#HawaiianHistoryMonth Queen Emma & Queen’s Hospital

Queen Emma was born in 1836 to Naea and Kekelaokalani but she was adopted by Kamaikui and Thomas Rooke, who was a doctor. In 1856, she married Alexander Liholiho (Kamehameha IV) and in 1858, they had a son named Albert Edward Kamehameha.

Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma had seen what a smallpox epidemic had done to the Native Hawaiian population and wanted to establish a hospital that focused on the health of Native Hawaiian people. Their focus was the wellbeing of the people and not the cost of treatment. In 1859, the King and Queen personally went door to door to ask for donations while the Legislature supplemented the remainder. They opened the hospital doors a year later. In 2021, Queen’s Hospital is one of the largest and most renowned medical systems in the Pacific.

In 1862, Prince Albert died followed by her husband, Kamehameha IV in 1863, earning Queen Emma the nickname, “Kaleleonālani”. Though she would never re-marry, she ran for Mōʻī twice, once against Lunalilo and then against Kalākaua. Although she did not win both times, she remained the people’s choice for Mōʻī. Queen Emalani Kaleleonālani died in 1885 and is buried at Mauna ʻAla, the royal mausoleum in Nuʻuanu.

Library Resources

• Emma: Hawaiʻi’s Remarkable Queen by George S. Kanahele
• Founding of the Queen’s Hospital by Richard A. Greer
• He Lei no Emalani edited by Theodore Kelsey, Puakea Nogelmeier, and Mary Kawena Pukui
• In Haste with Aloha: Letter and Diaries of Queen Emma, 1881-1885 edited by David W. Forbes

Other Resources

• Images of Old Hawaiʻi: Queen’s Hospital
• Papa Ola Lōkahi: Hawaiian Health Timeline and Events

<Queen Emma with her husband, Kamehameha IV (source).

[About the header image: Queen Emma of Hawaii is in the public domain and was retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.]