A Palolo resident found more than 100 gravestones near her home. They appear to be from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as Punchbowl. However, no one knows how they got there.
The gravestones commemorate soldiers who served in conflicts such as World War I and the Vietnam War, as well as their spouses and minor children.
Homeowner Yujing Shentu’s father discovered them while doing yard work in 2019. She said they had been turned over and used as stepping stones at the time, and that her parents called her when they saw the names engraved on the other side.
“This is definitely not an ordinary stepping stone,” she remembers her parents telling her.
Gravestones in Shentu’s garden commemorate people such as Thomas J. Scully, who died at the age of 25, just days before World War II ended in the Pacific; Rear Admiral Fred Wallace Connor, who served in both world wars and died in 1963; Henry Cobb, who was born in 1901 and died at the age of 53; and Georgina Freitas, who died in 1956 at the age of 60.
No one knows how or when the gravestones got there. In some cases, the ones in Shentu’s garden appear to be duplicates.
The Department of Veterans Affairs was not monitoring the cemetery when the markers were made, said Punchbowl spokesman Gene Maestas, adding that this is the only case of missing headstones that he is aware of.
Possible duplicates
Shentu said they discovered the markings sometime in late April 2019. Within a few months, she had contacted the cemetery and employees came to her home to pick up about 56 of the markers. According to Punchbowl Cemetery Director Jim Horton, about 60 markers remain.
Many of the remaining grave markers are difficult to remove. They are visible under the property’s concrete driveway and even as part of the house’s foundation. Engineers are working to figure out how to most effectively remove them, Horton wrote.
“This process has taken longer than expected due to the complexity of the situation and the delays caused by Covid, but it is ongoing,” he wrote.
Horton confirmed that the grave markers at Palolo must have been temporary or replaced with other grave markers at Punchbowl.
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific – also called Punchbowl, after the crater in which it is located – opened in 1949 due to a desperate need for cemetery space after the end of World War II.
Tens of thousands of people are buried there, including former U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye, former Governor John A. Burns and Norman Keith Collins, the tattoo artist better known as “Sailor Jerry” who helped popularize nautical designs like ships and sharks from his shop in 1930s Honolulu.
The U.S. Army oversaw Punchbowl until 1973, when Congress created the National Cemetery Administration within the Department of Veterans Affairs. The gravestones at Shentu’s home appear to date from when the military was still in charge, Maestas said.
Punchbowl officials are unsure how the headstones found their way to Palolo. The markers in Palolo appear to be duplicates of markers already in place at Punchbowl.
This could be because a typo was engraved on the stone or because the deceased received an updated grave marker. If a spouse later dies and is buried with the deceased, the original gravestone is replaced with one that has both names on it, Maestas said.
These original gravestones are located in the garden of Shentu.
For example, Connor’s last name is misspelled on his gravestone in Palolo. But his name is spelled correctly on a headstone in Punchbowl, and that updated stone also lists his wife Geralde Smith.
Similarly, Oscar Joseph Peltier’s gravestone in Palolo has been broken in half. But an intact one, featuring his wife Josephine, can be found in Punchbowl.
That still doesn’t explain how the gravestones ended up in Palolo. Under current policy, headstones intended for disposal must be shattered beyond recognition, Horton wrote.
He said the markers recovered by Punchbowl in 2019 were properly removed and corresponding permanent headstones have been in the cemetery for a long time.
The home’s previous owner said she noticed the headstones after moving there in the mid-1990s, but didn’t pay much attention to them at the time.
“I’m Hawaiian. I’m not going to dig anything up,” Faith Martin said. “If it’s there, it’s there. And I don’t see anything wrong with it. We didn’t see anything wrong with it. It never bothered us.”
The current owner of the house was more concerned.
“There is a soul in every stone… we must treat this with respect,” Shentu said.
In 2019, she received her doctorate in political science from the University of Hawaii and said she hopes the gravestones can serve as a reminder to reflect on the legacy of war and the importance of peace.
“I just find this very meaningful,” she said.
This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Assembly and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
