 Welcome to Out and About on the ThinkTech live streaming network series. I'm your host David Tosaka and delighted you are joining us here today, where we explore a variety of topics, organization, events, and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country, and world. As a disclaimer, any views, opinions expressed by me are strictly my own and not connected with any organization. Joining me today in the studio is Joan Chatfield, a community leader serving Hawaii for over 50 years. Welcome to the show today, Joan. Thanks, David. Glad to be here. Tell us a little bit about how you happen to come to Hawaii. Well, as well as saying that I've been here so long, you also can say that I belong to the Marino Sisters, and I graduated from college, and they assigned me to come here for a year. Well, you don't go to Hawaii for a year. I came, and within a day I knew that I'd be here the rest of my life, and here I am, arriving when I was 23, and now I'm 85, and then I'm still here, so that's what it is. I came as a young teacher, now I'm an old teacher. You're not old? It's relative. Tell us what kinds of things you came to become a Marino Sister. Well, that's a long question because the word that is used in the Catholic tradition is that a person has a vocation, okay? That comes from the Latin word, call. So it isn't something that you think up, it's something that you answer. I guess from earliest days I always thought I wanted to join a group. I didn't know which one, but I wanted to join a group and go somewhere. When you grow up in New Jersey you love it, but you're happy to go somewhere else and come back and visit, so I joined Marino, which is a worldwide organization and was trained. I went at 17 to Marino in 1950, and then they sent me to college, and when I graduated from college they sent me out here. I originally was getting ready to go to Georgetown Medical, but the person I was substituting for out here had cancer in the mouth, very, very painful, and I was going to be here a year. They were going to send me back to school and send it, well, that didn't work out that way. I was ready to stay for life, and here I am, almost life. Almost life. Tell us about your growing up years, anything unique, different? Well, yes. I grew up as the third daughter of a prominent man who had owned a shellac company in New York and who had been married to a wonderful woman, I guess, for 24 years, and she died, and then he married the person who evidently he had looked at from a distance because they were only married ten years, my mother, and I have two older sisters, now both in heaven, but my father died twenty days after I was born, so she was left with an eight-year-old, a six-year-old, a big company to get rid of and a big house to get rid of, and in the Irish American tradition of New Jersey or of the East Coast, she moved back in with her mother and her two unmarried sisters, so that meant I was this little baby brought into these very strong, competent, caring women, and it was a wonderful, when I think of it now, I was probably not prepared for life because, like, I never heard them argue, I never saw them lose their temper, I never saw them disagree in front of us. Now, I'm sure they must have disagreed otherwise, but we never saw it, so I wasn't really well prepared for the life of the real emotions of adulthood. What made you have the calling, or how did the calling come to you to go and be a marital sister? Okay. Every marital sister will tell you a personal story that fits them. My story is that I probably heard missionaries come back from the Orient, from the South Pacific, and speak at church, and of course we would all get in the car and all go together, and I have a feeling that I probably heard a good enough story and said, oh, I want to do that, and I responded to the story, but the calling was in there. There was, in fact, they say that I even said it to the dentist when I was five years old, so go figure. I don't know how I knew, but I knew, and I've never doubted it. I think, I don't know how many people say this, but I can sit here in all honesty and say that I have never had a doubt that this was not the right thing to do, which I know many people can't say that, and they struggle, eh, should I, should I, you know. What would be a brief history of your time here in Hawaii? Well, I started out teaching in high school, and I did that for 18 consecutive years, and I tell you, when I came, you couldn't even measure what I didn't know. It was unbelievable, and I was 23 when my students were 17, okay? So that's a six-year gap, and it's still six years. It hasn't changed. So when I meet them now at age 85, ah, guess what? They realize, well, they realized a little earlier that I wasn't that much older when I was teaching them, but they taught me wonderful things. I taught science and religion. Then later, after Vatican II, the big meeting in the Catholic Church from 1962 to 65, after 1965, many nuns did not want to teach religion. There was a lot of change, a lot of, well, they weren't all, sure, they liked all the changes, and I thought the changes were marvelous. So I was very happy to teach religion full-time. So from 56 to 65, I taught just science and religion. After that, I taught just religion. And then I was sent off to get my degree in further education, and I did that in California. And why did I go to California? Because it was the farthest away from New York, the Marinal headquarters. And I knew too many people who went to New York, and then they left Marinal. I thought, ah, not going to do that. So I enjoyed California. And I also, to be truthful, I wanted to go someplace where nobody knew me. Because in New York and New Jersey, I was from a prominent family. And without it, it's, oh, are you Angela McKayle's daughter? Are you Henry Chaffield's daughter? Yes, I am. So