An up to date repost in honor of Girls’s Historical past Month. In 1886, lighthouse keeper John Walker’s final phrases to his spouse Kate as he died from pneumonia, have been “Thoughts the sunshine, Kate.” Kate, then 38 with two teenage kids, took his remaining want to coronary heart. She minded the sunshine — from that day on, each single day, for greater than three many years.
Although standing solely 4’10” tall and weighing round 100 kilos, Katherine Walker served because the keeper of the Robbins Reef Lighthouse for 35 years, following the loss of life of her husband. Along with the arduous activity of holding the sunshine burning, she additionally rowed throughout the uneven waters of Higher New York harbor, a mile every method, to take her two kids to highschool on Staten Island, climate allowing.
An immigrant from Germany, Kate met and married John Walker, who in 1883 was appointed keeper of the Robbins Reef Lighthouse. Kate discovered herself dwelling on a reef inhabited solely by harbor seals. (Robbins Reef comes from the early Dutch title, “Robyns Rift,” or Seal Rocks.)
At first, the Mild-Home Institution, which merged into the Coast Guard years later, refused Kate’s software to be the keeper. Whereas formally John’s assistant for 3 years (at $30 per thirty days, paid yearly) she knew the job and how you can preserve the sunshine. However she was a lady, and a petite 4’10” at that, and the federal government males believed she couldn’t face up to the trials of the job. After providing the put up to 2 males, who each refused, Kate was employed at $600 per yr.
“I grew to find it irresistible right here,” she instructed The New York Occasions in 1909, noting the satisfaction of doing vital work, the consolation of routine and isolation blended with just a few social visits. “Somebody may supply me a millionaire’s mansion and I’d really feel like I used to be in jail.” But she bristled when instructed she had nothing in widespread with ladies in additional standard roles. She totally loved her home duties and entertaining the occasional fair-weather guests on her ‘veranda.’ However, she identified firmly, “Sustaining this mild is extra work than operating any family or any youngster,” she stated.
In her tenure, Kate was credited with some 50 rescues. Probably the most rewarding, she recalled, got here one winter night time when a schooner crashed onto the reef. 5 males have been solid into the chilly seas. Launching the small boat she used to ferry her kids to highschool, Kate bravely rowed by means of the surging wreckage and rescued all 5. All safely aboard, one in every of them requested: “The place’s Scottie?” Looking at the hours of darkness she caught a glimpse of a small canine and hauled him aboard, too. Again on the mild she wrapped Scottie in a towel and compelled him to drink heat espresso. The boys left the following day and the skipper returned three days later to assert the canine. Because the captain climbed down into his ready boat, Scottie regarded up into Kate’s eyes and whined. “That’s once I realized canines may weep,” she stated, “there have been tears in his eyes.”
Kate saved the sunshine till 1919 when she retired at age 71. She left behind a number of enduring legacies. For years afterward, harbor pilots referred to Robbin’s Reef as “Kate’s Mild.” And, an affidavit to her fortitude and spirit, when the Coast Guard final manned the sunshine in 1966, that they had changed this diminutive lady with a four-man crew.
The USCGS Katherine Walker (WLM-552) a 175-foot coastal buoy tender, inbuilt 1996, and referred to as the “Keeper of New York Harbor” is called in her honor.
The Noble Maritime Assortment is now the proud steward of Robbins Reef Lighthouse.
Right here is Bob Wright and Harbortown Revue singing Kate Walker.
