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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Friday, September 3, 2004

The Queen's Medical Center historian dies

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

Margery Hastert, a historian and volunteer who had been associated with The Queen's Medical Center for more than 50 years, died Aug. 28. She was 93.

Hastert was born in New Jersey in 1911, and at a young age she boarded a steamer ship with a friend for a vacation to Hawai'i. The then-Margery Gubelman had planned a three-month visit with friends who had transferred to Schofield Barracks, but she fell in love with Hawai'i.

While here, she enrolled in an occupational therapy course at The Queen's Hospital, which was founded in 1859. Hastert planned to remain in Hawai'i, but returned to New Jersey when her father became ill.

In 1936, she was determined to make the Islands her home, and she accepted a job as an occupational therapist assistant with the hospital. A year later, she married Clark Hastert, an engineer with E.E. Black, and began to raise a family.

As her three children grew older, Hastert went back to Queen's, this time as a volunteer in the hospital's admitting department. Hastert developed an interest in history from her physician at Queen's, and in 1965 she founded the Queen's Historical Room, a collection of turn-of-the-century medical equipment, oil paintings, photographs, letters from patients in the early 1900s, and portraits of Queen Emma, the hospital's namesake, and her husband, Kamehameha IV.

As curator of the Historical Room, Hastert was a volunteer and didn't receive any pay. For her years of service, the hospital dedicated the historical collection to Hastert in 1999, making her a part of the hospital's history and heritage.

"She was one of our living treasures," said John Breinich, executive director of the Hawai'i Medical Library at Queen's.

Breinich said Hastert worked every Monday and Wednesday at the Historical Room and she was still involved up until the week before she died.

"She was just a dynamic person who loved history and was instrumental in caring for and collecting the history of Queen's," he said. "She just loved doing her work, and for her it was really a job and something she loved to do. It was her passion."

In addition to the Historical Room, Hastert served a trustee at the medical center and president of the Queen's Auxiliary.

Hastert is survived by her son, Mark, who is the president and chief executive officer of the Queen Emma Foundation; daughters, Carol and Constance; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Private services are planned.

Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8025.