Last night I went to the screening of the Ida Lewis documentary. I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot of things that I didn’t know before. She lived an incredible life. On the way home, I found myself thinking about the different things she did; the sheer number of rescues alone is simply astounding. However, for me, the most incredible part of her story was how quickly she was forgotten. I’ve lived in Rhode Island my whole life and I didn’t hear about for the first time only a few years ago. Up until last night, I only really knew her as “that famous lighthouse lady”. I didn’t even know any of the incredible things that she did, I just assumed that she was famous because she lived there a really long time.

I tried to think of the different reasons why someone like Ida Lewis gets forgotten. Maybe it’s because she was a woman but I have to think that more than anything, it’s because we’ve forgotten about the importance of lighthouses. I think that is what struck me the most about the documentary, I gained a newfound appreciation for lighthouses. It’s incredible to think that people like Ida dedicated their entire lives to maintaining the light. Without them, who knows would have happened to these harbors. Think of how detrimental it would have been to just Newport? If the ships couldn’t get in and out safely, the entire industry would have probably collapsed.

It’s a shame that Ida’s story was forgotten, it’s nice to know that she’s making a come back. I was really surprised to see so many little kids there last night. I was even more excited to see the little boy who had  done a school project on Ida Lewis; apparently his whole class was doing projects on famous Rhode Islanders. I might have not grown up learning about Ida Lewis but I was excited to see other people who were learning about her from a young age!