Kauai-Honolulu County HI Archives Obituaries.....Rice, Mary Sophia (Hyde) May 25, 1911
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The Garden Island, Lihue, Lauai, Tues., 5-30-1911
RICE, MARY SOPHIA nee HYDE
"MOTHER" RICE PEACEFULLY SUCCUMBS TO HER MASTER'S WILL - HUNDREDS OF FLORAL 
OFFERINGS TENDERLY PLACED.  Thursday of last week, May 25th, at 2:40 PM, marked 
the close of the long and useful life on Mother Rice at the residence of her 
granddaughter Mrs. Hans Isenberg in Lihue, where she was attended by those of her 
many descendents who had been able to hasten to her bedside. Her end was most 
peaceful, surrounded by the loving members of her family, a fitting close to a 
long and beautiful life. At the bedside was her son William Hyde Rice, and 11 of 
her grandchildren, Mr. and Mrs. Hans Isenberg, Paul Isenberg, William Henry Rice 
and wife, Charles Atwood Rice and wife, Mrs. Ralph Wilcox, and Philip L. Rice. 
Friday at 1:30 PM, special services were held at the Isenberg home, Rev. Hans 
Isenberg officiating. At two o'clock the remains were taken to the Hawaiian Church 
where, in compliance with her last request, an impressive service conducted 
chiefly by the Hawaiian minister, the Rev. Mr. Kaman, assisted by the Rev. Mr. 
Hans Isenberg, was held in the presence of five or six hundred mourners. Arriving 
at the church, the remains were removed from the conveyance by the pallbearers and 
tenderly carried into the church and placed on a platform which had been prepared 
directly in front of the altar. As the pallbearers entered, the audience rose and, 
with bowed heads, joined the choir in rendering one of the deceased's favorite 
hymns. Some little time elapsed before the services began, during which time 
multitudes of floral offerings were tenderly placed on or near the bier. The Rev. 
Mr. Kaman opened the services with a prayer, which was followed by an Hawaiian 
address, which in part was an exhortation to the Hawaiians to follow the example 
of this noble woman's life and beautiful character, while the Rev. Hans Isenberg 
took his text from Corinthians. The services ended shortly after three o'clock, 
after which the pallbearers, followed by the hundreds of mourners with bared 
heads, formed a procession and lead by the Lihue band took up their solemn march 
to the cemetery. Here the Rev. Mr. Hans Isenberg conducted a further service after 
which innumerable floral offerings were tenderly placed upon and around the spot 
which marked the plot around which the loving friends had gathered to pay their 
last tribute to this noble woman. The pallbearers were composed of the following 
grandchildren:  Paul Isenberg, Jr., Charles Rice, Philip Rice, Arthur Rice, Ralph 
L. Wilcox, Richard Cooke, Montague Cooke, and William H. Rice. Mary Sophia Hyde 
was born October 11th, 1816, on the Seneca Indian reservation near what is now the 
site of the city of Buffalo, where her parents were stationed as missionaries 
among the tribes located there, and where she was early accustomed to the rigors 
and hardships of pioneer life. She was married in 1840 to William Harrison Rice, a 
young teacher of Oswego, New York, and they had decided before this to enter the 
active mission field in the west and had placed their lives at the service of the 
American Board of Foreign Missions. The Board had picked them out for the Oregon 
service, at first, on the little known Pacific Coast, but owing to the unsettled 
condition of affairs there, where the Indians were making all the trouble they 
could for the missionaries, being encouraged in this by the powerful Hudson Bay 
Company which was afraid to let the missionaries obtain a foothold there for fear 
that they would interfere with their lucrative business with the Indians, they 
were finally assigned to the Sandwich Islands instead. So they took passage on the 
"Gloucester," a small but staunch vessel of that period, and on November 14th, 
1840, left Boston in company with three other missionary families:  Rev. Elias 
Bond and wife, Rev. Daniel Dole and wife, and Rev. John D. Paris, and after a long 
voyage of 188 days around Cape Horn, they arrived in Honolulu on the 21ast of May, 
1841. After a few days on Oahu, getting acquainted with the conditions here at 
that time, they were assigned to the mission at Hana on the southeast coast of 
Maui, and proceeded there without delay, remaining in charge of that station for 
three years. While living there, their eldest child, Hannah Maria, who afterwards 
became the wife of Paul Isenberg, was born. From Hana they were sent to Lahaina, 
at that time one of the principal ports of the Islands, and the shelter for the 
fleets of whaling vessels that wintered here, and where they remained only a few 
months but where their second child, a daughter Emily Dole, who afterwards married 
George De la Vergue, was born. The journey from Hana to Maui was a very difficult 
trip for Mrs. Rice as they were obliged to skirt the coast in a narrow canoe, 
there being no roads on the Island at that time, and she held the little Maria in 
her arms all the way. After a few months at Lahaina, they were called to the newly 
organized Mission school at Punahou as teachers and where they found their former 
shipmate from Boston, Rev. Daniel Dole, occupying the position as principal. His 
wife had died shortly before, soon after the birth of her second son, and Mrs. 
