Emma and Eva HavensA Closer LookAfter returning from Hawaii, Mary wrote about her children in a letter dated July 17, 1870. “My children: Would you believe that I never saw either one before I had agreed to take them? Such is the case. In the Spring of 1867, Mr. W. received a letter from a white man, living on the other side of Hileakala (the big crater, you know) saying that he and a Swedish planter had been left guardians of two little children, one three years, the other not quite one year old. The father, Wm. G. Havens, formerly from Hartford, Conn. had just died. He left no property and his wife, a young creature (half white) and utterly incapable of providing for them, so when dying he had these gentlemen appointed guardians, and they were to find homes where these children might be brought up to lead Christian lives. They had found a place for the baby, and they wished us to take the elder. I refused to entertain the proposition, for I had never seen the child, and the road to her was most of the way after the first twenty miles a rough mountain bridle path — the distance was more than 60 miles — well, they wrote and my husband was very pathetic and soft-hearted and the result was that in the course of a few weeks, little three year old was deposited at my door — a funny roly-poly bundle, with great solemn black eyes, a tight shut little mouth, and the utmost dignity and propriety of behavior. Of course we took the little dumpling directly. She was the brightest merriest little thing– always singing, dancing, etc…. Well, after we had Emma a year, the…adopted father of little Eva died, and she was left among natives…No. 2 was brought to me on horseback 40 miles — a slender blue-eyed fair haired child, the very opposite of her sister and yet with a certain curious resemblance. Well, we had an uncomfortable six months of the second arrival. She could not talk. She was…spoiled…sickly, had been neglected and had whooping cough… good care, good food, good society and a judicious use of Solomon’s instrument of moral suasion, “the rod,” have transformed the sickly and disagreeable baby into a fat, rosy, well-behaved, clean, pretty and winning child… and I am really quite proud of my pretty brunette and blonde pair. They are bound to me by Hawaiian law…” |
