St. Jamesʻ Circle: A Hub of Resilience

By Jan Wizinowich

It’s Thursday morning and St. James’ Circle in Waimea is a humming hive of activity. The church kitchen is abuzz with volunteers cheerfully chopping ingredients, then cooking and filling pans with the evening’s weekly community meal. Another group of volunteers readies the St. James’ Thrift Store for business. Soon a yoga class will be assembling at Waimea Yoga, Waimea Country School students will be dashing across the grass for their daily physical education class, and little ones will be gathering at Small World Preschool.

The next addition was a graveyard, where Samuel Parker Jr., son of Samuel Parker and Panana Napela, was interred in 1934, followed four years later by original church member Carolyn Sharratt. Eventually the graveyard was bounded by low rock walls and bordered with ‘ōhia and jacaranda trees. Sometime in the 1930s two or three small houses were connected together and placed in the northwest corner of the property and eventually became the vicar’s residence, which is the current church office. The rest of the buildings of St. James’ Circle The Circle in the originated from Making World War II and the St. James’ Circle educational needs of evolved from a small the community. group of dedicated When the 2nd worshipers who met Division Marines in various homes, to arrived in Waimea a circle of buildings from one of the forming a synergy of bloodiest battles of positivity. With the World War II, they arrival of Reverend were in dire need of Frank Merrill in 1911, a hospital and took plans for the new over Waimea School church, dubbed St. and Waimea Hotel, James the Great, leaving students to quickly got underway Headmaster James Taylor on the front porch of the original chapel, built in 1912, surrounded by vibrant poinsettias. attend classes at with the order of a photo courtesy of Jane Taylor various alternative church building from locations and homes. American Portable House Company of Seattle. Waimea needed a school and in 1943 the Seabees got busy With the building on the way, a search for a place to put it constructing the canec buildings that are still standing today. began. That’s where Mabel Beckley, great-granddaughter of Canec was a building material made from bagasse, a fibrous John Palmer Parker, came in. She approached Parker Ranch material that is the byproduct of sugarcane processing. From manager AW Carter, who granted them a 50-by-100-foot plot 1943 to 1945, with the exception of the commandant’s house in the area of the old Waimea Courthouse. (southwest corner), Waimea School students attended classes In December 1912, church members celebrated their first in those buildings. Christmas Eve service and provided the first community Christmas celebration: “On Christmas Eve, members of St. The Hawai‘i Episcopal Academy and the Roots of James’, Mrs. Henry Beckley, her sister Miss Maud Woods, and Hawai‘i Preparatory Academy Miss Nora Keawe, began a tradition at the town hall, part When the war ended, the buildings were left empty and of which is still continued in Waimea today; they provided a the circle was eerily quiet, but not for long; a seed had been Christmas tree and a Santa Claus to distribute gifts for the planted and when Bishop Kennedy observed the empty children of the town.”* buildings, he saw them as a way to meet a community need In 1930, the Sharritt and Arioli families donated the three and began to make plans for a school. By the fall of 1949, acres of rough pastureland bounded by Waikoloa Stream that working with local businessmen, Bishop Kennedy, and St. was to become St. James’ Circle and “the chapel was braced, James’ Church, they opened the Hawai‘i Episcopal Academy lifted onto a stone sledge, and pulled by two Percheron horses (HEA). to the new site.”* Interviewed for this story, Dave Coon (teacher 1950–1951,

By then, the 20-year-old canec buildings were beginning to show their age. Howard Hall and his wife, Pat, arrived in 1964 to begin a 40-year teaching career at HPA and lived in the north end of the Waimea Country School building. “The canec walls were so waterlogged that by the end of the year, the tacks holding Pat’s artwork rusted through,” remembers Howard.