Rice took her place as matron of the school and mother to the 12 or 15 sons of 
missionary families who were obtaining their schooling there. Miss Marcia Smith, 
another of their shipmates from Boston, was also a teacher at Punahou. Among the 
boys who were Mother Rice's earliest protégés here was Samuel Armstrong, who 
afterwards became a general in the Union Army in the Civil War and was later the 
founder of the famous Hampton Institute, organized for the uplifting of the negro 
race, recently emancipated from the bondage of slavery; also there was William D. 
Alexander, now famous as the foremost authority on the history of these Islands, 
the Gulick boys, who afterwards became missionaries, themselves, to Spain, Japan, 
and other foreign lands; and several others who afterwards became prominent in the 
affairs of this nation. Several of these former pupils of Mrs. Rice have already 
passed away, long years before their teacher. While at Punahou, their third, 
fourth, and fifth children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Rice and were with them when 
they went to Kauai, later on, these being William Hyde, their only son, Mary, who 
died in her 23rd year, and Anna, the youngest child, who later married Charles M. 
Cooke of Honolulu. The death of their daughter Mary occurred on her return from 
Germany, whither she had gone in the early seventies with her mother and sister 
Anna and the two children of her recently deceased sister Maria, Mrs. Isenberg, 
who had died in 1867. After remaining at Punahou, in the routine of school life 
varied by their constant efforts to elevate the natives to a Christian life and a 
higher sense of their moral responsibilities, the time came when owing to the 
growth of the missions and their self support, in a measure, the American Board 
removed a large part of the financial aid it had been giving them, which left 
Punahou with the necessity for retrenchment, and also owing to Mr. Rice's poor 
health due to throat trouble, they moved to Kauai in 1854, where Mr. Rice was to 
undertake his entry into the sugar plantation business of the Islands. They 
brought to Kauai with them at this time a Hawaiian couple who had come with them 
to Punahou from Maui, a man named Opunui and his wife Kaniho, who had been their 
faithful retainers ever since they lived first at Hana and who, with their 
descendants, have always lived on this Island since leaving Punahou. At Lihue, Mr. 
Rice became manager of Lihue Plantation, being appointed to that place through the 
efforts of his life-long friend Judge Lee of the Supreme Court of these Islands, 
who was at that time one of the holders of the 14 shares of stock into which the 
capital of Lihue Plantation was at first divided. The others besides Judge Lee 
being E. O. Hall, General James B. Marshall, W. C. Parke, H. H. Pierce, and C. R. 