what? It's hard when you're a kid and you don't, they don't say hello to you. They say hello to your parents that they're happy to meet the, you know, anyway. So I went to California where I fought. Nobody would ever know me. Until one time I met Joan Chatfield Taylor, who was working for the newspaper in San Francisco, that was funny. And we are related distantly, but. Tell us a little bit about your higher education adventures. Well, let's see. I think my first degree after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in, from Manhattanville, I went on and got a degree in theology from USF, University of San Francisco. Marvelous, right after Vatican II, and it was very, very fun. But then when I went back for my doctorate, I purposely wanted to be, and I sometimes call myself a practitioner of questions. People are sometimes afraid to ask the questions that would bring forth the information. And as an educator, I really felt getting a degree in sociology of religion was more important than getting another degree in theology, because you can pack up theology by just reading enough books. But it might not be your theology, but you can talk about it because you read the book. Whereas if you're in sociology of religion, you ask the questions. And the parallel is the psychologist asks people, the sociologist asks society. And it's been very, very practical for me. That's wonderful. I know that you, I've never heard you use doctor in front of your name. Is there a reason for that? Yes, yes, yes, yes. First of all, it doesn't really make any difference what someone's academic credential is if they're authentic. And if they're authentic and you find out later that they have a doctor, well, that's nice. But you don't want to listen to them just because they have a visible credential. That's one part. But the other part is any education that you get along the way, real or academic, is a gift. And I didn't want to brag on the gift. I just wanted to say thank you for the gift and use it. And sometimes I consider it a union card to the boys' club, because sometimes when things are tough and you want to get a point across, you say it, and then you have somebody planted who will say, well, Dr. Chatfield, would you repeat that again? We're right on, you know? But I don't plant too many audiences. What was your first job or assignment once you got your degree? Once I got my degree. Well, Bishop Ferrario, I came back to Honolulu with my doctorate. And Bishop Ferrario, within a matter of minutes, literally, he had planned that I would work for him as what the Catholics call, for a diocese, an ecumenical officer. It's a formal title. Every diocese is supposed to have one. And most of them do. Over 200 dioceses in the United States, 200 have active ecumenical officers. There's an organization of ecumenical officers. And I ended up being asked by him if I would do that. And of course I said yes, I was delighted. And I had learned along the way that the way to be an ecumenical officer, your most important book is the telephone book. Because if an organization that calls itself a religion is important enough and financially stable enough to have a listed telephone in what is now an ancient history called a telephone book, you just go down the list and you call them up. And you say, you know, I'm the new ecumenical officer for the Catholic Bishop. And Bishop Ferrario has given me this job. So could I meet you? How about a coffee shop? How about it? I met more people. I had drank more coffee for this. And you know, it's amazing. You meet people. And you really want to talk to me. Yeah, I really want to talk to you. And I had an index card afterwards. And I'd fill out an index card on what I learned from that person. And I always tried to ask the question of, well, what kind of religion did you practice when you were a child, when you were growing up? Because that's indicative of what happens to people as they grow up. If you are still a member of the church that you were born into, and you're still a practicing member when I was interviewing them, they represented maybe 20% of the people I talked to. Everybody else had been something, not Catholic or not. I don't care what they were, but now they are something else and were a minister or a professional in that religion. Now, that's a significant thing that you can only find out by talking to people. You don't get it on a forum. You don't figure that out from a forum. You figure it out from drinking a cup of coffee with them. You've been involved in a lot of community organizations. One of them was an organization that spawned into what is now called Project Dana. Would you explain how you got involved? Oh, Project Dana, dear Project Dana. And Rose Nakamura and Shim Kanazawa, wonderful, wonderful women in Honpa Honji. They were, shall we say, the inheritors of Project Respect. OK, now watch this, Project Respect, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Realize effective support programs for the elderly through churches and temples. Now, turn your mind back to the Tylenol scandal that was a terrible thing. And people died from somebody spiking the pills in the Tylenol bottle with arsenic, I guess, or something deadly. Anyway, Robert Wood Johnson Company, the Johnson and Johnson Band-Aid people, they were told you better do something for the community rather than just medical schools. They had supported medical schools from the days that they were a young company. So they decided to put out this program and call for proposals. And the criteria were you had to have more than one religious tradition represented. So most people had Protestants and Catholics. Some had Protestant Catholics and evangelicals. Some had Protestant Catholics, evangelicals, and Jews. We had all of those of the above, plus a whole bunch of others, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Unitarian