So how did Hawaiian Islanders wind up in Siberia, risking their lives to rescue 779 students and 200 teachers in 1918? It all started with a queen..

...Thousands of miles away from Siberia on the Hawaiian Islands, a deposed Queen and a conquered people were looking for healing.?In 1916 the Queen Elisabeth of Belgium appealed for help.?Her people were being horribly treated by an invading German army. Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawaii could relate.?She had seen her lands invaded by the United States a few years earlier and she had lost her throne and her lands. Despite her official status as an ex-queen, she still held considerable unofficial power within the Hawaiian Islands.?Queen Lili'uokalani asked Hawaiians to begin to make clothing and raise money for relief supplies to aid the people of Belgium.?

This was a request that everyone on the Hawaiian Islands could get behind, including those who had supported the Queen and those who had removed her from power.?The Queen’s former palace was opened to volunteers to come and make clothing and local churches such as Honolulu’s Central Union Church, became knitting centers on the weekdays.?Surfer Duke Kahanamoku was photographed in the local newspaper on the beach, knitting clothing for the people of Belgium.

By 1917, the aid operation on the Hawaiian Islands had grown so large that the American Red Cross requested that Hawaii form its own chapter of the organization.?They reached out to the Wilder family, one of the most loyal supporters of Queen Lili'uokalani, to help found the organization.?

In September Lillian Kimball Wilder was photographed presenting Queen Lili'uokalani with a card of thanks for her donation of $100 and for joining the Red Cross. The Queen made a Red Cross flag and presented it to the group and had the flag flown above her former palace, endorsing the new movement. It would be one of her last public activities before her death in November 1917.

As the United States entered into World War One, Lillian Wilder threw herself into raising funds to aid the refugees of the war.?Her husband Gerrit Wilder, a botanist, became field director of the Hawaiian Red Cross chapter, aiding local National Guard soldiers stationed at nearby forts.

In the summer of 1918 Alfred Castle, one of Gerrit Wilder’s coworkers in Hawaii’s Red Cross, was summoned to Washington.??He was informed that troops stationed in the Hawaiian Islands would soon be sent to Russia, to the region of Siberia. This military operation would provide medical support to Czech troops attempting to evacuate Russia.?American soldiers would guard the trains and medical supplies while Red Cross doctors and nurses would aid sick and wounded Czech soldiers. Because most American Red Cross staff were already serving in war-torn Europe, Alfred Castle was asked to recruit doctors, nurses, and other aid workers from the Hawaiian Islands to join the Red Cross and head to Siberia.