Light Hearted

Josh Liller inside the lens at Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse This is an edited version of an interview first heard in episode 16 back in 2019. The guest is Josh Liller, Historian and Collections Manager for the Loxahatchee River Historical Society and Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse & Museum. Josh is also historian for the  Florida Lighthouse Association. Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, photo by Jeremy D&#...

Lorain, Ohio, on the south shore of Lake Erie, is known for its history as an industrial hub, and it’s also been an important point for the shipping of materials like coal, iron ore, and limestone. Lorain West Breakwater Lighthouse, also known simply as Lorain Lighthouse, began service in 1919,. The building consists of a square tower rising from the corner of a two-and-one-half story keeper’s hou...

This is an edited version of an interview first heard in May 2021. Dianna Stampfler has written countless articles for many Michigan travel and culture periodicals. In August 2004, she launched Promote Michigan to help market the people, places, and products of her home state. Dianna has also been researching Michigan’s lighthouses for many years. In 2019, she published her book  Michigan’s H...

Don Ladolcetta Don Ladolcetta’s new book, Hannah: The Lighthouse Girl of Newfoundland , tells the story of a young girl who doesn’t know what to expect when her family moves to an isolated lighthouse on the rugged Newfoundland coast. What she discovers is a life filled with adventure, wonder—and danger. SARAH Facing everything from the fury of Mother Nature to illness, the Great Depression,...

Russ Rowlett Today’s interview was first heard in episode 19 back in 2019. The conversation is with Russ Rowlett, webmaster of The Lighthouse Directory, one of the most useful lighthouse-related sites on the internet. When Russ was growing up in Richmond, Virginia, his only exposure to lighthouses was climbing the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse when his family vacationed at Virginia Beach. Russ e...

Therese Woelfel Therese Woelfel, who lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has held leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurial endeavors, and non-profit organizations. Her new book, Our Guiding Light , is her first non-fiction work. Therese’s grandfather, Charles A. Linsmeier, was a Lighthouse Service keeper at several stations on the Great Lakes from 1920 to 1953. The book tells the stor...

Dan Spinella created this replica third-order lens for Buffalo Lighthouse in New York. This is an edited version of an interview that first appeared in episode 107 in February 2021. The guest is Dan Spinella, a man who is known for creating amazing replica Fresnel lenses. Dan, who is employed as an engineer at Disney World, began his Fresnel lens research and restoration work in 1992 using both ac...

This is an an edited version of a conversation that was first heard in episode 62 in May 2020. The guest is Elaine Jones and the subject is Burnt Island Light in Maine. A lighthouse was built in 1821 on five-acre Burnt Island at the west side of the entrance to Boothbay Harbor in Maine, which was a center for shipbuilding, gristmills, and fishing going back to the 1700s. In 1988, Burnt Island beca...

Portsmouth Harbor Light, near the mouth of the Piscataqua River in the town of New Castle, New Hampshire, is one of the most picturesque and historic lighthouses in New England. The original wooden lighthouse on the site (1771) was the first lighthouse north of Boston. The present (1878) cast-iron lighthouse stands on the grounds of Coast Guard Station Portsmouth Harbor, neighboring historic Fort...

The first lighthouse on Curtis island at the entrance to Camden, Maine, was established in 1836. For many years, the island served as a signal station for the large steamships that passed by. The 25-foot brick lighthouse tower that still stands was built in 1896, and the light was automated in 1972. Curtis Island Light Station, Camden, Maine. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. The Town of Camden n...

This is a look back at an interview that was first heard in episode 122 back in May 2021. The interview is with Elena Hansteensen, who is the owner of Littleisland Lighthouse in Norway, which is operated as a small hotel. Litløy fyr, Norway. (Courtesy of Littleisland Lighthouse) Litløy fyr, or Littleisland Lighthouse in English, is on a small island off the northwest coast of Norway, inside the Ar...

Tom and Darlene Chisholm on a Texas trip in 2022. Photo by Carol Nettleton. Darlene Chisholm of Albion, Michigan, is a veteran of many U.S. Lighthouse Society tours, both in the U.S. and abroad. In the course of her travels, she’s photographed well over 4,000 lighthouses. Darelene was a longtime librarian in the public school system in Albion. Her husband, Tom, was president of the education assoc...

Tim Pettee at Greens Ledge Light, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Greens Ledge Light, which was built in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1902, is a cast-iron lighthouse tower on a cylindrical cast-iron concrete-filled foundation. It’s typical of offshore  lighthouses built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Male keepers lived inside the lighthouse tower. Under the provisions of the National Histo...

