8/25/2023 0 Comments Lighthouse keeper salary michiganOne of the Garrity daughters was assaulted by a male assistant. Majher mentioned an incident in the Presque Isle lighthouse, where the Garrity family lived. Some families lost children to diseases, as their distance from land made it difficult to access a doctor. While women and their families were more than capable of running the lighthouses, they didn’t always have easy lives. “In some ways it was a very romantic way to live.” “They pretty much had free range of an island or a big patch of land on which the lighthouse sat on the mainland and, you know, in nature and in the water,” Majher said. And they enjoyed their lives in the lighthouse, probably more than their working parents did, said Majher. The children, known as “beacon brats,” were usually homeschooled. While living in a lighthouse may seem lonesome, keepers often had large families with them. They kept the house and the machines clean as well, keeping up with rules and regulations. They dealt with caustic chemicals, hauling hefty barrels of oil up and down the stairs. It involved maintaining the light overnight, checking on it every four hours and more frequently on dark and stormy nights. Servicing a lighthouse was not for the faint of heart. Majher said no specific pay grade was created for women their compensation was equitable from the very beginning, although neither male nor female keepers made very much money. And their persona as temporary workers in the field played out in their favor. But this did not stop them from serving well or often better than their male counterparts, according to Majher. For instance, there was never a uniform designed for women. However, the lighthouse service didn’t expect women to stay on the job long. “Generally speaking, the lighthouse service thought that widows could probably take that job on because they had probably been assisting their husbands all along.” “The first female lighthouse keeper in Michigan, Catherine Shook, started her job in 1849, and she came into that job as many women did, she succeeded her deceased husband, who died while in service,” Majher said. They worked in this industry at a time when employment for women was difficult to come by, especially through the federal government, which oversaw lighthouses. While around half of those keepers were assistants to their husbands, the other half were the primary lighthouse servicers themselves. Majher grew up in Bay City, which is home to a lighthouse and two of Michigan’s more than 50 female lighthouse keepers. Lighthouse Service, about their work and lives. As Women’s History Month draws to a close, we talked with Patricia Majher, author of Ladies of the Lights: Michigan Women in the U.S. Their stories have not always made it into the spotlight - or lighthouse beam - and one author is here to change that. While many men led this life, Michigan has a long, beautiful history of female lighthouse keepers. When you think of a lighthouse keeper, you may think of a stoic, bearded man a la The Lighthouse with Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe. In fact, the Great Lakes state, with its expansive shorelines, boasts the most in the country. Michigan has more than its fair share of lighthouses.
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