The Life of Pauahi

On the 19th of December, 1831, Bernice Pauahi Bishop was born, the one who established the Kamehameha School. She was the only child of Paki and Konia. When she was little, she was taken as hanai by Kinau. She was educated at the Royal School, the school for children of alii. At the school, she was a student of Mr. and Mrs. Amos Cooke and she was one of the smartest of the children of the school.

While she was going to school, she met Mr. Charles Reed Bishop. Her parents did not approve of this because they wanted their daughter to marry within the Kamehameha line. With this in mind, they built a home for Pauahi and called this home Haleakala.

The teachers of the Royal School greatly approved the marriage of Pauahi with Mr. Charles Bishop, and they helped the youths and the two were married. When Pauahi’s parents heard, they were very angry and they blocked her off and would not see her. Because they were actually lacking, she took students, teaching them the piano. After the year went by, the parents put aside their anger, so Pauahi and her haole went to live in the home Haleakala.

One very good thing in her life was that she lived peacefully with her husband.

Because of her affection for her people, in her will she ordered the building of schools for boys and girls of Hawaiian blood. That is the one school for which we Hawaiians can be proud of, because all of the students are Hawaiian.

Every year on the 19th of December, the girls and boys of Kamehameha School hold remembrances of the birth of Pauahi. This day was deemed a day of remembrance by Mr. Theodore Richards at the completion of the year that the school was built, 1888.

At his sickbed, Kamehameha V asked Pauahi to be Queen of Hawaii nei. Being she had no desire for glory, she refused this request.

Her work is done, and her weariness and troubles have been set aside, but her good works continue for all generations.

(Hoku o Hawaii, 1/4/1939, p. 1)