[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 40 (Wednesday, April 1, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E545-E546]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    REFLECTIONS ON EASTER AND SPRING

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JENNIFER DUNN

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, April 1, 1998

  Ms. DUNN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Honorable 
Peter Tali Coleman, a great American who passed from us on April 28, 
1997. A four-term chief executive of American Samoa, Peter Coleman is 
the only person in American history whose service as governor, from the 
1950s to the 1990s, has spanned five decades.
  After World War II service as an army officer in the Pacific, for 
which he later was honored by selection to the army infantry hall of 
fame at Ft. Benning, Georgia, Governor Coleman's civilian career as a 
public servant began in 1946 on the staff of The Honorable George 
Bender, a member of this body from Ohio. He later also served as a 
member of our Capitol Police Force, all while raising a family and 
completing both an undergraduate and a law degree in just five years 
from Georgetown University.
  Mr. Speaker, upon his return to American Samo as the first Samoan 
ever to gain a law degree, he quickly rose from public defender to 
attorney general until his appointment in 1956 by President Eisenhower 
as the first native-born governor of American Samoa. He went on to be 
chief executive of the Marshall Islands and Northern Mariana Islands, 
and deputy high commissioner of the old Trust Territory of the Pacific 
before returning home in 1977 to become America Samoa's first elected 
governor, a post to which he would be elected twice more before 
retiring in 1993.
  Governor Coleman, a true trailblazer in the Pacific Islands and a man 
of many firsts during more than half a century of service to his nation 
and his own people, has been paid tribute by the current governor, 
Tauese P. Sunia, who has launched a drive to establish a permanent 
lectureship on Pacific Public Policy at Georgetown in Governor 
Coleman's name.
  However, of all his honors and achievements, Mr. Speaker, Governor 
Coleman was proudest of his family, which at his death included his 
lovely wife Nora, 12 of their 13 children, 22 grandchildren and eight 
great-grandchildren. As he departed the hospital last year to return 
home for what he knew would be his final battle, he penned a touching 
farewell letter to his people which he called ``Reflections on Easter 
and Spring.''

[[Page E546]]

  With spring having come to our capital and with Easter upon us, I 
would like to make part of our Record Governor Coleman's Essay of April 
5, 1997, ``Reflections on Easter and Spring.''

                    Reflections on Easter and Spring

                        (By Peter Tali Coleman)

       Yesterday I came home to our family residence here in 
     Hawaii after a stay at Queen's Hospital over the Easter 
     holidays. While it's never fun to be in the hospital, this 
     Easter was memorable because all our family gathered to be 
     here with Nora and me in a big family lounge that the 
     hospital set aside for us.
       As I said the grace before we began our Easter meal, I 
     could not help but think of the meaning of Easter and Spring, 
     since the first day of Spring this year came only a few days 
     before Palm Sunday, the traditional beginning of our Easter 
     season after the long winter Lent.
       Spring and Easter are about the renewal of life and new 
     beginnings. Our Lord perished on the Cross for our sins, but 
     was resurrected to give all of us hope for the future and a 
     better life in eternity. So, too, does Mother nature awaken 
     each Spring to begin a new cycle of life and growth. On the 
     Mainland, the last of the snow melts away, the flowers begin 
     to bloom and land is green again. Here in the Pacific where 
     it's always green, the life-sustaining rains give way to the 
     drier and warmer times of spring and summer and we go about 
     all the chores we had put aside until better weather.
       I could not help but think of family in the same way I 
     think of Spring and Easter when I saw all of our family 
     members on Easter, especially the little grandchildren and 
     great grandchildren, great nieces and nephews, all with their 
     wide eyes of expectation and excitement with Easter eggs and 
     candy and Easter baskets, and bunnies and chicks and all the 
     joys and traditions that go with a holiday which brings 
     families together everywhere in the Christian world.
       The presence of the little children is God's way of 
     bringing renewal and new beginnings to our families. When we 
     look out and see those bright and shining faces, eager to 
     learn about the world around them and beyond, we can take 
     comfort in knowing that this world will be in good hands when 
     their generation takes over. We can find peace in knowing 
     that when our own time comes to join our Lord, if we have 
     done our job on earth, we will have our families to carry on 
     and through them we will continue to live, for our very blood 
     flows through their veins and their children's veins in a 
     cycle which forever will renew itself.
       My own life has been dedicated to service to the people and 
     devotion to my family. Although my days of public service now 
     have come to a close, the Samoan people and all the peoples 
     of the Pacific Islands I have been privileged to know in my 
     work and travels remain in my thoughts as a new generation of 
     leaders and servants seeks to find a true path to renewal and 
     new beginnings for our strong but fragile societies and 
     cultures at the dawn of a new century and a new millennium.
       God has allowed me to see so much dramatic change through 
     the course of this century. As amazing as it seems, the Samoa 
     of my youth no doubt much more resembled the Samoa of most of 
     the millennium which preceded it than it does the Samoa of 
     today, which is poised to enter the 21st century. The pace of 
     change in this century about to close has been dramatic. As a 
     child in Samoa after World War I, I could not begin to 
     comprehend or imagine the things we take for granted today, 
     from modern medicine to computers to the Hubble Space 
     Telescope. Nor can I begin to imagine now what the next 
     century will bring.
       Whether I will be here to witness the beginning of the next 
     millennium and new beginnings it will prompt is in God's 
     hands. But wherever I may be and whatever advances science 
     and industry may bring, I know that the futures will be 
     bright if we remain true to our values. Those values are love 
     of God, devotion to family, protection of culture, and 
     courtesy and respect towards one another.
       For myself, it counts little what I may have achieved here 
     on earth in 55 years of government service through war and 
     peace. My failures were my own and my successes were the 
     result of all the good colleagues and friends around me. But, 
     for all of us, no matter what our calling in life, our truest 
     legacies are the families which are asked to carry on when we 
     are gone.
       So, while my days in public service may be finished, I have 
     come home now to be with my family. They bring me joy and 
     inspiration as I think about the future. They are all here 
     now and I take great comfort in their presence. They have 
     come to be with Nora and me from near and far: from the 
     Mainland to Saipan to our beloved Samoa. And because they are 
     so scattered, I have agreed to a consensus of my family's 
     wishes that I should lie in rest in Hawaii. But in so doing, 
     they have assented to my wish that when the last of my 
     children's children shall have joined me in heaven, that my 
     final resting place shall be in the soil of my birth.
       For now, when I think of spring and think of Easter, I 
     thank God I have been given one more opportunity to reflect 
     on life's renewal and new beginnings, and the love of family 
     which bursts forth like the flowers of Spring. As the Easter 
     season now ends and we move about in our Spring tasks, may 
     God bless you and your families, too.

     

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