John Walker and his German immigrant wife, Kate, were appointed keeper and assistant keeper of Robbins Reef Light, off Staten Island, N.Y., in 1883. The light was a conical iron structure at the end of a submerged reef - a man-made island within sight of the Manhattanskyline. When Walkerdied of pneumonia in 1886, his widow took over his job. For the next 33 years she climbed to the top of the light tower and filled the kerosene lamp several times each night, assisted by her son and daughter. ![]() The children went to school on the mainland, but Walkerrarely set foot outside the lighthouse grounds. ![]() Over the years she saved some 50 people from drowning. According to a New York Times reporter who interviewed her in 1906, "All that she knows from personal experience of the great land to which she came. is comprised within the limits of Staten Island, New York City, and Brooklyn. ![]() She declares that if she were compelled to live anywhere else she would be the most miserable woman on earth, and that no mansion on Millionaires' Row could tempt her to leave of her own free will." As a wife, mother, and widow, the happiest and saddest days of her peaceful life have been spent within the circular walls of her voluntary prison. Walker retired in 1919 and moved to a house on Staten Island, where she died 12 years later. The New York Evening Post carried an obituary: "There are the queenly liners, the grim battle craft, the countless carriers of commerce that pass in endless procession.
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