WAIMEA — The heavens gained a new voice in the choir Aug. 4, when Hawaii Island’s beloved “Aunty Marjie” Spencer passed away at the age of 93 after a life filled with family, music and many friends.
She spent the last few months in the care of Hale Hoola Hamakua.
In 1924, Marjorie Naholokahiki Burke was born into a large, hardworking family in Kukuihaele. Her father worked as a postmaster and forest ranger in Waipio Valley. As a child, she went fishing and camping with him when he traveled into the valley. It was her job to tend the pack mule.
Marjie attended Kukuihaele School and Honokaa School, after which her father sent her to Honolulu Business College to study “comptometry” — a kind of adding machine. After graduation, she began work for the FBI as a fingerprint technician.
In 1944, when she was 20, Marjie came home for the holidays and took the sampan bus to Waimea to see her sister. But when it was time to go back home the bus never came, so she went to the police station to call a neighbor. To her surprise, a handsome police officer, Peace Spencer, offered to take her home — after his duty at the USO Club, where Marines from Camp Tarawa were being entertained.
At the end of the night he asked her to dance, which began their love story. The couple married, raised five children and remained together for 48 years.
During that time, Marjie worked as administrative director for Hawaii Preparatory Academy, and when the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel opened in 1965 she became one of the original employees as a cashier/PBX operator, then executive secretary and activities director.
She retired in 1992, the same year that Peace passed away.
“She had to reinvent her life because my dad died and my niece died,” her son, Edgar Spencer, said. “These are the two people she was most close to, who fulfilled her life most, and she lost them.”
Marjie, however, refused to be defeated.
“She always taught us the power of positive thinking, and not giving up,” Edgar said.
Marjie loved music, and at age 68 she went to the Waimea Senior Center and began to listen, watch, learn and practice. She joined the Kaahumanu Society, Waimea Hawaiian Civic Club, Waimea Hawaiian Homestead Association, Waimea Senior Citizens Club and the Hale O Na Alii.
Marjie learned hula and ukulele so she could entertain with different groups at conventions, and at one time was singing with five different clubs. Not long after, she began teaching ukulele at Mauna Lani Resort, Waikoloa Beach Resort, Tutu’s House in Waimea and in Waikoloa Village.
Wherever she went, Marjie was the picture of island elegance head to toe, always dressed in signature muumuu, Hawaiian bracelets, a lauhala hat and lei papale. Her bright smile lit every room she entered.
In 2002, Auntie Marjie received the Waikoloa Foundation’s Naupaka Award for perpetuating the aloha spirit and preserving Hawaiian culture through her teaching of traditional Hawaiian language, dance and song. She was the third winner, after the late Gloriann Akau and Danny Kaniela Akaka, Jr.
“What most people know is her second life,” Edgar said. “Her first life was as a wife and mother. She could have become a recluse, she could have been sad, but she expanded herself, opened herself up to others, learned how to dance hula and teach hula, play ukulele and teach ukulele. I admired her for all those things. It takes a lot of grit to do that. She wasn’t going to bow down to adversity.”
In addition to her five children, Marjie had six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Her extended ohana of students, fellow musicians and dancers included residents and visitors from across the islands and around the world.
A celebration of her life will be held at 10 a.m. Aug. 28 at Kahilu Town Hall in Waimea.