“Rosemary, how does a Canadian author / teacher / great humanitarian learn so much about Hawaii & be able to write about it accurately & with such feeling?”
My interest in the history of Hawaii happened accidentrally back in 1987. My daughter wanted my husband and I to take her to Hawaii for a High School graduation present. I knew absolutely nothing about Hawaii. I thought it was sort of a tourist trap. While there I happened to look into a store window and wondered who the people were that were portrayed in ceramic figurines there. I was astonished to learn that there had been a monarchy in Hawaii. I somehow had assumed it had always been American. I was jolted into researching about Hawaii history and I started to visit
used and new book stores for Hawaiian history books.
One of the books I picked up in my travels was “The Chief’s Children’s school, 1839 to 1850” by Mary Richards. I learned later she was a descendant of the missionaries who had come to Hawaii in 1820. One of the colloquiums for my Ph.D had been on the difference between Education and Indoctrination.
I was horrified at Cooke’s words about how he had conducted the residential education of the children of the legitimate rulers of Hawaii and with my Psychology training realized his unrelenting world view of the Calvinist missionaries and Cooke’s conduct in that school at that time had caused unbelievable self-worth and Identity confusion damage to his pupils.
I also realized that the story of what really had happened to Hawaii under the influence and eventual control of some of the missionaries and their descendants had drastically changed the future of Hawaii and its peoples. I spent the next nine years continuing to research Hawaiian history and on visits every year to Hawaii went to relevant places and gathered relevant information about the history. My daughter always joked that I was invaded by the spirit of Queen Liliuokalani.
Due to my completion of a Hons. BA, an MA in Education and a Ph.D. I was capable of understanding and discerning what had happened so many years ago. I realized the story was not being told properly about what had happened to the royal children in that school. I decided to tell what I thought was the real story by writing a hybrid fiction novel that included the actual history but with fictional characters brought back in time by time travel to view personally the goings on in that school.
The result was a novel “Kula Keiki Ali’i” which was released in 1996 following nine years of research on Hawaii covering from 1820 to the present day at that time. I proceeded to write about other aspects in five more hybrid novels covering 1840 to 1980 until my final novel on Hawaii called “Aloha And MaiTais”. In order to write the novels and several screen plays I had to take novel writing training and screenplay writing seminars that were fun and informational.
“Hope of the Nation” was written after the six novels. Laurel Douglass, the narrator of Hope of the Nation and a descendant of Amos Cooke asked me to write it. I did so and am delighted that it has been recorded and released on YouTube.
For more information, please visit https://www.rosemarypattersonphd.com/