Light Hearted

Jack Graham had a long career with Pennysylvania State Parks, and since 2005 Jack and his wife Tobi have lived at lighthouses all over the map as resident docents and caretakers. They’ve also been involved in historical re-enactment groups since 1976, both as performers and costume makers. Jack also does old-time storytelling as Pennsylvania Jack, performing at venues all around the state. And he is an avid lighthouse researcher who has written dozens of articles for the U.S. Lighthouse Society’s magazine The Keeper’s Log and for Lighthouse Digest magazine.

Tobi and Jack have lived and worked as volunteers at such iconic light stations as Seguin Island in Maine, Cape Meares in Oregon, Split Rock in Minnesota, and most recently Cape Lookout in North Carolina. At some of these locations they have portrayed a keeper and his wife in living history presentations.

This is part two of two parts.

Some of the places where Jack and Tobi have volunteered:

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Jack Graham was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A retired Pennsylvania State Park manager, he’s been an active volunteer in many areas of state and national history. Jack is also an old-time storyteller who performs as Pennsylvania Jack. As Pennsylvania Jack, he has performed at events at the state museum in Harrisburg, and at many other venues and events. Jack is also a longtime lighthouse aficionado who has written many articles – around 50 in all – for the U.S. Lighthouse Society’s quarterly journal The Keeper’s Log and for Lighthouse Digest magazine.

Jack’s wife Tobi Graham grew up in West Orange, New Jersey. Her family spent summers on the Jersey shore within sight of Barnegat Lighthouse. Tobi taught both art and French in grades K through 12 for many years. She is an accomplished photographer and uses her photos to give illustrated talks on wild flowers and herbs, and more recently to accompany Jack’s articles on lighthouse topics.

Some of the places where Jack and Tobi have worked as docents:

Jack and Tobi married in 1970 and have a son and a daughter, both of whom also have a son and a daughter. Since 2005 Jack and Tobi have served as lighthouse caretakers at sites throughout the United States – 17 locations in all. The places they’ve lived have included the historic light stations at Seguin Island and Little River Island in Maine, several in Michigan, Piney Point in Maryland, Cape Lookout in North Carolina, and even Swallowtail Light Station in New Brunswick, Canada.

This is the first of two parts.

Ida Lewis, born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1842, became one of the most celebrated lighthouse keepers in American history. Her father, Hosea Lewis, was appointed the first keeper of the Lime Rock Light Station in Newport Harbor in 1853, and Ida learned to care for the light as a teenager. Hosea Lewis suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1857. From that time, young Ida was essentially the keeper, although she didn’t get the official appointment until much later. Ida’s rowing skills and courage were to come into play many times during her life at Lime Rock. Officially, she’s credited with 18 lives saved, but the number was probably much higher. She remained keeper at Lime Rock until her death in 1911.

There are two guests in today’s episode. Lenore Skomal is the winner of multiple awards for literature, biography, and humor, with over 30 years of professional writing experience as a journalist, columnist, author, and playwright, and 17 books published to date. Lenore’s book on Ida Lewis, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, was originally published in 2002. The New York Public Library listed it as a 2003 best book for teens.

The book has now been optioned to be adapted into a motion picture to be directed by Nico Raineau. Nico is an award-winning filmmaker originally from Mystic, Connecticut. His career began as the assistant to actor/director Ben Affleck on the film The Town, before he transitioned into creative development for Robert Downey Jr. and multiple Academy Award winning producers. Nico is currently producing and fundraising for a new short film that will bring attention to the Ida Lewis film project.

Timothy Mount and Lynne Macco live in the Adirondack region of New York, but they have spent a good part of their lives going back to 2008 serving as volunteer caretakers at lighthouses in far flung corners of the earth. Lynne is a retired physician, and Tim is a professor emeritus of music at Stony Brook University. Both of them are also experienced boat captains.

Their caretaking experience began with three months at Maine’s Seguin Island Light Station in the summer of 2008. In 2009 they became the first caretakers of Bakers Island Light Station in Salem, Massachusetts for the Essex National Heritage Commission. In the summer of 2013 Lynne and Tim were caretakers at remote Five Finger Lighthouse in Frederick Sound, Alaska. In 2018, they spent a summer as caretakers at the Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge in Washington, working on conservation projects and educating the public about the refuge. In between other caretaking gigs, Tim and Lynne spent three separate stretches as the caretakers at Deal Island Lighthouse in Tasmania, Australia. There they greeted visitors and maintained buildings including a museum, and looked after 10 miles of trails.

In the winter of 2020, the couple served as campus hosts at the Schoodic Institute in the Schoodic Peninsula section at Maine’s Acadia National Park. Then, this past summer, they were the first-ever volunteer caretakers at Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse, also in Acadia National Park.

In this second of a two-part interview with Light Hearted host Jeremy D’Entremont, guest interviewer Bob Trapani asks Jeremy about his decades of experiences in the world of lighthouse preservation, and about humorous and scary experiences in the course of visiting remote lighthouse locations. Bob and Jeremy also discuss the changes they’ve seen in the lighthouse world, and Jeremy names his favorite lighthouses.

Jeremy is the historian for the U.S. Lighthouse Society and has produced this podcast since 2019. He also oversees the Society’s J. Candace Clifford Lighthouse Research Catalog. He has called his position with USLHS his dream job, the culmination of nearly 40 years in the lighthouse world.

Bob Trapani, Jr., who conducted this interview, has been the executive director of the American Lighthouse Foundation for the past 18 years. He is the author of several books and is also an aids to navigation technician.

