Born Marion Bowron in London England 1881, May Bowron left for the United States when she was 20 years old. She attended the Chicago Training School, graduating with a nursing degree in 1916. She accepted the call to become a missionary with her sister Florence. Their first assignment was the Palama settlement in Honolulu. They arrived in 1923 in Honolulu on the Matsonia, living together at 1653 Pensacola and serving as settlement nurses in the Papakolea district. That district, which lacked paved roads and sewage facilities, sat on Federal lands. A 1929 article described the residents as “squatters” who had “established makeshift homes.” A later article would amend that, “Hawaiians living on the land had never agreed with the term “squatter,” however. Since the land had once been crown property, they felt they had a perfect right to live there.”
May, known at that point as Miss Papakolea, started “The Tantalus Clinic” an infant and child clinic , and saw her first patients in February 1926. She initially held it at one young mother, Elizabeth Lono’s’ home, with just four patients. The clinic steadily gathered more patients and soon outgrew its setting: during the doctor’s biweekly visits, “the nurse, mother, and her Baby would just about fill the little Room, and the other mothers would have to stand outside with her babies in their arms awaiting’ their turn. May began to envision a community house.”
Then In May of 1927, Senator Judd advocated for the establishment “of a Hawaiian rehabilitation project” in Papakōlea. The vision was for US Congress and the secretary of the interior to arrange for the government property to be “divided into house lots measuring approximately 50 x 100‘ which would then be made available to the current and future Hawaiin residents. “The Hawaiians are already there but there seems to be no legal right.“ Judd reasoned to the Senate. “I want to see them rightfully on the land and on land which is within bicycle or walking distance of the city in which they work and earn their livelihood. This Papakōlea area is the only piece of government land in and around Honolulu which meets the condition, which is a vital condition is the project is to be a success.”
By August 1929 Judd arranged for homestead plans to be drawn for the area. It was at that time that a group of mothers created a petition asking a lot be set aside for a community house. Three mothers met with the Mayor and presented him with the petition with the signatures of 32 mothers. Officials eventually set a lot aside for the community center and in 1931, May submitted plans for the community house. The city building department soon drew plans according to May’s vision for the community building, 24 by 44 feet, “with room for a baby clinic.”
While their activism secured the site, drawings and funds for the “eight men needed to build structure “ the budget did not provide for the cost of the lumber, nor its delivery. Reporters recounted that “city officials culled every possible source of secondhand lumber open to the city without success.” Eventually, they secured the donated lumber: the Queens hospital donated lumber from a former intern’s cottage. Others donated lumber from an old school building and from the local fairgrounds. Lacking funds for delivery, one Miss C.E. Layne “personally drove a truckload of lumber to the site, much to the glee of onlookers.” Finally, in November 1932, neighborhood unemployed laborers, including two carpenters and a painter in the community, “working at half rates, erected the building.”
Yet, despite the creation of the homesteading plan and building of the community center, the district still sat on Federally owned lands and in the eyes of the law, the residents were squatters. May, now known as “Mother Bowron” aimed to help change that. She embarked on a tour of the U.S., which included attending the Chicago World’s Fair, the International Nurses convention in paris and possibly lobbying congress. Before her departure, on June 17, 1933, she was the guest of honor at Chop Sui dinner,(she was also the entertainment, singing a rendition of the Hawaiian song “ Imi Au Ia Oe”). She may have also done some lobbying. Working with a physician’s widow, Mrs. Hudgens, the author Kathleen Melon and others, they pressured their congressman to have the area declared as a Hawaiian homestead section. It worked: On May 16, 1934 Congress granted the Papakolea lands to Hawaiian Homes. By July 20, 1934 the Hawaiian house commission opened the first lots on Papakolea.
Hopefully, she returned to Hawaii for President Roosevelt’s July 27th 1934 Hawaiian visit. His itinerary included Papalokea, where residents danced and sang for him, and a visit to Pearl Harbor Naval Base. Later that year, President Roosevelt signed the bill, formalizing the transfer. It may have seemed far in the future but those first leases, granted in 1934, expire in 2033.
