The Unsung Heroes in the Lights: Stories of Female Keepers
From rescuing shipwrecked crews to hauling fuel up a tower’s spiral staircase, these women completed backbreaking labor without flinching. They proved to the world that women were capable of performing any task.
Chapter 7: The Light She Tended
The coast of northern Maine, they had been told, was a rugged edge that adhered to no laws. The shape of the coastline wound and buckled from the northern provinces of Canada to the milder country of New Hampshire, defying the crisp borders of maps. The landscape was ever-changing, with the Atlantic pebbling the rocks and rewriting the coastline over eons, millennia. No defense could freeze the tide.
Book Preview: The Light She Tended
She never got used to him leaving, and he did it every night. How pleasant life could be in the hours preceding his predictable departures. The little bedroom of the keeper’s quarters was dark as coal, save for the blade of light slicing through the window every ten seconds. It was peaceful there and then, in the interstices between days. They could submit themselves to rest and listen to the bleating fog signal and the curling waves. They could feel the warmth of the other glowing through the sheets. All the while, time burned through the wick of the night until a new morning leaned against the dark.
The Magic in the Glass
Once I started educating myself on the history and the optics of the Fresnel lens, I couldn’t cast aside its poignancy. I was compelled by the idea of increasing luminosity not by intensifying the light source, but by improving its economy. Light, by its nature, is chaotic and inefficient. It’s up to us to channel it in a single direction; otherwise, it won’t be seen.
Why Write a Book About Lighthouses?
I think we’re drawn to lighthouses for something deeper than their beauty. I think they signify something that all of us want to cultivate — not in the past, but in the present and future.
Steadiness and resilience. The ability to stand the test of time.