Bishop. About this time General Marshall sold his holdings, being fully convinced 
that there was no future for the plantation. Mr. Rice received as manager the 
salary of $400 per year, and there were times when the stockholders were unable to 
pay him even this meager sum and at one time his salary was so much in arrears 
that they were obliged to ask him to take stock in payment, which he did, much 
against his desire at the time, though the future proved that it was to his best 
interests after all. This only goes to show how scarce money was in these days, 
and how economically they were obliged to live. But to this compulsion in regard 
to the form in which he should receive his salary is due the fact that in later 
years his widow was able to give such great assistance to charitable objects as 
she did, and to do so much for the Hawaiians. Every year since her husband died, 
Mrs. Rice has given nearly all her income -- which became very much larger as the 
years went by, to Christian work in various parts of the world. Mr. Rice, in his 
plantation career, has the distinction of being the first plantation manager in 
these Islands to introduce irrigation in the growing of cane, and he put in the 
first irrigation ditch for Lihue Plantation, a ditch ten miles long and extending 
from a place called Poo in the headwaters of the Hanamaulu Stream to the fields of 
cane in Lihue. While conducting the plantation, Mr. Rice never lost his interest 
in religious affairs, and both he and Mrs. Rice always took an active part in the 
church work and never lost their love for the Hawaiian race and their keen desire 
to work for its moral advancement. Mr. Rice fathered the erection of the first 
Lihue church and aided with his own hands to built it, its substantial 
construction being shown by the fact that when this church was built over and 
enlarged a few months ago, the same framework was made use of, the solid koa and 
kauwila beams being as firm and tough as when they were first built nearly 60 
years ago. There was only a thatch roof in those early days, however, and only 
seats. Mr. Rice preached every Sunday in this building in addition to his 
plantation work until his death in 1863, while at the same time his wife was 
superintendent of the Sunday School until she resigned in favor of her son at the 
time of her trip to Germany in the early seventies. It may be said in passing that 
the Moiliili Church building in Honolulu was also constructed under the 
supervision of Mr. Rice, and Mother Rice has assisted in its upkeep, with the aid 
of her grandson Paul R. Isenberg, ever since. While her husband was manager of the 
plantation, Mrs. Rice always took great interest in the industrial advancement of 
the young Hawaiians of the place, and besides attending to their religious needs, 
she gave the girls valuable instruction in sewing and other domestic arts and 
industries, and has done more than has been possible from any other influence to 
inculcate industry and frugality in them. Mr. Rice died here in the year 1862 of 
throat trouble, and from that year his widow has carried on her work alone -- 
surrounded, however, by her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, up 
to the time of her death. Her family is a large one, those living at the present 
date including 3 children, 18 grandchildren, and 28 great-grandchildren, a total 
of 66 descendents. She has made occasional trips to the States during her long 
life here, at one time living for two or three years with her daughter Emily, Mrs. 
Col. De la Vergue, at Colorado Springs, and during a later year, 1899, residing 
for over six months with her daughter Anna, Mrs. C. M. Cooke, in Oakland, 
California. It was while here that her health first began to fail, probably from 
the comparative harshness of the climate there, due to the extremes of heat and 
cold, which caused her to hasten back in 1900 to her beloved Island home, since 
which time she has never crossed the ocean. Mother Rice was favored her whole life 
long with a sunny disposition and was always patient and full of love for others 
and of charity for their failings. Her effort was always to uplift her fellow 
beings, never to allow them to fall, and she only saw the good side in all her 
acquaintances. She was gifted with a high intellectuality and a keen sense of 
humor, took a deep interest in each and all of her friends and relatives, and 
above all, always evinced a sincere desire to accomplish the most that was 
possible for the native Hawaiians. And not only was her interest for the Hawaiians 
alone, but mission fields all over the world were the recipients of her generous 
aid, notable among them being the mission work in Turkey, the late Dr. Gulick's 
work in Spain, the Dr. Barnardo homes for children in England, Dr. Grenfell's 
Labrador mission, settlement work in several of the cities of the united States, 
various missions in China, Dr. Mott's YMCA work, a home missionary in Japan, and 
certain evangelical interests in Germany. The passing away of her active 
participation in the religious and social affairs and life of the Islands, leaves 
a void impossible to fill, but the influence of her beautiful Christian life and 
work will live on forever in the hearts of those who knew and loved her, and her 
memory will remain a lasting influence for good in these Islands of Hawaii.  


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