Hoaliku Drake, a community advocate, cultural leader and former director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands who left a legacy for generations of Hawaiians when she revived the stalled effort to put them back on the land, has died.

"Mama Drake," as she was known to virtually everyone, was 87. Family said she died peacefully at her Wai'anae home on Monday, of natural causes.

Drake had a long career in public service, breaking down barriers and building communities along the way. During World War II, she was one of the few female welders at Pearl Harbor, and she was among the first females to serve as an officer in the Honolulu Police Department.

As director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands in the early to mid-1990s, Drake engineered a $600 million settlement with the state for Hawaiian Home Lands development — $30 million a year for 20 years — to be used to put Hawaiians back on the land, and an additional 16,500 acres of quality land throughout the state, according to a Sept. 14, 2003, essay in The Advertiser written by Kali Watson, who served as DHHL director after Drake.

Micah Kane, present DHHL director, said that money set up a legacy and jump-started the program, and now thousands of people are benefiting from her work and have Hawaiian Home leases. Later administrations took further advantage of the funds to establish a strategy of self-sufficiency to continue the program when the cash flow ends in 2015, Kane said.

"She'll be missed but her legacy will live on forever," he said.

Drake also served as city director for the Department of Human Services under Mayor Frank Fasi, and in 1990 she was appointed chairwoman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission by Gov. John Waihee, while also serving as DHHL director.

NANAKULI PROJECT

Waihee said Drake was righteous, compassionate and inclusive. He said he first met her during the federal Model Cities urban renewal program in the 1970s when she was a community participant.

"She was one of these people that everybody respected," he said this week. "You'd see some very important people ... listen to her and that impressed me a lot."

As director of Hawaiian Home Lands and in whatever else she did, she was committed to doing it well, Waihee said.

"I had a tremendous amount of respect for her. She was a very loving, strong individual."

Former state Sen. Mike Crozier called her one of the most dynamic women he had ever met. Drake testified before his Senate committee, and Crozier later worked for her at Hawaiian Home Lands.

"She was extremely intelligent and she led with love," Crozier said. "She didn't just blindly go along with whatever we wanted but she motivated everybody with kindness."

One of her greatest challenges was to develop Princess Kahanu subdivision in Nanakuli for Hawaiian Home Lands, he said. Several attempts had been made to develop the 52-acre site but they all failed until she took over, Crozier said.

She put together the deal that led to a 272-home subdivision that was on par quality-wise with private homes built in Kapolei and partnered with Kamehameha Schools to bring a preschool to the development, he said. The preschool was named Hoaliku Drake Preschool in her honor.

"That was the starting point of what (Hawaiian Home Lands) is doing today," Crozier said.

Even when facing an adversary, Drake inspired admiration, said Mahealani Wendt, executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, which has filed complaints against Hawaiian Home Lands on behalf of its beneficiaries.

"I must say during Mrs. Drake's tenure as director there was always mutual respect, and I think of her as a woman of great grace and dignity," Wendt said.

'MAMA DRAKE' TO ALL

Wendt also knew Drake through Ha Hawaii, a nonprofit group that sponsored a vote to elect delegates to a constitutional convention aimed at charting the course toward sovereignty.

A hallmark of Drake's time at Hawaiian Home Lands was how she empowered beneficiaries in their communities to have more say over their own affairs, Wendt said.

"Ha Hawaii was another effort to actualize our political self-determination, and she was a very active participant in that goal. I'm really sad to hear (of her passing)," Wendt said.

Drake was born Nov. 6, 1921, in Honolulu. With her husband, Joseph, she went on to raise three generations of family in Wai'anae, including her children, Heine N. Peters (deceased), Heila H. Wallace and Henry H. Peters, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. She is also survived by her sisters Henrietta "Kaalo" Stern and Agnes "Auntie Aggie" K. Cope. Her husband preceded her in death.

Henry Peters, a past trustee for Bishop Estate — now Kamehameha Schools — said his mother was the titular head of the family, shaping its values of love and inclusion.

"In my entire life I never heard her swear," Peters said. "She really believed in love and always believed in putting people first. She taught us to embrace everyone ... Not just family called her Mama, Mama Drake."