Mormons, with a whole bunch. Anybody that I had all these friends of mine, I said, you know, we're doing this project. Would you be willing? Sure, sure, sure. And do you know when we got the grant of $150,000 for three years? And it kept on giving because we were able to use that money for five years. We were able to earn money. And in 15 years, we turned everything over to Rose Nakamura, who had the best unit of care. And it was marvelous. And that was it. So it became Project Donna because Ruth Tambra named it. And Donna in Japanese means selfless giving. And that's the whole program of people serving the elders in their homes, but not in the denomination that they practice. But it's wonderful. OK, we're taking a short break. I'm David Tasaka. This is Out and About on the Think Tech live streaming network series. We're talking with Joan Shaffield, a community leader serving Hawaii for over 50 years. We'll be back in a minute, so stay tuned for more of the story. Hey, baby, that's you. I want to know, will you watch my show? I hope you do. It's on Tuesdays at 1 o'clock. And it's out of the comfort zone. And I'll be your host, RB Kelly. See you there. Truth is, I'm impressed. I haven't been asked such intelligent questions in a long time. Thanks. Men who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread. And kissed them all soundly and put them to bed. Hunger is a story we can end. End it at feedingamerica.org. We're back. We're live. I'm David Tasaka. And this is Out and About on the Think Tech live streaming network series talking with Joan Shaffield. Joan, tell us a couple other community things you've been involved with that really grew into a vision way beyond what you had started with. Well, I had the privilege of being on the board of Honolulu Theater for Youth for, I think, 14 years or something like that. And one of the best coups. How do you know what is that, cuckoo? Anyway, what I pulled off. And I really did pull it off. We had a play that was about a young man whose father had died and the mom had gotten depressed. That was the theme of the play, the real play. So then the boy walks on the beach and he meets a man who tells him, you know, you got to be kind to your mom and all that. And she's been through a lot. He didn't ever know his father. Then he finally gets in the mother's bedroom and sees that was his father who walked on. Oh, it's a marvelous play for young people to see. So had to do with death and dying, right? And guess what we were just beginning, which is now a marvelous movement in Hawaii. And that is Hospice Hawaii. And Sister Maureen Kellerher of the Sisters of St. Francis had done a marvelous thing, making a section of the hospital then at St. Francis in Kalihi. And she made a section that was hospice. She set it up with curtains and Venetian blinds and all that stuff for people to die with dignity there with help, okay? At the same time shortly after they had Hospice Hawaii Inc. get started, which did not have a building, which was not freestanding. And it was the enemy. So I decided we would sell tickets to the play that had green paper or yellow paper. And then we had to play at community college out in Leeward Community College. And then we had it for three weeks. And on the last weekend, we had two big checks that people had paid to come in and we had the whole profit go to Hospice. And we called up the two leaders, the Franciscan sister, Sister Francine, who's now in heaven, and the head that then it was Dr. Maria Brose, employee who was working at Hospice, which is down in Ivalet. We called the two of them up and gave each of them the mythical check of $8,000 because we had recouped $16,000 in the nine performances that we had. And would you believe that began their conversation? Because God knows there are enough people dying that need the help of Hospice and you don't need to compete between Hospice. So I always felt that was, I like, that was one of mine in my back pocket. I like that one. My, you really had an interesting, I didn't know that, one of the many things. Tell us what really interests you right here and now. What are the things that really sort of? Right here and now, I think more of our professional people and more of our religious people should understand how much childhood years and experiences influence adult life and therefore should try to extract those stories and see what effect they're having on the present day and squirt into that timeframe something about forgiveness. Because you know, you can hear people tell of a story from their youth or their adolescents and they tell you like it was yesterday. Like they were just hurt yesterday and they're still bleeding red blood from this wound. No, they're not. You know, come on, forgive the guy who did it, forgive the woman who did it. Just forgive yourself for not paying attention. Forgive yourself for maybe not knowing what the real story was. You only know what you felt at that time with you were hurt, you know? And this is a too short a time to explain that, but it really works if you can get down to the bottom of what it is that keeps that hurt alive. And usually it's because the person hasn't forgiven themself and they haven't forgiven the other. We have a forgiveness project here in Hawaii which is very active and puts on a program every August usually. And it's out here. What we need to do is take that insight and bring it in here and bring it for the people. And I try to do that myself and I try to encourage therapists and doctors and it's amazing what people fear. And you know, there are really only two things, fear and love. If you can wipe out the fear, you can love. If you have the love, you don't have to fear. I mean, it all works out, but it's a anyway, it's a new thing that I'm kind of working on and get some help from the teachings of Anthony