St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa and its statue are silhouetted
in the sunrise. Photos by Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin

Paul Harada isn't talking about putting another monument here in this place where markers for the dead are part of the scenery. He wants a memorial "outside" to the people from all islands who were banished over a 100-year period, victims of society's fear of leprosy.

A bronze statue of Father Damien DeVeuster watches over Kalaupapa.

"Maybe people need to say thank you. I'm indebted to them, too," said Harada. "If they didn't have that (quarantine), my grandfather or grandmother might have gotten the disease and I wouldn't ever have been born."

Harada is one of the last generation of island patients who contracted Hansen's Disease before sulfone drugs were created to control it. He is one of 120 people who live on this remote peninsula.

The village is administered by the state Department of Health. The four square miles are maintained by the National Park Service. Although the state ended enforced isolation of leprosy victims in 1969, there is a limit of 100 visitors per day, and only those sponsored by a resident may spend the night.

Harada spoke of the memorial at a potluck picnic Saturday where he and about 40 other residents observed Damien's feast day in the Kalawao church that the missionary built.

A patient wheels himself down a Kalaupapa street.

Celebrations were held on all islands last summer, ending at Kalaupapa with the July 22 burial of a relic, the bones of Damien's right hand, in festivities attended by about 500 people. Damien, a native of Belgium, died of leprosy in 1889 after serving patients for 16 years.

Publicity about Damien apparently did not whet people's appetite for a peek at this most private place. Mike McCarten, administrator of the settlement, said the visitor count increased by a little less than one per day from 1993 to 1995 - to an average of 18.5 per day.

There were about 800 patients in Kalaupapa at any given time during Damien's day. There are 67 patients remaining of those who chose to stay after quarantine was ended in 1969. They range in age from early 60s to late 90s.

"We have a nursing home without walls," said Julie Sigler, one of seven nurses employed at the village hospital.

State law guarantees lifetime care to the historic quarantined victims, and as they age, that has been expanded to include meals on wheels and home-care nursing, including visits by the doctor.

Drake Wells, a Kalaupapa worker and artist, walks along the east side of the peninsula amidst some of the most dramatic scenery there is. Wells has lived on Molokai for 20 years, the last seven in Kalaupapa.

The next major event on the village agenda is the May 25 walkathon, along a seven-mile course of spectacular views along the rocky coastline and beneath the 2,000-foot cliffs. Friends and former residents fly over to join the annual fund-raiser to support social events such as the community Christmas party.

In its 15-year stewardship of the peninsula, the National Park Service has opened up vistas of the island that patients hadn't seen since childhood, if ever. The agency - which contributes 14 to the population - has cleared brush-covered cemeteries for leprosy victims as well as ancient Hawaiian heiau and house sites.

Sunset near a grave in Kalaupapa.

Neller described his rediscovery of a fishing shrine at the end of "crawling on my belly through dense Christmas berry. I plotted it on the map according to Stokes' coordinates. It was right where I plotted it, a huge heiau. It's there intact."

While patient Richard Marks' Damien Tours deals with the daily tourist traffic, Neller is tapped to show scholars, scientists and environmentalists his view of Kalaupapa. He often enlists them to wield sickle or machete to help keep the sites cleared.

Ed Kato talks about the old days at
St. Philomena's Church in Kalawao.

Kenso Seki enjoys a laugh with Joyce Oyama, a nurse at Kalaupapa Hospital. Seki, who just turned 86, has been at Kalaupapa since 1928.

"Once I started doing my yard, other people started coming to get slips. That's what I think the settlement needs to be, a way to preserve the old, rural Hawaiian landscape."

Rocks painted with a happy message from Ed Kato, who recently won a Maui County Senior Citizen Award.