Betty Lowe Phelps finally had the chance to mark an item off her bucket list last fall, when she climbed to the top of the Loggerhead Key Lighthouse in the Dry Tortugas.
As she made her way to the top, she was making the same climb as her grandfather — Benjamin Howard Lowe Sr. — did when he was an assistant lighthouse keeper there during the 1930s.
(Photos courtesy of Betty Lowe Phelps)
The Land O’ Lakes woman now has been inside, or boated around, all four of the lighthouses from which her grandfather worked.
Phelps had been aware that her grandfather worked in lighthouses, but didn’t know many details.
She began doing more research after she visited the Sanibel Lighthouse in 1999.
That’s where she discovered that even though she knew her grandfather had worked there, his name wasn’t in the records.
She set out to find out more.
She began talking to relatives to find out what they knew and also began searching for records.
She now has a binder full of photographs and documents she’s collected. She also has another source: 20 hours of recordings of her grandfather’s recollections.
A profile on her grandfather is included in the 2006 book, “Lore of the Reef Lights: Life in the Florida Keys,” by Thomas W. Taylor.
Taylor gleaned much of the information for the profile from Phelps and other members of her family.
Taylor’s account says Lowe grew up as the son of a boat captain, and worked for his father on a vessel called The Magnolia, until the ship was lost in a hurricane in 1919.
Over the years, Lowe worked on various boats, according to Taylor’s book.
Phelps said her grandfather went to the waterfront whenever he needed work.
“He was a cook on a lot of the crews. They did shrimping. They did lobstering. They did turtling. They did sponging,” Phelps said.
In essence, he would do whatever kind of work he could find, she said.
In 1929, Lowe joined the United States Lighthouse Service as an assistant keeper and was assigned to work at Fowey Rocks Lighthouse, according to Taylor’s account.
After his wife experienced complications while giving birth, Lowe moved the family back to Key West, to be closer to a support network. He then became an assistant keeper at the Loggerhead Key Lighthouse in the Dry Tortugas, Taylor notes.
“During the summer months, when school was out, the entire family would voyage out to the Dry Tortugas to spend the summer with their father at the light station, living on the second floor of the station’s duplex dwelling,” Taylor adds.
He’d make regular trips to Key West, Phelps said.
“There were three men at a time. Every 28 days, one of them came in. They would spend a month with their family,” she said.
When they returned to the lighthouse, they brought fresh provisions, such as fruit, vegetables and fresh meat, she said.
Next, Phelps said her grandfather went to work at American Shoal Lighthouse, off of Sugarloaf Key, which was closer to the family.
And finally, in 1939, he took a lighthouse post in Sanibel.
“His wife begged him to take that job because there was a cottage, and the family could all stay together,” Phelps said.
Phelps has been a member of the Florida Lighthouse Association since 2000, and is delighted she finally had the chance to see the view from top of the Loggerhead Key Lighthouse.
It was a trip she’d planned to make back in 2003, with a half-dozen members of her family, as part of the Florida Lighthouse Association’s trip to the Dry Tortugas.
But, those plans were dashed due to mechanical problems with the boat.
“That was a tremendous disappointment, as we had all traveled from various parts of central Florida for the rare opportunity to visit the island and climb the most remote of our grandfather’s lighthouses,” Phelps said.
Now, she’s finally replaced that disheartening memory with a happy one.
Published March 16, 2016
