Dana Kirsten Pulelehua Anderson died on Dec. 21, 2025 in Maunalua, Oahu where she has resided at The Ivy senior living community for the past 18 months. She was 84.

Dana was born on May 24, 1941 in Whitefish, Mont. to George Henry Anderson and Frances Bickerton Anderson. The family moved to Edmonds, Wa., where Dana spent her childhood until moving to Hawaii where she lived in the Nuuanu home of her mother’s youth.

A lifetime scholar, she graduated from Punahou School in 1959 and received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s from Boston University.

After eight years as a professor of English at Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, she moved to Martha’s Vineyard. There she co-opened a bookstore, Bickerton and Ripley Books, in Edgartown which thrived for 26 years before being sold.

She was active while living in Edgartown serving a term as a selectman, as senior warden of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, and as a founder of Vineyard House which has served many fighting addictions. She was a strong leader working with others to develop this program.

She returned in 2008 to Hawaii and Nuuanu, immediately becoming involved in the community. Passionate about the wellbeing and safety of underserved youth, she was a founding member of Residential Youth Services and Empowerment. It is now five years old and expanded from one shelter for homeless youth to more than nine buildings and multiple education and training services. She was also a board member of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Honolulu for nearly 20 years, and enjoyed long-time membership and current service in the vestry of St. Clement’s Episcopal Church.

Dana loved Hawaii, her pali and her beaches, her music and her people. Her given Hawaiian name, Pulelehua, is the Hawaiian monarch butterfly which she loved and thought perhaps was her aumakua as they frequently visited her Nuuanu home.

A celebration of her life will be held at St. Clement’s Church in Honolulu on Saturday, Feb. 28 at 10 a.m. Hawaii time (3 p.m. ET) and will be live streamed.