Taphophile Tragics: Kaua'i Cemeteries

One of the things I write about on my Oakland blog is history. And one way to learn about history is by studying cemeteries, where you can learn about all sorts of people who made and lived history. K and I recently took a trip to Kauai for a family reunion for my parents' 50th anniversary, so I have some non-Oakland posts to write about.

To paraphrase Pascal, "the present slideshow is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter." As a farewell and thank you to Julie, who's been running the Taphophile Tragics meme for almost a year, I included a bunch of cemetery and memorials from my trip this summer to Kauai.

There are three formal cemeteries represented; a traditional burial site for Hawaiian chieftans; and a memorial from a local beach. The cemeteries are at St. Raphael Church, the oldest Catholic church on Kauai near Poipu; the Koloa Cemetery, a public cemetery (featured back in September); and Christ Memorial Church, an Episcopal church in Kilauea. The valley is Honopū Valley on the north shore. The beach is one of many out-of-the-way public beaches on the north shore. I wish I had more time to investigate the stories of the people behind all of these.





Lots more pictures of the Kauai cemeteries:

Taphophile Tragics: John Doe 13

One of the things I write about on my Oakland blog is history. And one way to learn about history is by studying cemeteries, where you can learn about all sorts of people who made and lived history. K and I recently took a trip to Kauai for a family reunion for my parents 50th anniversary, so I have some non-Oakland posts to write about.


I dragged K along to examine a couple of cemeteries during our recent trip to Kauai. Initially she was being nice and tagging along, but she quickly discovered why cemeteries can be interesting places to visit. While exploring at the Koloa Cemetery, she discovered this small, plain marker. There were a number like this; some were generic markers where no one had bought or made a headstone, but there were a surprising number of "John Doe" markers. In the U.S., John Doe is used as placeholder name for an unknown or unnamed man; similarly Jane Doe (or Roe) for a woman, and Baby Doe for an infant. It can be used in a legal document, but is also commonly used to refer to unknown people.

I couldn't find out much about the Koloa Cemetery. It's outside of town, marked by a small sign. It seems to be the public cemetery for the area. A nearby Catholic church has its own cemetery, and there are other cemeteries in other towns across Kauai. It's a relatively small cemetery, but has a variety of markers from the 1920s to the present, and being in Kauai, is in a beautiful setting.



Visit Taphophile Tragics for interesting posts about cemeteries around the world.

House History

ineffective insulation, anyone?

After a break for church media prep, the MLK Day of Service, watching the inauguration, and having some of K's friends from the spiritual direction program over for dinner, yesterday I got back to updating the electrical for the old bathroom. I realized it would be much easier to run new wires into the switch box if I took off a section of paneling in the hallway outside the bathroom. In doing so, I discovered a bit of house history.

First, I found more of that weird insulation I'd found in the other wall of the bathroom. I'd found out before it was paper pulp insulation and it didn't have asbestos, but that was it. This time, it was intact enough to find out exactly what it is. It's Kimsul insulation from Kimberly-Clark. In researching what that is, one reference said it was made famous by that finest of home improvement films, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. (Cary Grant apparently says, "Wrap your home in a blanket of Kimsul." I've seen the movie several times, but don't recall that. I love it, so I'll just have to watch it again.)

DIY, 1943 style

Then I came across this gem of an ad from 1943. I've zoomed in on step one of the quick and easy instructions. 'If your attic is unfloored' is a good start. But check out the woman holding the other end of the tape. She's balanced on ceiling joists. In a skirt. And high heels. But still managing to show some leg. Eat your heart out, DIY Diva :-)

In any event, why they'd put the insulation here was even more a mystery than the other piece I'd found. This was again in an interior wall. But only in one stud bay, and only in the upper half of it. It obviously wasn't for warmth, and only being in part of the wall, it wasn't going to do much for noise reduction. It also showed serious compression and sagging, which isn't too surprising given it's made of paper.

Mouse Hawkins

The second thing I found was a name. I know a few names and things associated with the house: POs were a couple of circus people (clown shoes in the closet during the inspection) and inherited it from her uncle. Said uncle was a bit of an odd duck, and died here (oh my). The house was built in 1948, but beyond that, not much. Scrawled on the back of the drywall in the bathroom wall is the name "Mouse Hawkins". I didn't find anything useful about the name on the web. (The fact that Mouse Hawkins is the name of a supporting character in a webcomic is not particularly useful.) What was Mouse's contribution to the building of the house?

City Homestead just blogged about some names they found in their house. What sort of interesting things have you found out about or in your house?

Snow? In Oakland? MooOOoo!

We got back yesterday from a quick pre-Christmas trip. As reported on another Oakland blog, City Homestead, it snowed here while we were gone. It's not that unusual for a little snowfall every couple of years here in the East Bay hills (we're at about 1200 feet), but our neighbor reported that the snow stuck around for a while, and that is unusual. They even had a couple of icy patches in their driveway. The Oakland Tribune site has pictures of kids building a snowman in Tilden Park in Berkeley. The good news is that we're getting snow in the mountains, too, where most of the state's water comes from in summer.

So far, we've missed all the excitement. We were in Michigan and Florida visiting family, and managed to miss the major storm that's hitting the Midwest. We did get to see my sister and her family in Michigan, including my nephew Jimmy,

fun with trains in Michigan

and some aunts, uncles and cousins, and the worst weather we faced was some freezing rain one night when we weren't going anywhere. It was hecka cold compared with what we're used to, though. I got a chance to show K the library where my great aunt worked, and we got a tour at the historical museum across the street. It's in a beautiful Victorian built in 1896, 20 years after Oakland's Camron-Stanford House. It's in even better shape than CS House because it only had a few owners, was never neglected as badly as CS House was after the city museum was moved out of it, and never had any structural changes made to it. We stayed at my sister's beautiful 1930's arts and crafts home. She and my brother-in-law and parents have been slowly restoring it to its former splendor, too. I'll post some pics of that later.

canoeing in Florida

After a quick stay in Michigan, we went to Florida to visit my parents. Not surprisingly, the weather was much nicer there. It did rain hard the first night, but other than that it was lovely. A visit to Fairchild Botanical Gardens, some canoeing, catching up, and of course lots of eating made for a delightful stay with them.

snow in LA

Our return trip took us through LAX. We obviously hadn't been paying attention to the national weather and news, because we were surprised at the amount of snow around LA. Snow isn't uncommon in the mountains there, but the sheer amount of it was. It was gorgeous, too.

As always, it was great to get home. Even if the weather isn't as nice as it was in Florida. The kitties were delighted to see us, too, although our neighbor took great care of them while we were gone (thanks, Michelle!).