A Woman to Know: Ida Lewis
None but a donkey would consider it 'unfeminine' to save lives. — Ida Lewis
(image via Library of Congress)
Ida Lewis grew up in the Lime Rock Lighthouse, just outside Newport, Rhode Island. There, under the care of her father, Captain Hosea Lewis, she learned to swim in the open ocean, row her siblings across the water to school and take care of the giant light guiding sailors to shore.
When Ida was just 15, both her parents fell ill. In addition to running the household and raising her brothers and sisters, Ida assumed all the lighthouse keeper's responsibilities. She lit the light at sunset and extinguished it at dawn. She polished the windows and helped sailors navigate the rocky crags. And, most famously, she rescued downed men.
Throughout her three decades as lighthouse keeper, Ida saved 18 men from shipwrecks and storms. Even President Ulysses S. Grant heard of her heroism, asking to meet her in 1881, when he awarded her the U.S. government's Gold Lifesaving Medal.
When Ida died in 1911, the people of Newport renamed Lime Rock in her honor. Today, the Ida Lewis Lighthouse is the only lighthouse in America named after its previous keeper.
Add to your library list:
Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter: The Remarkable True Story of Ida Lewis (Lenore Skomal)
Women Who Kept the Lights: An Illustrated History of Female Lighthouse Keepers (Mary Louise and J. Candace Clifford)
The Bravest Woman in America (Marissa Moss)
Read more:
Remembering Rhode Island's most famous lighthouse keeper (Providence Journal)
Ida Wilson Lewis, lighthouse keeper and fearless worker (National Archives)
Idawalley Zorada Lewis (U.S. Coast Guard)
Lime Rock Lighthouse (Rhode Island Lighthouses)
Watch more:
Ida Lewis, Keeper of the Light (Marian Gagnon)
** Send your own recommendations for women to know! Reply to this newsletter with your lady and she could be featured in an upcoming edition. You can browse the archive here. **