DeMello and people like that. But so, how's that? You work with many different religions in the state. You had shared with me that one of your first jobs coming out from Berkeley was actually doing a project for the Buddhist Church. That's right. Would you share about it? Oh, it was the most wonderful, wonderful project. They wanted to know, the Honpo Hongwenji Buddhist, the big temple on Pali Highway, they wanted to know if they still had to print everything in Japanese as well as English. And they said, could you figure that out? And I said, sure, simple. So what you do is you make a questionnaire and you send the questionnaire in English and then right next hook to the same pages, four pages in English, four pages in Japanese, exactly the same questions, okay? And you send it out. And of course, the Buddhists were wonderful. I don't believe necessarily in, you know, samples. I believe if you really know people, I want to send to everybody. So they sent it to 11,200 people. That's a lot of postage. But they were willing to do it. And guess what? They found out that they did not ever have to publish everything in Japanese. They could publish a few copies in Japanese and it saved them more money than they paid in postage. So they were happy with that and more money than they paid me, which wasn't a lot, but it was enough. It was different on with it. But the methodology I used was exactly what I had learned at Berkeley without a professor looking over my shoulder and saying, you ought to do this, you ought to do that, you ought to do the other thing. It was wonderful, absolutely wonderful. And the Honpah Honwenji Buddhist should go on record as having the best current address list out of 11,200 pieces of mail. We didn't even get 150 back, 150 out of 11,000 that came either because the person had died or the person had moved to the mainland and the post office wasn't up on the address change. Amazing, absolutely amazing. Yes, that was my claim to fame with the Buddhists. Would you recommend that all churches or many of the churches should have a demographic survey of their congregation? There's just no question about that. What are churches? They're not stone and mortar and insurance bills and fixed the roof bills. They are places where people gather. And you know, whenever there's a persecution, you put your church out in the meadow. You know, when the Irish church is being persecuted, all the pastors gave their sermons under the trees. So it's not the building and it's not the expense of the building, it's the people. So if you don't know who your people are, what kind of a church do you have? I don't care what the denomination is. It could be any denomination. If you don't know who's coming to your church, who do you think is important? The person who has, that goes back to having the degree that the degree person, they should come in here. I mean, no, come on. The church should give nourishment in life and things like that. What is the vision for your life now? Hmm. That's a lovely question, 885. My vision right now, because I'm a primary caregiver for somebody who's 95 and sharper than I am, I mostly want to just keep my energy up and my health up and please God, don't let me fall so that I can help her. But my real vision is that more of us express how happy we are doing this kind of service. There's something wrong with a grumpy nun. There really is. I mean, I think it's a contradiction. If you aren't happy doing it, either you shouldn't do it or you're doing something that isn't right. So I'm all for, you know, be happy. You know, I used to tell my students, laugh at my jokes or you don't pass, you know. What would be your suggestion or recommendation for the people living in Hawaii, especially younger people, if you were to give them some advice? Well, I do give advice now because I consider them, I laugh and I say, I'm the chaplain for the nuns. No, not N-U-N-S-E-N-O-N-E-S. Well, I don't go to church anymore. Oh no, I go to, I get God in the ocean. Fine, I mean God takes care of the ocean too. My thing is that anybody who cares about what goes on in religious traditions has to understand youth, has to do things for youth, has to, if you don't keep, but that's the advantage of having been a teacher. In high school, you are with students 175 days a year or more or less depending if they play hooky, but the whole idea is that you've got to understand where they're coming from and they're not coming from sitting for 45 minutes with a PA system that is terrible and doesn't know they can't hear. So come on, it's not deafness, it's acoustics. So I would have people understand the young people more and do things for them. That's where the Catholic Youth Organization, which used to be so strong, is now almost defunct. And it's defunct in other denominations also, the, oh occasionally they have 12 or 20 people who go, but it's the last couple of Popes, John Paul II and Pope Francis, those two, Benedict down as much, but they tried to have youth meetings, but then they go for like two weeks and that's it. You know, come on, make it a universal, make it a happy place for them to come. Well, John, it has been such a great experience having you on the show today. And we're out of time, the time flew so fast and we will have to wrap it up. I'm David Tosaka, this is Out and About on the ThinkTech Live Streaming Network series. We've been talking with Joan Chatfield, community leader serving Hawaii for probably over 60 years. We added 10 in this program, yeah. Okay. Thanks for tuning in and we welcome your feedback. Thanks to our broadcast engineer Ray Sanglang, our technical producer, Ian Davidson, our floor manager, Robert McLean and to Jay Fidel, our executive producer who puts it all together. I'll see you here every other Monday at 3 p.m. for more Out and About on ThinkTech Hawaii, aloha everyone.