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Father Damien, The Lands of: Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii

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Brocker's purpose in writing this book was to memorialize the people who "lived, died, and were for the most part forgotten on a little parcel of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean." And such honor he bestows! The Hansen's disease (leprosy) which afflicted these people was a terrible, disfiguring, and ultimately fatal disease brought to Hawaii by immigrants, but the steps taken to eradicate its spread by isolating the victims must have been at least as devastating to the family-oriented Hawaiians as the disease itself.

It is difficult even to imagine a life and death worse than that which awaited the lepers in the Kalaupapa colony. Yet their lives surely would have been worse, had it not been for the efforts of Father Damien, the Belgian priest who himself fell victim to the disease sixteen years after he began his work in the colony. Historic photographs of Father Damien and his aides bring them to life and honor their efforts. Brocker's descriptions and photographs of the inhospitable, barren, and windswept peninsula of Kalaupapa itself (chosen because it was so isolated and so unsuited to any other kind of settlement), make real the magnitude of Father Damien's efforts. There were no trees, no grass, no fishing places--just wind, dampness, and pounding surf. Most haunting are his photographs and stories of the poor souls who were wrested from their families and sent to Kalaupapa to die apart from them.

Of these, the most affecting of all, of course, are the children's pictures. Photographs of very young girls, sitting primly in rows, as if they were posing for a 3rd grade school picture, little boys sitting on the ground, as if waiting for a picnic, and the one I can't forget, that of a group sitting on the porch outside the boys' home, with a "small boy, who is hardly taller than the benches on which the others sit." Perhaps he was tiny Beka, aged four, from Maui, who, according to records, was sent all alone to live the remaining three years of his life and to die in a harsh and foreign place without any of his loved ones around. With his photographs and text, Brocker does great honor to the lives of all these unfortunate souls. The rest of us can only be grateful that our own children, grandchildren, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins do not have to suffer a similar fate to that of Beka, aged four. Mary Whipple

In The Lands of Father Damien, Author Brocker follows the footsteps of this remarkable man as he answered the ultimate plea for help by volunteering in 1873 to go to Kalawao on the Kalaupapa Peninsula where, King Kamehameha V had banished those among his people who were infected with the dreaded disease of leprosy, later identified as Hansen's Disease. It is an exceptional book that is easy to read, and offers up-to-date information about Blessed Father Damien. The volume would grace any library shelf and is a book to be shared with family, students, educators and group leaders.

Hawaii Catholic Herald

James Brocker has published a loving tribute to Blessed Damien de Veuster, the people to whom he gave his life, and the special place in which they lived and he served. The book tells the story of the place first cursed as a dumping ground for a people with a hideous disease; a place then given deliverance through the life and sacrifice of a Catholic missionary priest.

Brocker's text includes a geological and pre-leprosy history of Kalaupapa before, a description of Hansen's disease, and a chronology of significant dates relating to the settlement.

But it is his photos, with their generously detailed captions, that distinguish this book. They successfully capture a place whose starkness and beauty is preserved in its isolation.

The respect and love the author has for this land and its people are clearly evident in this book.

The Lands of Father Damien is a worthy memorial to the living and dead of Kalawao and Kalaupapa.

I discovered Brocker's book while doing research for my own writing on Father Damien. I was thrilled to get my hands on a book with so much visual as well as written information. I am moved to discover the deep respect and affection that Brocker expressed in this incredible work of art. I trust that this telling of the Kalaupapa story will be as transforming for our time as Damien's work was in his.