In this episode, the tables are turned on U.S Lighthouse Society historian and Light Hearted host Jeremy D’Entremont as he is interviewed by his friend Bob Trapani, executive director of the American Lighthouse Foundation. This is part one of two parts. Among the subjects discussed are Jeremy’s nearly 40 years researching, writing about, and photographing lighthouses, as well as his work in the field of lighthouse preservation.

Jeremy began writing articles on lighthouse history in the 1990s and his first of more than 20 books — The Lighthouses of Connecticut — was published in 2005. Jeremy is the president and historian of the American Lighthouse Foundation, and he founded Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses in 2001 as a chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation.

He has served as the historian of the U.S. Lighthouse Society since 2019. This podcast was launched in June of that year. Jeremy has also been involved in many USLHS video productions, virtual events, and the Society’s domestic and international tours.

Jeremy lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with his wife, Charlotte Raczkowski.

Grand Manan is a Canadian island in the Bay of Fundy, about seven miles east of West Quoddy Head in Lubec, Maine. Swallowtail Lighthouse was built on a peninsula at the northeastern corner of the island in response to a number of shipwrecks. The lighthouse began service in 1860 and is one of the oldest wooden lighthouses still in operation. The light station was automated and destaffed in the 1980s. In 2012, the property was turned over to the Village of Grand Manan. A community group called the Swallowtail Keepers Society has a long-term lease to care for the light station. The interior of the lighthouse has been converted into a museum.

Marine biologist Laurie Murison and her husband Ken Ingersoll spearheaded the initial fundraising for the Swallowtail Keepers Society and the formation of the museum in the tower. Ken Ingersoll is now the volunteer keeper for Swallowtail and also Long Eddy Light on Grand Manan. He’s also one of the country’s few remaining keepers still working for the Canadian Coast Guard, at Machias Seal Island Light Station.

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Kraig Anderson is the owner and webmaster of one of the most popular lighthouse-related websites on the internet, lighthousefriends.com. Kraig grew up in the landlocked state of Utah and didn’t move to a state with lighthouses until he attended graduate school at the University of California Santa Barbara. After earning his PhD in 1995, he worked for a few years at a high-tech company in the Bay Area, and it was while on an extended assignment from this job to the Raleigh/Durham area that he became interested in lighthouses following a day trip to Cape Hatteras and Bodie Island on the Outer Banks.

After returning to California, Kraig planned a few trips with friends to explore lighthouses on the West Coast, and in 2001, he launched lighthousefriends.com to chronicle these journeys and help others discover lighthouses. Over the next decade or so, he managed to visit every lighthouse in the United States and a good portion of those in Canada. Using historic records and photographs gathered in his travels, Kraig compiled a history of each lighthouse in the United States and Canada to complement his photography.

Kraig co-authored a book on the lighthouses of New Brunswick in 2012, and in 2016, he received the “Modern Day Light Keeper Award” from the National Lighthouse Museum. During 2018 and 2019, Kraig compiled an inventory of keepers and other lighthouse personnel for the U.S. Lighthouse Society’s research catalog that includes over 25,000 individuals. He currently serves on the board of directors for the U.S. Lighthouse Society.

U.S. Lighthouse Society Executive Director Jeff Gales takes part in this discussion with Kraig Anderson and Light Hearted host Jeremy D’Entremont. This episode is also available in a video version on the USLHS YouTube channel.

Clare Island is at the entrance to Clew Bay, off Ireland’s western Atlantic coast. It’s the largest of Clew Bay’s 365 islands, only six of which are inhabited year-round. It rises to a height of 1520 feet and is an important breeding ground for seabirds. The family of the legendary pirate queen Grace O’Malley owned the island during the Middle Ages, and many of the O’Malley clan are buried at an abbey on the south side of the island.

The island’s original lighthouse was built in 1806, but it was damaged by fire seven years later due to the careless disposal of candle wicks by the keeper. A new lighthouse was built in 1818, serving until it was decommissioned in 1965. A German pathologist, Goesta Fischer, bought the property in 2008 in partnership with Roie McCann, an interior designer.

After five years of renovation, Clare Island Lighthouse was opened in 2013 as a luxury boutique hotel. It won an award as Europe’s Best Coastal Boutique Hotel in 2016. The property is now for sale. Roie McCann, general manager of Clare Island Lighthouse, is interviewed in this episode.

The town of Newport on the central Oregon coast is home to two picturesque lighthouses, at Yaquina Head and Yaquina Bay. Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, a pretty two-story dwelling with an attached square wooden tower, began service in November 1871. It’s believed to be the oldest building in Newport and it’s the only surviving wooden lighthouse built by the federal government in Oregon. A short time later, less than four miles to the north, another lighthouse was built at Yaquina Head. A powerful first-order lens at that location went into service in August 1873. The 93-foot-tall brick tower is Oregon’s tallest lighthouse tower.

Friends of Yaquina Lighthouses, a nonprofit organization formed in 1988, now partners with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to support the preservation and interpretation of the Yaquina Head and Yaquina Bay lighthouses. Amy Anderson is the executive director of Friends of Yaquina Lighthouses, and Andrew Smalldon is an education technician for the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area.

Absecon Lighthouse in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is hosting its annual “Evening of Romance & Renewal” on February 11th, which is the Saturday before Valentine’s Day. Jean Muchanic, executive director of Absecon Lighthouse, explains what the event is all about. This episode is co-hosted by Jen Lewis, fundraising and outreach manager for the Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association in California.