Roses in My Heart: Aunty Marjie Spencer

By Catherine Tarleton

Marjorie Naholokahiki Burke Spencer has a little while to talk story before she teaches ‘ukulele class at the resort. Her Hawaiian bracelets jingle on smooth, unspotted hands as she waves and gestures, occasionally touching her face, occasionally checking her watch to be sure she’s on time for class.

“I never check my watch when I’m playing,” she says. “I want to play as many songs as I can.” At 86, dressed in signature mu‘umu‘u, long string of pearls, lauhala hat and lei papale (hat), she is an active and energetic ‘ukulele teacher, hula dancer, singer and “ambassador of aloha,” according to everyone who knows her. Auntie Marjie Spencer teaches weekly ‘ukulele classes in Waimea, Waikoloa, Waikoloa Resort and Mauna Lani Resort, where visitors from the U.S., Canada, Japan and elsewhere come back year after year to play and sing along with her island “regulars.”

“The best time in my life is right now, because of the people and because of what I do—sharing music and ‘ukulele,” she says, “and it’s why I’m still here.”

Auntie Marjie is one of those remarkable women who decided to finally follow her own bliss and reinvent herself after raising her family and retiring from work. At age 68, she went to the Waimea Senior Center and began to listen, watch, learn and, as she says, “practice, practice, practice, practice and more practice.”

She joined the Ka‘ahumanu Society, the Waimea Hawaiian Civic Club, Waimea Hawaiian Homestead Association, Waimea Senior Citizens Club and the Hale O Nā Ali‘i. She learned hula and ‘ukulele so she could entertain with the different groups at conventions. “I was singing in five clubs at one time,” she said. “I stopped so I could concentrate on teaching.”

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. “It was an honor to receive the Naupaka Award,” says Auntie Marjie. “I was the third. The first was Gloriann Akau and the second was Daniel Akaka.” In 2009, she was nominated for a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) National Heritage Fellowship, for her many contributions to Hawaiian culture.

Her music is her love, but unlike many of her contemporaries, Auntie Marjie didn’t grow up in a family of musicians or hula dancers. “My father didn’t like hula,” she said. “He was too Victorian. I had a very strict upbringing.”

Born in 1924, Marjie was the eldest of her father’s third wife’s 14 children (there were already seven from his first two wives). She had a birthmark near her ankle. “When Dad saw it, he told my mother, ‘She’s going to go, go, go, go.’ And that’s what I’ve done,” she said.

Her father worked as a schoolteacher in Puakō and postmaster in their home town of Kukuihaele on the Hāmākua Coast. He was also a forest ranger in Waipi‘o Valley, and when he camped, it was seven-year-old Marjie’s job to take the pack mule in with supplies. “The mule knew where to go,” she said, “so I would just sit there and… zig-zag, zig-zag.” She waves her hand back and forth.

Growing up in the 1930s, she helped in the family garden and went fishing with her dad in Kaupulena. “There was no such thing as unemployment,” she said. “We made our own fun.” She remembers playing in the sugar cane flume and making bean bags from Bull Durham pouches stuffed with leaves. “We didn’t have jacks, we had little pebbles. And the ball was a small lemon. It would bounce,” she said. “And Mother would get a thread spool, cut both ends and put it on a guava stick. That was our yoyo.”

Marjie attended Kukuihaele and Hōnōka‘a Schools until her junior year, when her parents sent her to Honolulu Business College. “I studied ‘comptometry,’” she said. “It’s like an adding machine. I was very fast, and I would help Dad in the post office.” After Margie graduated, she began work for the FBI as a finger-printer. “Everybody in the state of Hawai‘i, all the fingerprints came to me,” she said.

