Inside the Archives
Named in honor of Kamehameha’s highest ranking wife, Keo¯pu¯olani was the “Senior Practice Cottage” for senior girls practicing home management, including the baby program. The building was part of the new School for Girls on the upper slope of Kapa¯lama which opened in September 1931.
Senior Cottage Program was Unique to Kamehameha Schools by KS Archivist Janet Zisk
O
n Sept. 29, 1993, Mrs. Minewa Kaawa delivered a treasure to the Kamehameha Schools Archives which has totally charmed all who have seen it. Fifty years ago, in September 1958, Minewa’s daughter Barbara Ann Kehaunani was one of the three six-week-old babies who took up residence in the Keöpüolani Senior Cottage units for the 1958-59 school year. “Nani” became a Senior Cottage baby and graduated as such at the end of the school year. At her graduation, she and her parents were presented with a large album bound in blue buckram and titled in gold lettering assembled in the Schools’ print shop and bindery. The album consisted of pages contributed by each one of Nani’s “Mama Dees.” Short for “Mother Directors,” these were the junior and senior girls individually responsible — one week at a time — for Nani’s total care. Nani’s album is the treasure her mother (with Nani’s consent), brought to the KS Archives. Learning about the custom of graduation for the babies and the making of these albums was totally new information about this remarkable program where students learned Baby Barbara Ann Kahaunani Kaawa baby care by looking after real babies.
This was the truly original idea of Kamehameha Schools President Frank E. Midkiff, who came up with it not long after his arrival at the Schools in the early 1920s. Midkiff witnessed the girls learning child care by practicing with dolls, and he didn’t think this was very realistic. The first baby arrived after Christmas, 1925. Most of the babies were sons or daughters of Kamehameha graduates. The babies were cherished not only by the girls but by the boys who visited the Senior Cottage to play with the babies as often as they were allowed. According to the Feb. 29, 1952, Ka Mö‘ï, “Kamehameha Schools is the only high school in the country which offers this type of training course, a course where girls actually ‘live in’ and take on duties as mother, cook and home manager for a period of six weeks or more.” The program ended in the early 1970s when the emphasis on college entry studies was stepped up and the girls had no time to concentrate on baby care. The Senior Cottage program was unique to Kamehameha Schools during its time. Midkiff found no other program like it in the United States or Canada to use as a resource.
The Kamehameha Schools Archives is located in Midkiff Learning Center, Kapa¯lama Campus. The Archives is open to the public by appointment from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. year-round on school days. Donations of artifacts dealing with the history of Kamehameha Schools are welcome. For more information, please contact archivist Janet Zisk at 842-8945 (jazisk@ksbe.edu), assistant archivist Candace Lee at 842-8455 (calee@ksbe.edu) or photo archivist Pop Diamond at 842-8402, or visit www.ksbe.edu/archives.
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