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= = ' anger and Hardship Faced by Men and Women wd ‘ Who Show the Way to 1 a Ly ‘ B Soet S 3 " Safety Over s | he S | the Storm- o ¢ Swept Sea e 4 i " { = On the right, Eliza- [ A beth Greene, keeper of 4 = America's smallest [ { { lighthouse, at the en- i trance to Kinse Cove on the coast of Maine \ Landing a relief crew at Tillamock lighthouse off the mouth of the 3 Columbia River in Oregon. When the sea is high the rock on which 2 the lighthouse stands is quite inaccessible and the five men on duty there are often prisoners for months at a time IIE wireless, improved compasses, heroic deed. Glance at 4 T depth fin and other modern a few of them buried v tr I f science and inven- often in yellowed, mil- e sened the difficul- dewed pages. of ocean ion. But nothing From the keeper of devised ha le to remove the the post lights on St. ssity of zing the reefs, shoals Johns River in rocky heac along every much Florida came ; frequented coast with lighthouses to this: i guide approaching “Arrived at 4 So the lighthouse service continues the light at \ to be ore of the most important branches 9.30 in the / f the vernment’s activities, With morning. Took 5 vigi e its_faithful little the lamp out of nearly 1,500 men gnd women, and as I went scattered along our lengthy coast line, to blow it out urn the powerful lights ‘and sound the it exploded, fog horns and deep throated bells that knocking me mean so mu ears and off the light twenty- lanes. So she stood all night on the Minot’s Ledge lighthouse on the eyes of the nav two feet to the cold, foggy outside platform striking Massachusetts coast which rises No other servants of the government ground below. I did the bell with a hammer. The report into the air right out of the very render a more useful service to the not know anything states that she dia it “with all her might, sea nation and the world. And yet surpris- until about noon for the fog was dense.” oly little is known about these men When I came to I Another woman, keeper of the New After we hecame a party to the Euro- d women—of the lonely lives they crawled back to m Canal light on Lake Ponchartrain, stuck pean turmoil the lightships bore their lead in their sea swept homes, of the boat which was 250 to her post the night of the great hur- re of the burden. But what did these privations and hardships they endure feet away, got an- ricane which passed through New Or- keepers care for mere war? They had and the dangers they frequently face. other lamp, put it leans, on September 28, 1915. She was often warred with the elements and Like all people whose lives are inti- on the beacon and alone at the station and kept the light won. Bring on your wat mately connected with the sea the light- lit it. Then I came burning by fastening a lens and hanging The war came to the Diamont Shoals house crs are reticent folk, reluc- home, a distance of a lantern in the tower while the cyclonic lightship at 2.30 o’clock on the morning tant to talk of their deeds. Even when cight miles. j winds wreaked terrific damage all about of August 6, 1918, when a submarine they have done sc g remarkable broken leg, just her. calmly began firing from about a mile in the way of , endurance and above the ankle, and There are no special bursts of I and a half a The ligh at its loyalty to duty they seldom get into severe bruised shin service, These deeds are not performed own peril sent a wireless warning to all print. They are the nation’s unsung and bruised arm and to martial airs or under the stimulus of other ships in the vicinity. The baffled and heroines. lick on the head.” comrades, cheering sidelines or war’s submarine fired six shots and stopped to To get even a faint idea of their There is the keep- propaganda. They are done when every give chase to a merchant ship, knowing sturdy courage and self-sacrificing de- er of the Pilot Island impulse of a human being is to seek that the lightship was easy prey at any votion to duty we must go to the records lighthouse on the safety and when without doubt the sug- time. of t hthouse service in Washington Great Lakes who gestion becomes insistent that there is When the sub came back she peppered wh some of their achievements— one, wild, stormy no need of service and no one would seven more shots at the defenseless boat. though by no means all—are described night saw through ever know if it were not given. The lightship’s crew managed to get in the most prosaic language. the gloom that two Yet these keepers are constant in away in their boats watching the ocean Since the days of President Jeffer schooners had been season and out of season. The tradition go beneath the wave Rowing long ‘ the annals of the lighthouse service h: driven on the island of constancy is ever with them. There and hard they finally reached Cape Hat- been filled with simple, matter of fact Making sure that his was the keeper of the Key West light teras lighthouse at 9.30 at night. accounts of e rendered under the light was burning, who after thirty-five years of service be- Like the San Francisco woman who most trying conditions. There is the ac- he picked his way came so absorbed in his duty tnat he carried on when machinery failed the 4 count of Ebenezer Skiff, kecper of the through the surf and would not leave fearing that crew of the lighthouse tender Kukui Gayhead thouse who wrote that along a ledge of something might go wrong wrote her name on the hero roles. The “clay and ochre of different colors as- rock. The wjind was On one very stormy night a Annie E., a sixty-ton schooner from cend in a sheet of wind opened by the of furious velocity ship was wrecked near the fort Honolulu to Hawaii with a cargo of lum- " high cli and catch on the lighthouse and a misstep on the at Key West. The keeper, then ber and gasoline, sprang several leaks glass, which often requires cleaning on slippery stone meant nearly seventy years of age, ex- on August 8, 1920. Two sailors left the