The Honolulu times. [volume], August 01, 1910, Page 9, Image 9

About The Honolulu times. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1902-1911

Image provided by: University of Hawaii at Manoa; Honolulu, HI

                
Own History Forgotten.
"It is unfortunate that the natives
are more ignorant of the
habits and customs of their own
people than the Americans who
have settled there. Research by
the leaders and teachers among
the settlers has brought to light
the interesting fact that the
made cloth out of the
barks of trees and dyed it with
vegetable colors, and that they
were well versed in the medicinal
properties of herbs."
The picture Mrs. Frear drew of
the deposed Queen Liliuokalani
receiving her former subjects during
the receptions she holds now,
was a pretty one.
"The people are devoted to the
Queen, who, whatever she has
been deprived of through the
United States government, has
lost none of her regal bearing and
charm of manner," said Mrs.
Frear. "She receives now, on the
wide veranda of her home, in a
rocking chair placed between two
great poles surmounted by brilliant
feathers, the symbols of
yet in the eyes of her people
the rocking chair partakes of all
the grandeur of a throne. The
veranda in their eyes is as fine as
the carpeted dais of the court, and
the venerable queen, who was
once arbitrary mistress of the Islands,
holds court with all the
pomp and ceremony of old."
i5
GOLDEN JUBILEE
OF THE ALEXANDERS
Beneath a wedding bell which
had performed the heart-warming
service at two other similar celebrations,
Prof, and Mrs. W. D.
Alexander yesterday celebrated
the golden jubilee of their wedding
anniversary at the old Alexander
homestead on Punahou
street, where scores of old friends
met and congratulated the couple.
Although the wedding of Professor
and Mrs. Alexander was in
1860, just when the war clouds
were gathering over North and
South, and months before the first
advance was made upon Fort
Sumter, there were a few in attendance
yesterday who were
present at that ceremony, some as
bridesmaids, one a groomsman
and some as wedding guests.
It is a quaint old home in
which Professor and Mrs. Alexander
are passing the golden days
THE HONOLULU TIMES
of their married life, and in its
old-fashioned rooms and upon the
cozy lanai the guests were received.
Professor and Mrs. Alexander
received the guests on the
lanai under the wedding bell
which hung over Mr. and Mrs.
W. D. Alexander in 1881 and the
golden wedding of D. D. Alexander
in 1907, and has also been
used at the weddings of some of
the Baldwins, and even while the
congratulations were pouring in
under that bell a wireless message
came from Maui announcing
the birth of a son to Mr. and Mrs.
Harold Rice, the latter formerly
Charlotte Baldwin.
Not only were congratulations
showered upon the couple yesterday
by guests in person, but many
cablegrams were received from
abroad. From Venove, Italy,
came "Aloha," from Mr. and Mrs.
W. A. Bowen ; from Rome came
an "Aloha," from Rev. Doremus
Scudder of Central Union Church ;
from Amherest came congratulations
from Professor Hosmer, formerly
president of Oahu College;
from Qualicum, British Columbia,
came " Congratulations from
Maude and Joe" (Mr. and Mrs.
J. P. Cooke).
The members of Professor
Alexander's class who were present
wore golden flowers, and
there were many present, men
and women, and grandparents,
too. The members of his classes
presented the professor with a
beautiful gold watch and chain,
while a number of friends presented
them with a purse of gold,
and another purse came from H.
P. Baldwin. There were a number
of beautiful presents, all gold,
from double eagles to dessert
spoons.
Not the least interesting feature
of the celebration was the display
of Mrs. Alexander's wedding
dress, a quaint garment of white
mousseline, a garment which
many of the guests of 1860 tenderly
handled. Over the doors of
the library were long pieces of
tapa, stained yellow with time, on
which were sentences made of
pieces of fern. One said, "Abby
and William"; on another was,
"In Union Is Strength" ; the third
one said, "Two Are Better Than
One." These were all fashioned
by the late W. W. Hall, who died
recently, and all were hung in the
room in the house in Lahaina
when Professor and Mrs. Alexander
were wed fifty years ago.
Mrs. P. C. Jones and Miss Mary
Parker, who were bridesmaids,
were present yesterday, as was
also H. P. Baldwin, who was
groomsman. Among the fifty-year-ago
guests present yesterday
were Mrs. Hayselden, Mrs.
Bishop, Mrs. S. M. Damon.
Judge Sanford B. Dole and
Frank Damon made addresses,
full of reminescenes, to which
Doctor Alexander replied as follows
:
My dear friends and pupils of
the far distant past, I thank you
heartily for your kind remembrance
of an ancient pedagogue.
To be thus remembered is the
highest privilege and reward of a
teacher. I was but an amateur in
the work of education, deeply conscious
of my shortcomings, but
I did the best that I knew, and
was privileged in having able and
willing assistants. As I look back
to that time after the lapse of
nearly forty years, its petty trials
and sorrows have faded and grown
dim, while its nobler pleasures
stand out more clearly in the picture
gallery of memory. The lifelong
friendships then formed with
so many choice young spirits are
the most precious treasures of my
life. Their after careers I have
watched with pleasure and pride.
They have been engaged in every
useful and honorable calling, and
are counted among Hawaii's most
patriotic and public spirited citizens.
And to our many other friends,
let me say that we can not find
adequate words to thank you
enough for your kind remembrance
of us on this occasion, for
the many expressions of love and
sympathy that have been pouring
in upon us the last few days, for
your beautiful gifts, but most of
all for that true friendship, "which
is far more precious than silver or
gold which perisheth." We wish
you each and all as unalloyed happiness
as we have enoyed here in
Maljuhia, and Heaven's richest
blessings besides.
It is remarkable that so many
friends are present who assisted
in that joyful occasion half a century
ago. I have always thought
that it was the olljiest and best
got up affair that I ever attended.
In fact, I have had an affection for
the dreamy, tropical old town of
Lahaina ever since. On that par-