It’s been a little bit since I’ve posted…been busy researching FERNANDES/ FERNANDEZ, AYRES/ MOSS, and WAIWAIOLE lines recently. I also joined a 30 day photo challenge this month and today’s theme photo to capture was “favorite something”.
I couldn’t resist and put together a quick shot of my Lino Fernandes I and family photo with a descendants Ahnentafel chart. Genealogy and family history research is afterall my “favorite something.”
my favorite something
On the Fernandes line — I’ve made some headway into discovering some living relatives and finding out more about what happened to Uncle Manuel Lino Fernandes‘ family by 1930. (Manuel is pictured above 2nd row last on the right). In 1920 — his wife and five children are found residing on Tenth Avenue in Palolo Valley, but by 1930 the family is completely separated – the children in two different orphanages/institutions, Manuel back on Metcalf with relatives and wife Mary Faria Neves still missing – but oral tradition says she may have been admitted to the “insane asylum” or the Oahu Asylum in Kalihi/later moved to the Territorial Hospital in 1930 now known as the Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe.
Not much more is known at the moment about this mystery of a family broken right at the turn of the decade in the era of the Great Depression. I did find a lead/ possible resource and hope to collaborate further after I read the essay, “The Remembrance Project – Remembering the Past to Move to the Future” written by Randolph Hack a Consumer Advisor to the Adult Mental Health Division in Honolulu. Apparently from its opening till 1960, deceased patients were cremated and then stored in cardboard boxes with names handwritten on front — by 1960 a local reporter exposed the poor conditions and record keeping of the deceased – names faded, cardboard remains boxes deteriorated and mildewed, remains spilling out. As a result the 668 remains were inurned at Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery July 1, 1960. Several bronze plaques list “names” for 541 of the 668. I’ll have to do a visit and search for Mary on the plaques; she would have been about 33 years of age in 1930 so it could be possible she passed by 1960 and would have been one of the interred.
Until the 1940 Census is released next year, the 1930 Census is the only clue of the whereabouts of the children: the eldest two James and Herbert are found at the Home for the Feeble-Minded persons at Waimano (now Waimano Home). The three younger children Walter, Hazel and Manuel, Jr. were at the Kalihi Orphanage Asylum also known as St. Anthony’s Retreat Center.
Shakin Trees 