Margaret "Peggie" Silverman Ehlke

  Notas Gerais:

Museum curator Peggie Silverman Ehlke devoted her life to preserving the past but never stopped living life in the present to the fullest.
"She didn't slow down," said Deborah Dunn, director of the Mission Houses Museum. "At an age when some people are winding down, she kept going. She lived her life fully."
Ehlke died Oct. 18 at the age of 81.
After Ehlke, a fifth-generation descendant of missionaries, served as curator for the Mission Houses Museum, working there for 25 years. She continued to volunteer until this past summer.
Ehlke was "the first professional curator the museum had," Dunn said, upgrading storage for quilts and other textile exhibits to 24-hour climate control.
In the 1960s, Ehlke wanted to reproduce a Ramage press, like the one that American missionaries in Hawaii used to produce the first Hawaiian language book, but the press had disappeared from the islands.
"It just shows her imagination, her zeal and her creative abilities," said friend Yvonne Singer.
Ehlke felt printing in the Hawaiian language was one of the most important things the missionaries did, Singer said.
Ehlke's search for the press with friend Albertine Loomis, a great-granddaughter of the first mission printer, took them to the mainland.
The quest yielded plans for a Ramage press. From the plans, students at the Honolulu Community College built a replica, which became the centerpiece of the Kahale Pai exhibit at the Mission Houses Museum, a reproduction of the Honolulu printing office of the Sandwich Island Mission Press.
Dunn, who met Ehlke when she was first beginning her career, said Ehlke impressed her as someone who never stopped learning.
While in her 60s, Ehlke wrote her master's thesis on a prominent missionary family.
Ehlke had a passion for quilts, Singer said. She also traveled to the neighbor islands working on the Hawaiian Quilt Research Project, which catalogued Hawaiian quilts. Ehlke was a descendant of Rev. Ephraim Weston Clark, the third pastor at Kawaiahao Church, who translated many books into Hawaiian.

Margaret "Peggie" Silverman Ehlke, 81, of Honolulu, a museum curator, died Thursday in One Kalakaua Senior Living. She was born in Honolulu. She is survived by husband Edmund E., sons Douglas and Kenneth Schleif, daughters Marjorie Hodson and Barbara Rogers, brother Stafford Silverman, sisters Jane Silverman and Barbara Schaefer, seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Services: 10 a.m. Saturday at the Church of the Crossroads, 1212 University Ave. Aloha attire. No flowers.
Peggie Silverman Ehlke's legacy is reflected in the authenticity of the projects she handled as curator and registrar of the Mission Houses Museum. "She was quite important in furthering the Hawaiian culture in her area," Lee Wild said of her friend and former co-worker, who died Oct. 18, 2001 at age 81. Ehlke, whose late mother, Violet Silverman, also worked at Mission Houses Museum, is fifth generation of a kama'aina family. "It was her mother that got her involved in the Mission Houses Museum," Wild recalled. Ehlke's goal in restoration, acquisition and creating exhibits was authenticity. It was a quest she always regarded as a challenge, an adventure, said friends. In 1970, for example, Ehlke started a project to build a duplicate of the Ramage Press, which had printed the first Hawaiian language book. The press disappeared after being taken to Maui for schoolbook printing. She and Albertine Loomis, great-granddaughter of the first Mission printer, worked for two years to track down a press to copy before discovering one in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., that was validated by the Smithsonian Institution. Ehlke supervised the building of the duplicate press by Honolulu Tech and in 1972, on the 150th anniversary of the printing of the Hawaiian text, the press performed flawlessly. She is survived by husband, Edmund; sons, Douglas and Kenneth Schleif; daughters, Marjorie Hodson and Barbara Rogers; brother, Stafford Silverman; sisters, Jane Silverman and Barbara Schaefer; seven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. A 10 a.m. service today will be held at Church of the Crossroads on University Avenue. [Adv 27/10/2001]

  Notas de Pesquisa:

http://starbulletin.com/2001/10/27/news/story17.html

http://www.byuh.edu/library/obituaries/2001/E.htm

Margaret casado(a) Edmund Ehlke.