Grace Kamaikui
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Grace Kamaʻikuʻi Young Rooke (1808 -1866) was an Hawaiian high chiefess being the daughter of John Young Olohana, the advisor of Kamehameha the Great, and foster mother of Queen Emma of Hawaii. Grace was fair-complexioned and blessed with fine features.
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[edit] Early Life and Marriage
She was born circa 1808 in Kawaihae, in Kohala District, on the Island of Hawai'i. Her aging father was John Young the royal advisor of Kamehameha the Great from Lancashire, England. He mother was the High Chiefess Kaʻoanaʻeha, the niece of Kamehameha the Great. She was probably name after her grandmother Grace who was John Young's mother from England. She was raised on her father's homestead situated on a barren hillside overlooking the Kawaihae Bay, on a piece of land Kamehameha had parcel out to her father on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. She grew up with her two sisters, Fanny and Jane, and her brother, John. Fanny was eldest, she was second, John was third, and Jane the youngest. She and her siblings were hapa-haole or part Caucasian but still of a aliʻi (royal) status.
At a tender age, probably in her teenage years, she married to High Chief Cox Kahekili Keeaumoku the Governor of Maui. Her husband was Queen Kaahumanu's, the regent of Hawaii, younger brother. He was 20 years the senior of his wife. She was left a young widow, when she was 14 or 15 when Cox died at Honolulu, Oahu in 1823. She remarried to Dr. Thomas Charles Byde Rooke, a British man and physician to king Kamehameha III in 1830. She was the only royal Hawaiian chiefess to married a white man in her generation. Her sisters, Fanny and Jane, had married Hawaiian ali'i.
[edit] Marriage to Rooke
Grace had a fair command of the English language, was also acquainted with British ways. She probably felt socially equal, if not superior, to her husband for he had came from a family of commoners. On his part, Her husband was, "a man of rare cultivation and refinement", with an outgoing and cheery disposition that completmented Grace's natural bashfulness. At time of their marriage he operated a dispensary in a one-story, part adobe structure on Union Street. As one of the three only Western doctors in the Kingdom of Hawaii, he had more business than he could handle. Their friendship with the royal court made them secure and comfortable. But their was one problem with their happy life.
She was unable to give birth and they desperately wanted a child. She and Rooke decided to hanai or adopt one. Hanai was a common custon in Hawaii even if the child, being adopted, had living parents. Although the missionaries were sternly opposed to this practice of giving ones children away like puppies. All class, especially the ali'i, indulged in hanai. More often, adoption occurred in the same ʻohana or family. The choice was between Grace's sisters, Jane or Fanny. The reason why they chose Fanny is unknown. It may have been because Fanny was a more serious stable person and a Christian, while Jane tended to be "clever as well as a little frivolous." According to Hawaiian custom, a child could not be adopted without the full consent of both true parents. Fanny and George Naeʻa was have fully consented because they promised the child before its birth.
As soon as the baby was deliverd, they "immediately" wrapped her in soft tapa and took her to their home nearby, a two-story frame building on Union facing Fort Street in Honolulu. One should not take the term immediately too literally because it was customary to preserve the pike {umbilical cord}, to bathe the infant and perhaps oil it lightly, to wrap it snugly in it tapa receiving blanket, to allow the mother to nurse it, and then carry out the hanai ceremony. When a child was handed to the adoptive parent, the natural parents would seal the act with words "Nau ke keiki kukae a naʻau." Translate as "I give you this child intesines and all" To Hawaiians the intestines were believed to be the seat of emotion, intelligence, and character. It was a solemn promise, a spoken contract that was as binding as any modern legal instrument. This arrangement explains why the Rookes did not bother to sign a legal deed of adoption until December 30, 1851, fifteen years after.
[edit] Rooke House
There foster daughter was Emma and she tooked the surname of her foster parents, Rooke. She and her husband moved into their new and spacious wood-frame mansion shortly after Emma's birth. The house was popularly known as the Rooke House and one that Isabella Bird, who visited Queen Emma in 1873, described as "the most English-looking house I have seen since I left home, except Bishopscourt at Melbourne." The house face the Nuuanu Valley and with each of its two floors measure approximately fifty by fifty feet for a total of 5000 square feet, was one of largest private homes in Honolulu at the time. The sizes was due to her husband's medical practice, his large library and as well as for entertaining guests. Also on their property were a stable and coach house and the living quarters for a crowd of kahu or servants. The house was two-story with a wide sweeping veranda across the front of the building and four pillars went up to the roof supporting it. The bottom floor was for her husband's clinic and dispensary. They lived upstain in British manor house style with red Kashmir carpets, mahogany and dark oak furniture and framed oil painting on the walls. The house was located on Waikiki corner of Beretania and Nuuanu and was bordered by Fort Street and Chaplain Lane. The house occupied a one-and-one=half-acre parcel called Kaopuana {Raincloud}, which was probably gifted to Rooke by Kamehameha III.
[edit] Emma
While her husband try to raised their daughter, Emma, to be very British, she raised her to be Hawaiian as well. Emma learned about the world from her scholarly father, with the help of many letters from her paternal grandmother in England who instructed Dr. Rooke on how to raise Emma properly. The British did not spoil their children, while the Hawaiians did especially aliʻi children who was given everything their heart desire. Her husband did his best not to allow Emma to be spoiled rotten by Grace. She loved Emma and her daughter called her Kiawai. Her daughter grew up speaking both Hawaiian and English, the latter "with a perfect English accent." She sent her daughter to Chiefs' Children's School age 5 to began her formal education.[1] After living in the Islands for nearly 30 years, Dr. Rooke died in November 28, 1858, at Kailua, Hawaii, at the age of 52. She died in 1866 and was buried in Mauna Ala the Royal Mausoleum.
[edit] Notes
[edit] Reference
- Kanahele, George S.. Emma: Hawai'i's Remarkable Queen : a Biography . University of Hawaii Press, 1999.
