Thursdays With Bro. C.

Today for our Thursday discussion with Bro. C we talked about the sugar plantations and sugar camps. There are 2 reasons these old sugar camps came to mind. Wally went visiting with the bishopric and they went to visit Sis. Nakahiki (Sister C's mom). Her husband worked at the McBryde Mill and they lived in a camp. Camp 7 I think. A camp consisted of 20 - 30 plantation cottages owned by the plantation. Usually the camps were ethnically (Filipino, Portuguese, Hawaiian) grouped. Camp 7 was Filipino. Sister Nakahiki remembers Vince Palaccio (we are teaching him and Lois) running around the camp when he was a little kid. He never new that and it was fun to hear her talk story about him when he was little. Europeans were brought over as managers of the mills and Germans were usually luna's or crew "boss". After the the sugar mills went out of business the plantation cottages were sold to people who worked for the plantation, if they could afford it, and moved to where ever they could find land to put it. Some are still in groups and are on dirt roads. There were 7 mills on Kauai; Manna, Kekaha, Waimea, McBryde, Koloa, Picala and Lihue. Slowly these mills are being taken apart and are disappearing. I have been trying to take pictures of them all but some places such as Picala are on private land owned by the Robinson's and I can't get down to them. I need to take some pictures of the plantation cottages too. They are little more than walls and tin roofs. I love the looks of them and the history they represent.