North Shore NewsBy Captain Rick Rogers
The Holiday Season of 1918 was quite a festive time on the North Shore. Our troops and Red Cross volunteers were returning from the Great War in Europe. The OR&L Railroad connected Waialua to Honolulu on a daily basis. Tourists filled the Hale’iwa Hotel, where some were to be found lounging on the beach, paddling up the river, or enjoying the shooting sports mauka. A large Christmas tree had been shipped in from San Francisco on the same steamship that brought most of the visitors to the islands, a week earlier. The kitchen staff was preparing a traditional holiday feast of locally grown turkey, sweet potatoes, rice, fresh fish and recently pounded poi.
The arch fronting Lili’uokalani Church was wrapped with flowers, paper ornaments and candles. The Japanese Christian Church, near the Waialua Plantation Offices was diverting parishioners from both the Waialua and Hale’iwa Hongwanji Missions, as was the Korean Christian Church, near the recently shuttered St. Michaels Catholic Church.
The most brightly decorated home was that of Albert Andrew Wilson, Manager of Waialua Water Company. Houses occupied by the German engineers and other Europeans in Haole Camp had traditional trappings as well.
Gifts were exchanged between neighbors and neighborhoods while the Plantation sponsored a caroling contest in the park.
It was a truly wonderful Christmas, with prospects for a Very Happy New year of 1919.