AIS (Automatic Identification System) has been used for years to monitor the movements of ships and aircraft in real-time, helping to ensure safe and efficient operations. The company MotionInfo provides second-by-second data accuracy using an extensive network of stations. A North Atlantic right whale and calf. (NOAA Photo Library) Bob Trapani, Jr., American Lighthouse Foundation Executive Direct...

Jim and Evelyn Bruton, courtesy of Elanie Bruton. This is an edited version of a conversation with a  lighthouse keeper’s daughter in British Columbia, Canada, first heard in episode 104 of Light Hearted. Jim Bruton was born in Wales in 1926, but his family relocated to British Columbia in Canada when he was just one year old. He started working in the logging industry as a boy. In a light keeping...

Frank Schubert – a native of Staten Island – spent 43 years as a keeper and caretaker at Coney Island Light Station in New York. When he passed away in 2003, he was the last person who had served as a keeper under the old U. S. Lighthouse Service. He originally joined the Lighthouse Service as a seaman on the tender Tulip in 1937. Coney Island Light Station, New York. Photo by Jeremy D...

This is an edited version of an interview that first appeared in episode 79 in September 2020. Ian Duff worked as a keeper at 13 Scottish lighthouses between 1976 and 1992. He spent about five years at Skerryvore, a remote station off the west coast of Scotland. He also spent about five years at Duncansby Head Light Station at the most northeasterly point of the British mainland. Ian Duff at St. A...

With foreign trade blossoming from Newport, Rhode Island, local merchants petitioned for a lighthouse at Beavertail Point at the southern tip of Conanicut Island in the town of Jamestown, and a 69-foot-tall wooden tower was first lighted in 1749. It was the third light station in the American colonies. The 45-foot square granite lighthouse that stands today was built in 1856. The lighthouse is loc...

Grosse Point Light Station. Photo by Jeremy D’Entremont. Grosse Point Lighthouse, located at the southern end of Lake Michigan in Evanston, Illinois, was established in 1873 as the primary lighthouse marking the approach to Chicago. Since 1983, for an amazing 42 years, Don Terras has been chief administrator of the Lighthouse Park District, a unit of local government in Evanston. He  is...

This is part two of a two part interview with Lorna Pierce and Gloria Coder, the daughters of Seamond Ponsart Roberts (1940-2023). Seamond was the daughter of the longtime Massachusetts lighthouse keeper Octave Ponsart, and she was the author of the book Everyday Heroes , The True Story of a Lighthouse Family . Seamond’s childhood was spent at Cuttyhunk Light and West Chop Light in Massachus...

Young Seamond in front of the keeper’s house at Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts. The guests in this episode are Gloria Coder and Lorna Pierce. Gloria and Lorna are the daughters of the late Seamond Ponsart Roberts (1940-2023). Seamond was the daughter of a longtime lighthouse keeper in Massachusetts, and she was the author of the book Everyday Heroes: The True Story of a Lighthouse Family. S...

A light station was established on Maine’s 220-acre Great Duck Island in 1890, with a 42-foot-tall brick tower and three keepers’ dwellings. Only one of the three houses remain standing today. The light was automated in 1986 and it remains an active aid to navigation. In 1998 Great Duck Island Light Station, along with Mount Desert Rock Light Station, became the property of Bar Harbor’...

Maine’s wave-swept Whaleback Lighthouse. (Photo by Dominic Trapani) In January 2024, two powerful storms — just three days apart — struck northern New England, coinciding with the highest tide ever recorded in Portland, Maine, at 14.75 feet. The damage was severe up and down the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire, and about a third of Maine’s 66 historic lighthouse sites suffered signif...

Richard Klein A lighthouse was proposed in 1896 to mark Peck (or Pecks) Ledge, at the east end of the Norwalk Islands in Connecticut. It began operation in 1906 and was the last staffed lighthouse to be built at a waveswept site on Long Island Sound. Its life as a staffed light was relatively short, only 27 years. It’s a typical offshore light of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu...

Sean Todd This is an edited version of an interview with Sean Todd that was first heard in episode 72 in July 2020. Sean serves on the marine science faculty at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, and he’s also the director of Allied Whale , the college’s marine mammal research program. Mount Desert Rock , more than 20 miles from the nearest port and home to a historic light statio...