September 29, 2017 Hello , One type of courage is shown when people endure crushing circumstances, and don't lose hope. Another is when people risks their lives for another person or for a cause
they believe is just. There are many kinds of courage and small acts of heroism around us everyday.
And then, there is the courage of Ida Lewis, who continually risked her life for ungrateful fools for nearly sixty years!
Ida was the lighthouse keeper at Lime Rock Beacon near Newport, Rhode Island in the late 19th Century and rescued dozens of people from drowning.
She was just sixteen the first time she heard a shout for help and leapt to the rescue. Newport was a resort town full of fancy rich people. Ida lived on an isolated rock (it did not even merit the name "island") in Newport Bay. Her father, Captain Hosea Lewis tended the lighthouse until he suffered a
stroke.
To keep the family from losing their only source of income, Ida's mother Zoradia and their children minded the lamp. But there was also an invalid daughter in the family, and Zoradia's time was soon taken over tending her disabled husband and daughter.
Ida worked at household chores, cleaned the lamp
and reflectors of the lighthouse, and kept it burning through the night, as well as rowing her younger two siblings across the water each day for school. In September 1858, four boys from wealthy Newport families spent a day on the water,
sailing the
bay, picnicking and basking in the sun. As dusk fell and their boat drifted leisurely back to shore, the boys engaged in good-spirited fun. One climbed the mast, rocking the boat, and despite the boys' efforts to right it, their sailboat capsized dumping them in the
water.
Apparently, they weren't good swimmers, and the boys, no older than Ida, yelled for their lives. She heard them calling, jumped in a boat and rowed out to haul them to safety.
Her brother Rupert said, “Ida knows how to handle a boat, she
can hold one to windward in a gale better than any man I ever saw wet an oar. Yes and do it too, when the sea is breaking over her!” And if if she did all this wearing a skirt and corset, she deserves extra credit for sure. Maybe she loved living on the rock because much of the time she might escape societal norms for women. Numerous stories tell of Ida going to the rescue of solders from nearby Fort Adams.
She suffered a serious back injury saving the life of one drunken soldier. She received no thanks after dragging him out of the frigid water and bringing him into her
home for a hot meal and dry clothes. He didn't even bother to return the clothes.
In another tale, a drowning man saw Ida rowing to his rescue and lost all hope seeing it was only a girl.
It's true, Ida was not an impressive figure, weighing only 103 pounds. She admitted, “I ain’t particularly strong." But it was
rumored, at fourteen, the girl was the best swimmer in Newport. It wasn't really the job of the lighthouse keeper to rescue those who got themselves in trouble on the water, and many of the people Ida rescued did appreciate that she risked her life for them.
In March, 1869, she became famous when Harper's Magazine wrote an article about how she saved the lives of two soldiers when their boat was swamped
in an icy storm.
One of the men awarded her his gold watch in gratitude, and elected officials awarded her the Congressional Medal for lifesaving.
Newport held a parade in her honor
and thousands of people thronged to visit her on the rock. Ida didn't much care to be famous, but she loved her job. "There are hundreds of boats going in
and out of this harbor. It's part of my happiness to know that they are depending on me to guide them safely."
In the following years, she rescued possibly more than 25 people, including three shepherds and their drowning sheep. She didn't call it courage, she called it faith, "The Lord Almighty gives it to me when I need it, that’s all. He can do anything you
know.”
Ida did her father's job for sixteen years before he died in 1872, and then her mother was made the lighthouse keeper. Ida carried on, without title or salary for another seven years, when she was finally appointed to the position in 1879.
Her
last recorded rescue came when a close friend fell overboard while rowing to the lighthouse. Ida was 63 years old, when once again, she pushed off in her boat, rowed with all her strength and snatched one more life from Newport Bay.
She kept the lighthouse watch until she died in 1911, and in time Lime Rock and the lighthouse were named for her, which they they
still are today.
She looks so prim and proper in the photo at right, but there's strength in her face and a sense of purpose. This is a woman I'd love to meet, if I could go back in history.
Thanks, Sharon Beattie, for telling me about Art of Facts | Uncovering Pittsburgh Stories a new exhibit at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. Sharon mentioned a striking painting of Fannie Sellins that is part of the show by Pittsburgh Illustrators.
And for those of us out-of-towners, you can see the painting by Genevieve Barbee-Turner, Fannie in Flames, here... as well as a number of really striking pieces of art depicting Western Pennsylvania history. Until next week... Have you read a great book? Tell me about it. Have a burning question? Let me know.
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