Undated photo of Richard Marks beside Blessed Damien’s grave in Kalawao.

Although Father Damien de Veuster died nearly 120 years ago, there are times today when he seems more alive than ever. Upon entering the sacred lands of Kalawao on the Kalaupapa peninsula, you half expect to see the holy priest himself ambling down the old dirt road, tossing feed to his chickens, watching the children play games or distributing Communion inside St. Philomena Church.

Perhaps no one else in Hawaii is more responsible for keeping Damien alive than Richard Marks, the colorful historian and devoted Catholic who educated thousands of visitors with stories of Damien so vivid and heartfelt they seemed to have come from personal experience.

“Richard’s relationship to Father Damien was almost eerie,” said Father Ray Roden, who has served at Kalaupapa periodically the last two years. “He talked about Damien like he had just seen him a couple of hours ago. The reverence, love and awe that Richard held for Father Damien, I’ve never heard anyone speak about Damien like that. It was as if Damien was a buddy of his. It just gave me goose bumps.”

The remarkable life of Richard Marks was being remembered by those far and near as news quickly spread of his death on Dec. 9 at the age of 79. A man of many facets, Marks was the first person to fully realize the significance of the history of Kalaupapa where residents of Hawaii diagnosed with leprosy were exiled, often for life. Damien served at the settlement from 1873 to 1889 when he died from pneumonia after contracting leprosy.

To make sure that the important history would be preserved and passed down to future generations, Marks convinced the National Park Service to come to Kalaupapa in 1980. It was not an easy sell: the park would be expected to pay for staffing, renovation of buildings and other preservation efforts, but would not own the land and would share jurisdiction with the Hawaii Department of Health. Marks found a determined ally in the late Congresswoman Patsy Mink, but, in the end, it was the powerful legacy of Kalaupapa that made the park a reality.

Had Kalaupapa National Historical Park not been established, the Kalaupapa community might have come to an end in the 1980s, the sacred lands likely sold off to developers and the story of Damien told mostly in Belgium.

Marks was 19 when he learned he had leprosy, the disease that had literally torn his family apart. When he arrived at Kalaupapa in 1956, he came to the place where his grandmother, aunt, uncle, father, sister and brother had been sent before him.

Left at home on Maui was Marks’ courageous mother, Rose, who suffered from the government’s separation policies regarding leprosy like perhaps no one else. When she was a young girl, Rose watched her mother, sister and brother ordered to Kalaupapa. After she married and was happy with her big family, she saw her husband and then four children, one by one, taken from her because of the disease. One daughter was misdiagnosed and allowed to come home. Although Rose once asked to move to Kalaupapa with her family as a kokua (helper), she was denied the request, according to family friend Ben Young, an Oahu psychiatrist and member of the original Hokule`a crew.

It didn’t take Marks long to begin shaking things up at Kalaupapa. Restrictions about leprosy were starting to change, but Marks felt that too many unnecessary rules remained on the books even though medicine to control leprosy had been introduced in 1946 and doctors were well aware that the disease was very difficult to catch. Marks went public with an eruption of criticisms in 1968 that reverberated all the way to the Hawaii state capitol. Barely a year later, the archaic laws had been repealed.

By this time, Marks was also entrenched in the history of Kalaupapa. A voracious reader who spent countless hours listening to the stories of the oldtimers, he gradually assembled a history of Kalaupapa unlike anything that had been told before. He and his wife, Gloria, began sharing that history when they started a tour company in 1966. They named their business — what else? — Damien Tours.

Marks’ flamboyant personality made everything on the tour come alive whether it was Damien, an old tree or the remains of a fireplace built more than a century ago.

“Richard could pull these extraordinary stories out of items you take for granted every day,” said Young. “He saw the life — the mana — of so many things: a sewing machine, marbles, old bottles, glass balls. He knew so much about Hawaiian life and all aspects of Kalaupapa.”

That, of course, included the life of Damien, who quickly became Marks’ personal hero and a kindred spirit: Marks and Damien were both outspoken, often controversial and they were unafraid to take bold actions that would alter the course of history at Kalaupapa.

“His relationship with Damien — and it was and is a relationship — was just unbelieveable,” said Father Roden. “Richard wasn’t a theologian. He didn’t have the language of faith down, but he was a man of great faith and that faith came through great suffering. Richard really walked through fire in his life and in that fire he met God.”

Bishop Larry Silva said he always tried to visit Richard during his trips to Kalaupapa “as a way of paying homage to what he had done.”

“I had great respect for him as a man who had done so much to assure that Kalaupapa would be a place for dignity and love for all who live there,” said Bishop Silva, whose great-grandfather and great-aunt were also patients at Kalaupapa.

On his last visit to Kalaupapa in late October, Silva administered the Anointing of the Sick to Marks, who was getting weaker from his illness.

While Marks was one of the most well-known people at Kalaupapa, he also made an impression around the world. During his lifetime, he received Communion from Pope John Paul II not once, not twice, but three times. Marks also appealed to the pontiff personally on behalf of the canonization causes of Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope. In India, he met with Mother Teresa. In Damien’s hometown of Tremeloo, he was welcomed like a favorite son. He seemed to have friends wherever he went.

Marks’ work to dispel the myths of leprosy culminated in 1996 when he was presented with the Damien-Dutton Award, often considered the most prestigious honor in the field of leprosy. Previous winners included Mother Teresa and President John F. Kennedy.

In 2006, Richard and Gloria were given the Lifetime Achievement Award for small business owners on Maui, Molokai and Lanai for all they had accomplished with Damien Tours. That award was presented by then Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa.

If you would have asked Marks his greatest achievement, however, it would have been his family. He and Gloria had five children. He was a proud grandfather and great-grandfather.

While there has been universal sadness that Marks will not be alive to celebrate the upcoming canonization of Damien, there was also consolation: Richard Marks will undoubtedly be sitting next to Damien when the event occurs. Appropriately enough, he will have a better seat than anyone on earth.