From email received from Lighthouse Digest...
Light Keeper’s Wife to Celebrate 100th Birthday
Birthday Cards Requested
Shirley E. Morong, widow of lighthouse keeper Clifton Morong, will be celebrating her 100th birthday on August 14, 2008. Coming from a family with a long list of lighthouse keepers, Lighthouse Service employees, and Coast Guard personnel, Shirley has been instrumental in helping to preserve lighthouse history. Over the years she has written many memories of lighthouse and Coast Guard life with many of her stories appearing in Maine newspapers and publications such as Maine Coast Fisherman.
In later years she wrote a number of stories and shared a number of photographs with us that appeared in Lighthouse Digest, one as recent as last month. Some of her photos and memories were also include in the book, Portland Head Light, by Timothy Harrison.
Her son, Robert followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Coast Guard and even served at two stations where his father had been a lighthouse keeper.
Shirley was also instrumental in researching the history of Hopley Yeaton, the Father of the Coast Guard, and locating his nearly forgotten gravesite so that it could eventually be moved to the Coast Guard Academy where a memorial to him was erected.
You don’t need to know Shirley to send her a birthday card. You can simply sign your name and say you are a friend of lighthouses or thank her for helping to save lighthouse history. Her family is throwing her a big party a few days before her birthday, when all the cards will be presented to her at once.
Birthday cards can be sent to: Shirley Morong, in care of, Gerald Morong, 76 Prospect Hill Road, St. Albans, VT 05478.
Judy
