Pepeekeo Mill Camp, a sugar plantation camp on the Hamakua Coast of the Big Island, was where I was born and grew up. It was a small camp not far from the rugged eastern shoreline of the Big Island and surrounded by acres of cane fields sectioned off by cane-hauling dirt roads. There was a section known as Filipino Camp where most of the Filipino bachelors resided. Japanese Camp, needless to say, was where most of the Japanese families lived. A blend of Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian, and Chinese families lived throughout the village. Since my grandparents (on my mother's side) settled here when they arrived from the Philippines, I grew up knowing all my aunts, uncles and cousins. I realized how fortunate I was to have known all my family when I went to Honolulu to attend Nursing School. I met people who did not know their aunts, uncles or first cousins very well, yet they lived on the same island! But then, they lived a different life style.
Most of the children attended Pepeekeo Elementary and Intermediate School (Kindergarten to 9th Grade). Few were fortunate to attend schools in Hilo and Honolulu. School was nearly 2 miles from the camp. We all had experienced, at one time or other, getting up early in the morning and walking to school. I enjoyed breathing in the clean, crisp morning air with a scent of coffee brewing on the stove, spam, bacon or Portuguese sausage frying, and sweet molasses being processed in the sugar mill we passed on the way to school. During the winter months, the moon was still up when we began that "long trek" up hill to school. When the sun rose, we had the most beautiful sunrise because we had an unobstructed view of the horizon. We would occasionally challenge each other in "flying cane". We would pick a cane leaf and prepare it so when it's hurled towards the sky, a piece of the leaf would fly like a missile. We would do this too when walking home from school. If you prepared your leaf right, the missile-like piece could go quite a long distance.
I don't know when it was first opened but my mother down to my younger sister attended this school. Most of us had the same teachers. So when friends and relatives got together, we would share our experiences from the 3rd and 4th grade. Most of us had Mrs. Low and/or Mrs. Yamada when we were in the 2nd grade. Yes, we were all taught by Mrs. Yamada some Japanese dances, and some of us had the unfortunate experience of Mrs. Low's famous "ruler whack" across your open palm if you didn't mind her. Oww-wee!
A memorable teenage experience was practicing to drive on a dirt cane field road. One day my mother, trusting my driving, asked me to move our "standard-shift" Desoto to the garage complex located about a thousand yards away from my house. Now everybody in Hawaii knows the Big Island rains often. It happened that this time, the cane field next to the garage complex was already harvested and was nothing but tilled dirt and mud.
My friend Thelma was with me and I decided to drive past the garage so I could practice some back-ups and gear shifting on one of the isolated dirt roads between cane fields. My mother would not know I did this. Besides, I had no fear of getting into a car accident. Few families could afford a car back then and even if they could make ends meet, a family owned only one car. At that time, I didn't even know what "traffic" meant!
After a few runs, Thelma suggested we return to the garage before being seen by anyone from the camp. So I made a wide U-turn at the end of the solid dirt road but in doing so, the car went slightly off the road and got caught in the soft mud of the cane field. As I pressed the gas pedal, the wheels spun wildly while my car remained stationary. Images of me "getting lickins" by my mother flashed in front of my eyes.
But this is one of many instances where true friendship prevailed. Thelma got out of the car, without hesitation when I told her, to find anything to place under the tires for traction. Luckily, the tires were not embedded too deeply. She placed some rocks she found along the dirt road and muddy cane field under the rear tires. Soon I was on solid ground ready to go! She screamed after she realized the front of her T-shirt was splattered with thick brown mud.
But this was the least of our worries. Getting back to the house in ample time was top priority. So when we got to the garage, we "borrowed" the water hose hooked up to a pipe next to someone else's garage. We cleaned the muddy tires, under the car, our muddy slippers, feet and hands. She removed her shirt in our garage and stayed there till I finished rinsing off her muddy shirt. Of course I couldn't rinse off all of that thick, dark mud but there were no splatters to say the least. We didn't want to leave any evidence! Ha Ha! Also, we didn't want my mother to question us why we took a half an hour to get back from a trip that should have taken us only ten minutes. Luckily, my mother did not question me when I returned home. Thelma did not return to my house either. She walked quickly past my house to go straight on home. I surely would have had lickins if my mom saw her wet T-shirt ...because then I would have had to tell her what happened. Not telling her the truth would have not done me any justice if anyone saw us. This was a small camp so everyone knew every car on sight. If anyone ever did see us, they surely would have told my parents that they saw "her" car in the middle of the cane field going back and forth or that they saw it stuck in the mud. I was lucky there too! My mother never knew this happened till I told her later in my adult life. She laughed then but I doubt if she would have done the same at the time we went practicing shifting gears!
