Centenarian Takes Bride of 60 Years

Hawaiian Born Before First Missionaries Came To Islands Married Wednesday Night

William S. Kioula, who will be a century old tomorrow, and Mrs. Lokalia Wahinenui, 61, were married on Wednesday evening, at Kawaiahao church by the pastor, Rev. Akaiko Akana, in the presence of many friends of the couple. The official witnesses to the ceremony were David Naeole and Charles A. Reeves, the latter being related by marriage to Mrs. Kioula.

Kioula, who looks not over 60, says he was born in Kona, Hawaii, a month before the landing of the first Christian Missionaries in the islands, which occurred in Kioula’s district of the Big Island. Honolulu’s oldest bridegroom was among the first native children to be christened by the missionaries.

The father of the bridegroom was Kioula, also born in Kona, and his mother was Kapule, likewise a native of Kona, Hawaii. The bride is also a native of the same district. Her father was Kumano and her mother Loe, both natives of Kona. Kioula has lived in Honolulu many years. He was a widower and his bride a widow.

Kioula was born the year after the great Kamehameha died. During his 100 years of life Kioula saw four Kamehamehas reign in Hawaii. He was already an old man when William C. Lunalilo was elected king. When Kalakaua was made monarch of Hawaii by the legislative assembly in 1875, Kioula was already 55 years old. Sixteen years later the late Queen Liliuokalani ascended the Hawaiian throne and a short two years after she was dethroned, the kingdom abrogated and a provisional government established. Came the Republic of Hawaii followed byh annexation and the creation of the Territory of Hawaii in 1900. Kioula was over 80 years old when the passage of the Organic Act by Congress made him and his fellow Hawaiians American citizens.

Mr. and Mrs. Kioula are making their home in a comfortable cottage on Waialae Road, Moiliili, opposite the Girls’ Industrial School. When the centennial of the landing of the first missionaries in Hawaii is celebrated next month Kioula will probably be the only Hawaiian present who was living before the first Christians came to the Islands.

(PCA, 3/19/1920, p. 7)