Punahou School, a private K-12 academy, was founded in Honolulu in 1841 by Christian missionaries. Altadena’s Punahou Street was named in 1905 by landowner Nellie A. Doak (1863-1944), who had recently lived in Honolulu. Born Nellie Arabell Fuller in Beaver Dam, WI, she married building contractor Edward Wesley Doak (1859-1930) in 1883. They and their kids Merton and Ethel lived in Hawaii in 1899-1900 but moved to SoCal in 1901, probably to be near Nellie’s father Elijah, a Civil War veteran living at West L.A.’s “Soldiers’ Home”. The couple later joined the “Azusa Street Revival” Pentecostal movement and Edward became a prominent leader in the church; he and Nellie would spend years doing missionary work in Egypt. Back home, the Doaks shuffled around from Vernon to Altadena to San Pedro to Monrovia, where Edward died. Nellie spent her final years back in San Pedro with Merton and his family.
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