I knew that eventually I would leave this peaceful plantation way of life. I had plans to go to Honolulu to attend Nursing School after graduating from high school. I did not think about what I would do after that. I never guessed that the rumor I heard since I was 6 or 7 years old would ever come true. The rumor was that Pepeekeo Mill Camp will eventually be moved closer to the main highway 2 miles Mauka (towards the mountains). It did in the late 60s and early 70s. To top this off, never in my life did I think that Hawaii's sugar industry would not be as I knew it, let alone exist by the year 2000. I always thought that I could go "home" to that "peaceful, slow-paced, plantation life " if I decided to live anywhere else other than the Big Island.
I can still hear the cane trucks hauling by my plantation house # 121 and the roaring diesel engines of the huge cranes at night whenever they harvested the field close to the camp. The noise did not bother me for I accepted it as part of my secured life on the plantation. I can also hear the loud sound of the whistle from the sugar mill at exactly 3:30 pm when it's "pau hana"(work shift over). This was a cue for me that it's time to go home and cook rice (on the stove ... yep, no rice cooker back then). If I was out playing with my friends under the "big tree"(a banyan tree that was over 60 feet tall) or playing at "Down Park", the most beautiful park I know that ever existed, it was time to get home!
"Down Park" was green, clean, and well maintained by the plantation groundskeeper. It was never, ever crowded. There also was a gymnasium where basketball and volleyball games were held occasionally, as well as a place to "hang-out" on the weekends. Summer Fun activities were held here. The Boy Scouts had their room up in the loft. Nearby, there was the Pepeekeo Theater, where I remember watching the 3 Stooges, The Wizard of Oz, Captain Marvel "chapter" movies, Lash Larue, Gabbie Hayes, to name a few as a child. Later it was converted to a Catholic church. We had successful church bazaars held on these grounds.
Along the entire length of the park, close to the church and gym was the "flume", a unique structure that's indigenous to sugar plantations. A flume is a structure used to transport the harvested sugar cane to the mill. Water from the streams on the upper slopes was diverted to the flume. Before modern machinery, the cane cutters would toss their bunch of cane into the flume. This was the way cane was taken straight to the sugar mill propelled by the water flow. Many kids had fun "riding the flume" by throwing in a bunch of cut cane & sitting or standing on the cane. The exciting part of this "adventure" was to be prepared to hold onto the last bridge, which ran perpendicular, and over the flume. You had to get out or else ... you bettah tink fast or you goin' straight for the grindahs in the mill. I tried it once when the water flow was not swift. My mother didn't find out about this either. No one lost their life riding the flumes but there were lots of splinters in ones hands and maybe somebody's "okole" because the flume was made out of wood.
I had dreams of sharing this life with my children. My son was born when the Mill Camp was slowly being demolished. My parents moved out of the camp. Pepeekeo Mill Camp, as I knew it, no longer exists. The area is covered only with over-grown weeds, mango, banana, and guava trees that were planted by the villagers who once lived here. The park looks like a pasture. The two small banyan trees on the side of the park look like one big banyan tree with many trunks. The gym, church and flume are all gone. If one never knew of Pepeekeo Mill Camp, they would never know that this place was once filled with music and people ... hard working, fun loving people of different ethnic backgrounds who lived together as one community, one family. They would only guess that life existed here at one time because of a single paved road that ran through the camp and a few dilapidated wooden telephone poles still standing among the overgrown brush. All the other dirt roads that led to other parts of the camp are no longer visible. They are only embedded in my memory. The mill site still exists but the structural form was altered. It is now used as a power plant for Hilo Electric Company. Pepeekeo School was demolished sometime after the late 60s except for the "homemaking building" that still stands and is used for the Senior Citizens Group.
I learned in this small plantation community to respect other cultures. I learned that family and friendship are forever. Some of the people who were from this little camp by the sea are prominent citizens on Oahu today. We cross paths at one time or another since living here in busy, "rush-rush", "race the clock" Oahu. They have always greeted me as an old friend with a "LONG TIME NO SEE". Some forget your name or may not remember you because they were either older or younger than you. All one need do is mention their family name or maybe where their house was located in the camp. That'll do it! The Pepeekeo bond will embrace you in warmth and happiness for that moment. Good memories emerge for those who do not want to forget the old Pepeekeo Mill Camp.
About Author
Caroline Obra Ducosin was born and raised on a sugar plantation on the Hamakua Coast of the Big Island. She attended Queen's Hospital Nursing School and graduated with an AD in Nursing from KCC. She is married and works for the Dept.of Health as a Nursing Supervisor. She has a 29-year-old son whorecently was married. Her husband is retired and now works part-timefor Aloha Airlines.
