway. Their headstones, I mean. Elsa is Hans' sister. Their descendants eventually moved to Washington State in the late 1800's.


On my early morning drive to Nashua this morning I asked my daughter to let me talk through my research about this cemetery. I told her about my fixer-upper project and she said, rolling her eyes, "We'd have to go to Hawaii, Mommy." 


"I know. We are." 


Laugh. More eye-rolling."Did you hear that, Kyle?" she joked with her brother sitting behind her. "We're going to Hawaii!" She obviously doesn't believe me. I can't say I blame her for doubting. I consistently and fervently say, "No!" to everything except the question, "Do you need some help?"

But somehow we're going. All of us. 

I was thinking of leaving a cache nearby for all geocachers to have a little fun. I just need an idea of some trinkets to put in the cache. Something creative that people who love family history and geocaching would enjoy. But that's for another day. 


Your reasons for liking cemeteries might be different from mine. I don't visit them to visit the dead. I love them because of the wealth of information one can gather from the headstones and the cemetery office's records, if any were kept. And they usually are. 


I want to get the Boy Scouts on Oahu to volunteer some time to clean up the grounds. My oldest boys' Eagle Scout Project was collecting information from the oldest part of a town cemetery, mapping the family plots, taking pictures of the headstones, and organizing all of the records created from his project. He gave the finished project to the cemetery's secretary, who updated the town's records of that cemetery. The next step would be to get all of that information online so that people wouldn't have to travel to get pictures, names and dates found on the headstones there.


But the Loch View Cemetery, overlooking Pearl Harbor, is a mess. Even if a map existed of the original plots, it would be too expensive to redo the whole thing. I'd like to do what was done at the Old Pioneer Cemetery in Olalla, Washington for some of my ancestors buried there. Someone created a memorial with names and dates of all of the people who had been buried there for visitors to see. Just a simple, engraved plaque mounted on a boulder (so I've been told).

I've started researching the cost of the memorial. It'll probably cost upwards of $1,000., depending on how many names and dates are added. But I'm good at finding deals. The airfare is another matter entirely. Perhaps we'll swim.


But what a dream. Huh? It'll take some time and planning. Kelley said, "If we go we HAVE to visit Pearl Harbor!"


Me? I just want to island hop and step on the same ground some of my ancestors stepped on. They lived on at least two of the islands. And I'm sure that the sand from the beaches they landed on is worn and washed away like the headstones. My imagination will have to bring me back in time because I know that things have changed since they were there. 


But the ocean doesn't change. I want to look at the same one that they did over 130 years ago. And I want to leave my mark. 

(Not really. I just want to go to Hawaii)


First I have to pay the electric bill.
And the heating and water bill.
And rent.
etc.