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 to Hōnōka‘a, the bus never came. “In those days we had no car, no phones,” she said. “So I went to the police. That was at the time when thousands of soldiers were in town,” she said. In 1943, Waimea had, almost overnight, become home to 25,000 Marines from the Second Division—mostly survivors of the devastating battle on the island of Betio in Tarawa Atoll. They arrived by truckloads into the sleepy paniolo town, ill-equipped, many physically ill and unprepared for the winter weather. The troops were quickly adopted by Waimea. Enterprising residents set up hamburger stands, laundries and shops, and Parker School was used as a USO Club for recreation, concerts and dances.

It was not uncommon at the time for a police officer in one area to give someone a ride to the police station in another part of the island, particularly a young, single woman in a town bursting with Marines. “I was still on the phone,” says Auntie Marjie, “When somebody came over and said, ‘Ma’am, that officer would like to take you home.’ And I said ‘Oh…?’ “Oh!”

A handsome policeman in uniform and holster waited politely across the room. Officer Peace Spencer was on his way to provide police presence for one of the public dances, and Marjie went along. She remembers sitting and waiting, watching couples dance, enjoying the music. At the end of the night, he took off his gun belt and held out his hand. “We danced the last dance,” she says, her eyes far away. She doesn’t remember the song, but she relives the moment when she hears her favorite, “Could I Have this Dance, for the Rest of My Life?” “When I hear that song, I say ‘My God—it’s me.’”

Peace and Marjie were married for 48 years and raised five children. She worked as administrative director for the Hawai‘i Preparatory Academy, and when the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel opened in 1965, Marjie became one of the original employees as a cashier/PBX operator, and then executive secretary and activities director.

“It was at the Mauna Kea,” she said, “When I would see these people—musicians with their beautiful aloha shirts and mu‘umu‘u, carrying their ‘ukulele. And I thought  ‘That’s what I want to do.’” When she retired, she began her second life, learning hula and ‘ukulele. It wasn’t long before she was performing and teaching.

Auntie Marjie was teaching at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows when Sharon Torbert, now a Waikoloa resident, was visiting from the mainland with some friends. As they strolled through the hotel atrium, Sharon recalls that a lovely woman in mu‘umu‘u and hat with lei pāpale greeted them. She gave Sharon a lei, answered questions and shared an impromptu hula lesson on the spot. The next day, at the King Kamehameha Day Parade in Kailua-Kona, Sharon saw this same smiling “ambassador of aloha” on one of the floats and she was waving at them. Years later, after Sharon and husband Morris had moved to the island, they signed up for ‘ukulele class, and there she was again—Auntie Marjie.

“She became a very significant person in my life,” said Sharon. “Her gentle, loving ways just endeared her to me so much. She is patient and willing to show you over and over again; as much as it takes until you get it. She makes me feel special, just like she does everyone else in our class. She always tells us that she is still on this Earth because of us.” Sharon spearheaded Auntie Marjie’s NEA nomination last year, and although she has not yet been awarded, the nominations remain open for five years.

“All these people have become my extended family,” Auntie says. “They have become roses in my heart. I could walk in my garden of roses forever.”

For the NEA nomination, Daniel K. Akaka, Jr., Director of Cultural Affairs at the Mauna Lani Resort at Kalahuipua‘a, compared her way of sharing-teaching with that of traditional Hawaiian grandparents.

“In our Hawaiian culture, the elders, the kūpuna were greatly respected and revered as the teachers, the kumu, the tree of knowledge. In the days of old, the mākua—the parents, tended to their daily chores while the grandparents took on the role as the educators for their grandchildren. Although the sands of time have shifted and the modern world encroaches, there are a few in the Hawaiian community who are still bearers of the torch and who embody the values and the teachings of old, the Aloha spirit.

“Aunty Marjie’s kuleana or responsibility is to share her knowledge of hula and playing the ‘ukulele. Although many can teach these skills, not all can teach in the time-honored way of the kūpuna. At an age when most people would look at this time in their lives as a time for rest and retirement, Aunty Marjie unselfishly uses her precious time for teaching.”

“It’s been a joyous ride,” she says. “There are not enough hours in the day.” She checks her watch—to be sure she’s on time for class.