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| Hawaii State Archives, Queen Liliuokalani Collections, M-93, Box 11, Folder 94 Letter from Alice Lee to Mary Dominis, 17 May 1887 |
Boston,
May 17, 1887
My
dear Aunt Dominis,
Have
been intending to
write
to you for years,
but
I have hesitated
fearing
that I might
not
be able to write
much
that would
interest
you, now,
after
seeing “Cousin
John”
again and
becoming
acquainted
with
“Cousin Lydia”
I
feel that I must
---------------------------
write
and tell you
what
a pleasure it
had
been to us all
to
see them and
have
them here. I
think
“The Princess”
Is
one of the most
charming
women I
have
ever met and
I
congratulate you
on
having her for
a
daughter. Both
she
and the Queen
made
a most
pleasant
impression
----------------------------
here
and I hope
they
enjoyed their
visit
as much as
we
did. As infirm
John
didn’t go
to
many of the re-
ceptions
given in
their
honor, Papa
and
I had the
pleasure
of expending
a
good deal of time
with
him, and it
was
a great pleasure,
The
memory of which
will
linger with
me
all my life.
---------------------
Although
I am you
niece
only by adoption
yet
I have known
and
loved you all
since
I was a little
girl
and one of
my
greatest desires
has
been to see you.
I
feel ?? I shall
sometime,
if not here,
then,
perhaps, in the
world
beyond. I
have
such a nice
plan
in my mind
I
want Papa to
Take
Grandmother Lee
---------------------------
And
make you a
visit
next winter.
Grandmother
is so
well
and strong, she
could
easily bear
the
journey and what
a
joyful meeting it
would
be between
you
two! And I know
Papa
would enjoy
It. Grandmother Lee
Is
the dearest grand-
mother
in the world
and
I love her
dearly,
she and I
---------------------------
have
thought about
you
for hours, haven’t
your
ears burned?
if
they have that
was
when we were
??thing
about you!
And
now I must
say
“Goodbye”, I hope
you
will not try
to
answer this letter
for
I know how hard
it
is for you to
write
and as much
as
I should enjoy
----------------------------
Hearing
from you
I
would rather that
you
didn’t give your-
self
the trouble.
I
send you much
Love
and I am
Your
affec. niece,
Alice Lee
Dear
Aunt Dominis,
My
“big baby” has of
her
own free will and
accord
written you how
----------------------
Glad
we were in having
John
and Lydia here
with
us. I am intending to
write
you and tell you of
the
nice reception all
the
relatives had. Some
fifty
of us cousins- first,
second,
third and friends.
The
baby being Christopher
Snelling’s
son’s child.
The
Queen and the Princess
were
very popular with all
of
the family. And all speak
In
high praise of John and
his
nice wife. Mother had
the
best time. Affectionately
William Lee
This
letter needs a lot of historical background.
I’ll start with a family tree.
Gen.
1. Owen Jones (abt 1768 – 1850) m. Elizabeth Lambert (abt 1775 – 1834)
My 5x g. grandparents in
Boston. They had 8 children including:
Sarah Jones Catherine Jones Laura
Jones
m. Enoch Snelling m.
Levi Younger m.
John Lee
(children
in letter) (my 4x g. grandparents) had
eight children including
William Lee ((1826 – 1906) m. Anna Leavitt
His adopted daughter Alice Gookin Lee
(daughter of Anna’s sister Mary
& George Gookin)
Another
Jones sister (one of the eight children of Owen Jones and Elizabeth Lambert)
was Mary Lambert Jones (1803 – 1889).
Mary married a sea captain, John Dominis (d. 1846) who took her to live
on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. He
built her a big New England style home in Honolulu, and then was lost at
sea. Their only surviving son was John
Owen Dominis (1832 – 1891) who married Lydia Paki, a native Hawaiian with noble
blood. When Lydia’s brother, David
Kalakaua (1836 – 1891) became King of the Kingdom of Hawaii, she became
Princess Lili’uokalani. During Queen
Victoria’s Jubilee (50th Anniversary year on the throne), King Kalakaua,
his wife Queen Kapiolani, and Princess Lili’uokalani went to London via
Boston. During the stop in Boston the
Royalty visited with the Jones family.
The
visit to Boston in 1887 is described in this letter. I have several other letters from family
members about this visit. This visit was
a family story passed down to my generation, but no one believed it until we
found letters like this one. This one is
especially poignant to me because you can understand how the family felt so
estranged from each other in the 1800s.
Hawaii was thousands of miles away by ships that had to go around South
America, and this voyage took months and months.
Alice
and her grandmother never made the trip to Hawaii to see Auntie Mary
Dominis. Mary died just a few years
later. Queen Lili’uokalani succeeded
her brother to the throne in 1891, and her husband John O. Dominis died later
that same year. After the overthrow of
the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 she lost the throne. Queen Lili’uokalani again came to Boston in 1897
on her way to Washington DC to petition the president to reject the US
annexation. During her second Boston visit
she again visited the Lees, Snellings and other family members.
Alice
Gookin Lee was born 20 February 1854 in Hampton, New Hampshire, and she died on
4 March 1926 in Forest Hills, Massachusetts (a part of Boston now known as
Jamaica Plain). She is buried at the
High Street Cemetery in Hampton, New Hampshire where her adopted father,
William Lee, is also buried. She never
married, but was an accomplished woman who studied botany. Alice was about twenty three years old when
she wrote this letter.
--------------------
Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
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