Although she had a regal presence reminiscent of Hawaiian royalty and an impressive list of accomplishments over her 76 years, Elizabeth “Kuulei” Bell will probably most be remembered for a singular moment in 1995 when she slipped a lei around the neck of Pope John Paul II during beatification ceremonies for Father Damien de Veuster.

To have such a personal experience with a pope would be the dream of a lifetime for any Catholic, but Bell’s rare encounter was even more unusual because she was a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Being a Mormon never stopped her from loving Father Damien.

“I couldn’t see how you couldn’t love him,” Kuulei said in an interview nearly three years ago in the Mormon Social Hall at Kalaupapa. “It didn’t matter to me that he was with the Catholic Church. He gave to all the patients, he cared for everyone, no matter what their religion. … How can you not love this man? He’s part of us.”

Her moment with the pope did not come without controversy. Because Kuulei was chair of the Kalaupapa Patients Advisory Council at the time, the Diocese of Honolulu tapped her to present the Holy Father with a lei from the Kalaupapa community. Some Kalaupapa residents believed that honor should have been given to one of the Catholic patients of St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa, someone of Damien’s faith who had prayed for his canonization for years and who attended Mass daily.

But when a beaming Kuulei stepped onto the dais in Brussels and draped the lei of lehua blossoms and kukui leaves over the pope with all the world watching, her gesture resonated in a more ecumenical way. By having a non-Catholic participate in the event, it underlined how the story of Damien appealed to those of all faiths just as Damien tended to people of all faiths during his 16 years of service at Kalawao. As everyone at Kalaupapa has long known, Damien was — and is — a saint for all people.

Kuulei was born on Sept. 12, 1932, in Honolulu. As a child, she was told that her father had been killed in an accident before her birth. Only when she had been admitted to Kalihi Hospital at the age of 8, two years after her mother knew she had developed the early signs of leprosy, did young Kuulei learn that her father had been sent to Kalaupapa.

“A nurse said to me ‘You look like your father,’ and I said ‘How do you know?’” recalled Kuulei. Her mother then told her the truth.

Kuulei never knew her father. He died in 1942. After a few years, she was released from Kalihi and enrolled in McKinley High School where she played basketball and began dating, but she reactivated and was admitted to Hale Mohalu, the facility that succeeded Kalihi as the receiving station for people with leprosy. Her first marriage, to her high school sweetheart, ended in divorce because of the separation.

Her initial trip to Kalaupapa came a few years later when she was part of a Hale Mohalu troupe performing “Madame Butterfly.” Kuulei played the part of Suzuki. While there, she fell in love with the wide open spaces and, at the age of 24, moved to Kalaupapa in 1956 to begin her new life. She lived with her grandfather, a violin player who was married to a woman who had once been a maid to Brother Joseph Dutton and who Kuulei called “Grandma Kapeka.”

Thanks to the classes at Hale Mohalu where she earned a degree in tailoring, Kuulei was almost always busy, either at her variety of jobs or at home where she drafted her own patterns, sewed clothes, crocheted doilies and afghans, did needlepoint, stitched Hawaiian quilts and made feather lei. She was so skilled at painting that one of her works received a blue ribbon at an art show on Maui.

She was an orderly at the Kalaupapa Hospital, Bay View Home and Bishop Home where she took pride in caring for the kupuna. Kuulei eventually learned to administer dialysis to her third husband, attorney and Judge Ed Bell, and others in the community. It was a natural instinct: interest in medicine and helping others was always in her blood.

Kuulei later served as the first female member of the Kalaupapa police force and, for nearly 20 years, was the well-known Kalaupapa Postmistress, retiring in 2006 only because her cancer had reoccurred, requiring her to seek more advanced treatment in Honolulu.

It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that Kuulei evolved into one of the more outspoken advocates for the rights of Kalaupapa residents. What drew her into the public arena was the need for a dialysis center at the Kalaupapa Hospital. She led the movement that resulted in a better way to deliver dialysis.

“Bell was very influential and he used to fight for the patients,” said Kuulei of her husband. “He would say to me ‘You’ve got potential, but you don’t use it.’ Dialysis was my biggest project. After that, I was on this committee, that committee. Whenever I thought something was wrong, I would write letters. I would speak out.”

She also emerged as a pillar of the Kalaupapa Mormon community with her beautiful singing voice. Nevertheless, she had friends of all faiths.

“Everybody respects each other’s church here,” said Kuulei. “The nuns were always kind to me, we were friends. There wasn’t this thing that ‘You’re Catholic, you’re Protestant, you’re Mormon.’ There was no such thing as separation (because of religion).”

Five years ago, Kuulei helped to organize Ka ‘Ohana O Kalaupapa, a nonprofit group established to support the patients and make sure that the history is properly told in the future. Until her death, she was the only president of the Ohana — and she took her position seriously. One of her personal priorities was to see a monument on the Kalaupapa peninsula that would eventually list all the names of the estimated 8,000 people sent there.

In 2007, Kuulei got a standing ovation at the Conference for Native Hawaiian Advancement when she passionately spoke about the need to preserve the history of Kalaupapa, which would include building the monument.

“I want my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren to be able to come to Kalaupapa one day to learn about their family,” she said. “I want the descendents of everyone who was sent here to be able to come here and know about their families, to see their names and know their stories.”

Even as her illness grew more serious in the last year, Kuulei held out hope that she could attend the canonization ceremonies for her beloved Father Damien which are expected to be held later this year in Rome. She even renewed her passport.