outside—tedious service in cold broken bones, if not cited by ‘the storm and the pro- the ship hoping to make shore and pick weather. The spring of water in the death. But he fol- longed whistle blasts of the un- upa ance. These were in turn picked edge of the cliff is ent. Ihave lowed the ledge un- fortunate vessel, insisted that up by a fishing sampan. Motor boats carted almost the whole of the water til he came to the woro (©) WERBERT NEWS the front range light was out. and navy hydroplanes and airplanes used in my family during last sum- wrecks. b He feared this had caused the searched in vain for the leaking ship. mer and until this month commenced Standing on the The largest lens ever made for the United States light- wreck. Seven days luter, guided by a wireless from nearly a mile distant.” £ last ledge of rock house service His son could not quict him report from the United States transport The Senate of the United States dis- upon which he could and at the height of the gale he Mada 1, the lighthouse tender Kukui, cussed the matter and in legislative en- maintain his fogting, he shouted at the On bleak, dreary, misnamed Angel made his feeble way with his lantern to which was having its boilers repaired, actment stated that “the service of the top of his voice until at last he attracted Island in San Francisco Bay looking out the top to satisfy himself that was fixed up a temporary patch, got up steam lightkeeper is one of great isolation for the attention of the men who were cling- through the Golden Gate there is a light- still burning. It was. But the exposure and renewed the search. The next eve- themselves and f cir families, and ing to the fast disintegrating vessels. He ho It is a very important beacon, was too much and he died shortly after- ning it located the disabled schooner in many instance a most hazardous ordered them to jump. particularly when the heavy cold fogs ward. 225 miles from Honolulu and rescued all character. It calls for the highest de- They jumped into the frothy, boiling sweep in from the gray Pacific or the Not all lightkeepers are in the houses, of the crew. In such bad shape was the i gree of faithfulness and attention, not water. As they leaped the keeper would thick, soupy tulle fogs come down from some of them are on lightships t schooner hecause of its drifting that it only involves the giving of warnings by plunge in to scize them as they came to the great inland rivers. float the waves. Here, too, are other was necessary to set it afire to prevent i lights and other aids to navigations, but the surface. He guided them on to the The keeper of this light is a woman. chapters to this glory book it from becoming a derelict menace to | oftentimes involves the saving of lives ledge. There were a woman and an old She reported in the usual matter of fact At the time of the German submarine navigation. and wrecks of ships.” man and these he carried ashore in his way that because the mechanism failed rampage when the U-53 visited New- This rescue was made by the Kukui 3ut the Senate underestimated, as it arms making two trips while the heavy to work “she had struck the bell by hand port, later sinking a number of ship when she herself was not in the best of frequently doc It stated the case too sea pounded at his feet for twenty hours and thirty-five minutes, the tucket Shoals lightship, fort shape. Mainly it was made because mildly. The voluntary hardships and he glory book of heroic deeds in until the fog lifted.” miles off Nantucket Island, did faithful from its captain to cook the men were risks taken by these quiet heroes num- Washington archives inclydes the women And as if one such experience was service picking up the shipwrecked until determined to rescue the craft regard- ber from 150 to 200 a ye: They are keepers of the light. There are quite a not enough of a contribution to the there were 115 men and nineteen boats less of all the dangers. { recorded in the matter of fact reports few of them and they are equal in every deeds of glorio service she tells of aboard. Had #t not been for this ship In August, 1893, Martins Industry § received at Washington. That in most way in courage, fortitude and stdmina how the fog warning signa! machinery the most of these sailors would have lost lightship was driven from its station in cases is the final word. But these re- to the men. They too carry on regard- again became disabled just as a fog their lives, according to Captain David a hurricane. The ship lost all its boats | ports make a national glory book of less. swept in and enveloped the steamer B. Studley, the master. and the master had three ribs broken Copyriaht, 1028, by Johnson Fearures, Inc o (G 10 ! 6’ ) ] ( ,\ | U) TR T Lighting the gas buoy which sup- plements .he work of the light- houses near Pollock Rip Slue on the coast of Massachusetts—a perilous undertaking in stormy weather The vessel dragged until nearly in the breakers. Did the crew and officers make for shore? They did not. The mate by consummate seamanship worked the craft back to its regular position, using sail power alone. The Nantucket lightship secem by nearly every traveler going to and from Europe, guards one of the most danger- ous parts of the national coast line. It goes where no other vessel is allowed to go, and through storm, sunshine, dark- n and fog gives warning, aid and direction. Its daily work of hazard is unadvertised. The tender Columbine in the Hawai- ian Islands, rescued, so the drab records read, “a British bark four times her size after fifty-six hours of continuous Sailors familiar with the ex- traordinary situation that confronted the Columbine says that “nothing short of valor, heroism and determination” made the deed possible, Such service gets to be a habit with those whose names are enrolled in this Glory Book. They live for it and die for it. One lightkeeper on the Colum- bia River, Oregon, only took two days’ leave in twenty-three years and that for the purpose of getting married. work