Happy Birthday!

Ida Lewis was born in Newport

on 2/25/1852
(d.10/25/1911)
[Per Women in Rhode Island History by Elizabeth Abbott

Her father became the first lighthouse keeper at Lime Rock Light off Newport in 1857. When he had a stroke his 16-year-old daughter, Ida, took over the care of the light. In 1858 Ida performed her first rescue near the light, saving the lives of four young men whose small boat had capsized. She is credited with as many as 30 rescues during her 55 years at Lime Rock (renamed Ida Lewis Rock in 1924). Her last rescue was in 1904, when she was 63 years old.
[per New England Lighthouses: A Virtual Guide - Jeremy D'Entremont]

She was on the cover of Harper's Weekly, the same year she was visited by President Grant & Vice Pres. Colfax. On that Independence Day a parade was held in her honor (Ida Lewis Day) and she received a mahogany lifeboat (theRescue), with red velvet cushions, gold braid around the gunwales & goldplated oarlocks (she never used this for a rescue). At 64 she became a life beneficiary of the Carnegie Hero Fund, receiving a monthly pension of $30. She'd been honored by the Narragansett Boat Club, Sorosis Society (a prominent women's org.), the R.I. General Assembly, the American Life Saving Soc. (another silver medal), another medal from the US Government & another silver medal from the Massachusetts Humane Soc. & when her father died in 1879 by a special act of congress, she became the official keeper.

Oct, 1911, Ida was found unconscious from apoplexy and died 3 days later, on the day of her passing every vessel in Newport Harbor sounded in respect. There are a number of biographies and historical mentions and:

        There are saints on the water & demons in the sea
        One and all they praised Ida for her great bravery
        On the very night this women died, who had lived on the shoals
        Every bell on evry boat in Newport did toll

                "Ida Lewis," by Barry Finn


ALSO:
Classic & great blues vocalist
("Wild Women Don't Have the Blues")

Ida Cox
(Nee, Ida Prather, aka Julia Powers, aka Jane Smith, aka Velma Bradley, aka Kate Lewis)

was born 2/25/1896 in Knoxville, Tenn.
(d. Nov 10, 1967)


ALSO:
Folk fusionist, Sandy Bull
was born in NYC, 2/25/1941
(d. April 12, 2001)

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