The History of the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building, 1941-2001

Mabel Leilani Smyth

Mabel Leilani Smyth was born in 1892 on the Big Island of Hawaii. Part-Hawaiian by birth, she grew up speaking English, Hawaiian, and pidgin English. A graduate of Honolulu's McKinley High School in 1910, Mabel traveled to the Mainland United States with the family of James Rath, director of Palama Settlement, a community services house. The Rath family encouraged her to continue her education, so Mabel entered the Springfield Hospital Training School for Nurses in Massachusetts. Upon her graduation in 1915, she returned to Honolulu.

The first Hawaiian to train professionally as a nurse, Mabel began her career in nursing at Palama Settlement (a community services house) in 1915. A year later, she served as interim director at the Hawaiian Humane Society (which cared for children as well as animals at that time) for a period of two years. In 1918, she returned to Palama Settlement where she filled the position of Head Nurse until 1927. Mabel took a break from her work as a nurse at Palama from 1921-1922, when she and a sister went to the Mainland. It was there that she studied for, and received, a degree in Public Health Nursing from Simmons College in Boston.

In 1927, Mabel ended her service at Palama Settlement for an appointment as the first director of the newly created Department of Public Health under the Territorial Board of Health. A year into her directorship, all of the public health nursing services in Hawaii (including Palama Settlement) were merged, and brought under her supervision. In this position, she helped establish professional nurses' training in the Islands, and sent trained nurses all to the rural areas of Oahu. She also increased the care given to mothers and infants during the early years of the child's life. Mabel Smyth served as Director of Public Health until her untimely death in 1936.

The Mabel Smyth Memorial Building

In 1936, Honolulu's medical community made the decision to construct a building that would house both doctors' and nurses' services, and function as the headquarters for medical activity throughout the territory. After Mabel Smyth's death that same year, it was decided that the building be made a memorial to her, and named in her honor.

Dedicated in January 1941, the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building was built on the grounds of Queen's Hospital by funds provided by the medical community and private donations. Located within the building were the offices of Hawaii's nursing and medical associations, the medical library, the physicians' exchange, and the board for nursing registration.

For over fifty years, the Mabel Smyth Building served the medical community by providing offices to work in, conference rooms to meet in, a library to study in, and an auditorium to gather in. For a number of years in the 1990s, the building was used by the State of Hawaii for office space, until the Queen Emma Foundation acquired it in 1998 to serve the medical community once again.

Blueprint
1939

Caduceus
Over Beretania entrance

A Chronology of the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building

With a portrait of Mabel Smyth hanging in the lobby, the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building was dedicated on January 4, 1941. During WWII, it was used for lecture and seminar presentations to the medical community, and also served as an entertainment center for military personnel.

As the medical associations housed there continued to grow, space shortage became an important issue. This led two organizations to begin looking for other accommodations. Also discussed was the need for a new medical library.

The medical library left the building for a new home that was built adjacent to the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building in 1963. Three years later, the Bureau of Medical Economics left in search of more spacious quarters.

HMA and HCMS moved from Mabel Smyth into new office space on Ward Ave. in 1976, and then in 1987, they moved to their current location at Beretania St. In 1978, HNA moved to new offices on Ala Moana Blvd. Ownership of the building, and the land it was on, reverted to Queen's Medical Center.

In 1989, the State of Hawaii acquired the building and the land from Queen's Medical Center as part of a "land swap." For several years, after renovations and improvements were made, the building was used for office space.

The Queen Emma Foundation bought the Mabel Smyth Memorial Building and the land it was on, from the State of Hawaii for the use of Queen's Medical Center in 1998. Queen's Medical Center undertook extensive renovations and improvements, preparing the building once again for the use of the medical community.

Queen's Conference Center,
Beretania entrance, 2001

Queen's Conference Center,
Makai entrance (facing Hawaii Medical Library), 2001