Parker Ranch Connections

Richard Smart had always had a special relationship with St. James’. Mrs. Mabel Beckley and her sister, Maud Woods, two of the original members, were his cousins. Also Fr. Merrill had married Richard’s parents in 1912, baptized Richard in 1913, and buried Richard’s mother in 1914. In 1950, Richard decided to present the church with Lynn Taylor with daughter Jane, flanked by two unidentified children, looking north toward the current a new building and by mid-October 1950, ground was church building. photo courtesy of Jane Taylor broken by James Kurakawa and his cadre of ranch carpenters (which included church member Dempsey Harada) mission vicar 1954–1957) recalls arriving in the summer of for a one-story, 100-by-24-foot redwood building, “to take care 1950. He was immediately put to work in what later became of the social as well as the spiritual needs of the Mission.”* the James Spencer building (northeast corner). “When I arrived While the new church was being constructed, Dave Coon in the summer of 1950, the Reverend Paul Savanack was the loaded HEA students, ‘ō‘ō bars, and other implements onto interim headmaster. We looked at the building and walked a flatbed truck and headed up Saddle Road to Humu‘ula to inside and it was totally bare. Empty. And he said, ‘Here’s a lot collect pahoehoe, which was used for the front walkways and of lumber over here, make a library,’” remembers Dave. the bell tower facing, “installed by a crew directed by faithful The buildings now house students, teachers, and classrooms. vestry member James Spencer.”* The first service in the new Moving around the circle starting from the James Spencer church took place in March 1951 with cross-sections of the building, you come to the building that now holds the Thrift community, in the spirit of inclusion. Store. “There were three of us teachers at the road end of it. The rest of the building was a dormitory and at the end was a St. James’ Circle Growing Community Connections room for another teacher,” says Dave. In the spirit of aloha, the congregation of St. James’ Church Then, moving south, “the Waimea Country School building has opened their hearts beyond the sanctuary doors and view was a dormitory for girls and a teacher, who more or less the buildings and resources of St. James’ Circle as something ran the building. The Small World Preschool building was the to be shared. The church has become a meeting place for kitchen and dining room, and the whole Waimea Yoga building was classrooms,” said Dave. James Taylor arrived in 1954 to begin a 20-year career as headmaster. The original chapel was still standing just west of the current church building and served as the headmaster’s office. But the American Portable House Company of Seattle hadn’t figured on the ka makani winds and, sometime in the early 1960s, the chapel had to be disassembled and removed. The upper campus of Hawai‘i Preparatory Academy opened in 1961 and once again St. James’ Circle was reconfigured. The elementary classes began by Lynn Taylor in 1958 now expanded to fill the space and along with elementary school classes, the circle continued to Canec buildings currently house from left: Waimea Country School, Small World Preschool and Waimea Yoga. photo by Jan Wizinowichprovide housing for faculty.

support groups, Boy Scouts, and veterans and, until the pandemic, a place for Sunday afternoon worship conducted by the Marshallese ‘ohana. “Outreach is key to who we are today and the seeds that were planted years ago have taken root and are blossoming now,” says Reverend David Stout, in his 10th year as St. James’ rector. The Thursday community meal, a joyous affair, began in 2016. “The parish ‘ohana wanted a feeding ministry. They wanted to try it and see who came. Sue Dela Cruz and Tim Bostock took it on and it turned into a party every Thursday in the pavilion with live music. People came and shared a meal. A festive event that fed both body and soul,” says Reverend David. With the pandemic, the meal program has both expanded and contracted. More than 600 meals are now distributed in a drive-through on Thursdays from 4:30 to 6:00. “People in the drive-through are asking when we can gather again. The meal is really the greatest event I’ve ever promoted,” says Tim, who is a professional event promoter. The gathering place, Savanack Pavilion (western edge), donated in 1973 by Julia and Tommy Rodenhurst, started out as a place for the annual fundraising plant sale. It now serves as a support kitchen for the community meal, mostly prepared in the church building, but there are plans to “wrap the whole operation into one with a fully commercial kitchen and share it with a number of people,” says Tim. St. James’ Circle has been given the title “Hub of Resilience” by the granting organization Vibrant Hawai‘i. Through their support, St. James’ sponsors 175 meals a week, prepared by Ippy’s Restaurant and delivered to kūpuna in the community. Saint James’ Episcopal Church built in 1950, a gift from Parker Ranch’s Richard Smart.

photo by Jan Wizinowich

“The property we’ve inherited is a great blessing. We are stewards of it in our time, to continue to be a place of worship, education, and community connections,” concluded Reverend David. Mahalo nui for contributing to this story: Everette Knowles, Jo Pilz, Dave Coon, Jane Taylor, Tim Bostock, Reverend David Stout, Sue Dela Cruz, and Howard and Pat Hall. ■

For more information: stjameshawaii.org

Story sources: *Ke Akua Alaka‘i iā Kākou: St. James’ Episcopal Church centennial booklet Waimea Gazette: Waimea Remembers Camp Tarawa by Gordon Bryson