By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
BOSTON – During the last leg of Boston Light’s 300-plus history, Sally Snowman served as the first and last female lighthouse keeper. Snowman, who retired from the job in December 2023 at age 72, was the last official keeper of a job previously held by a total of 69 men over the centuries. Lighthouse keepers were initially called “wickies” because of their job trimming wicks. In 1896, they became civil service employees until 1910 when Congress created the Bureau of Lighthouses, with the U.S. Coast Guard overseeing the role starting in 1939.
Photo/Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard
Early visit
As a child, Snowman lived near Boston Harbor and her father was a Coast Guard Auxiliary member who brought her to Little Brewster Island in 1961 to meet other Auxiliarists by the lighthouse for a picnic. She remembers helping to anchor the boat, looking up at the lighthouse and telling her father that when she grew up, she wanted to get married there.
She struggled throughout school and gravitated towards caretaking jobs working with children, the elderly and the disabled. After discovering she had dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder, Snowman wanted to “find out why her brain was so scrambled.” So, she obtained an online Ph.D. in neurolinguistics from Walden.
Snowman volunteered for the Coast Guard Auxiliary for 30 years. It is also where she met and married her husband Jay Thompson in 1994. The pair shared an enthusiasm for lighthouses and maritime history. She was hired as the seventieth keeper of the Boston Light in 2003 and her job duties at the automated lighthouse included keeping it clean and checking mechanical equipment. A lighthouse safety inspection failure in 2018 restricted Snowman to daytime maintenance trips.
Dangerous job
Besides the day-to-day chores of housework and keeping of the light, lighthouse keepers of the 18th and 19th centuries faced many dangers and heavy physical labor. They often risked their own lives to save others. And certainly during storms an offshore lighthouse could be a hazardous place. Lighthouse keeping was one of the few jobs available to women during the time, provided they inherited the job from a male family member. It was thought to be an easy and familiar task for widows of lighthouse keepers. However, the women were not allowed to wear the brass-buttoned uniforms and had to take a reduction in pay.
In an interview with 9News.au, Snowman described her daily routine with her husband at the lighthouse. “We’d get up at 7 a.m. to do rounds, check the buildings, make sure no hazardous matter had washed up on shore.,” she explained. “We would do routine maintenance. Keep the interior buildings clean, mow the lawn, trim the walkaway. I love to have a flower garden out there, so I’d tend that. I love to go down to the beach and look for heart-shaped rocks. Around the house I have all these little rocks.” She added how much she could not get enough of the solitude and love of the panoramic view.
Her true home
Prior to retiring, Snowman admitted to CBS News that she would miss the lighthouse and planned to spend time at the Lifesaving Museum in Hull whenever her heart ached for the place. Snowman added, “In my heart of hearts, Boston Light is my home. I took to it like a fish to water.”
Photo/Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Andrew Barresi
Sally Snowman and her husband never had any children but compared letting go of the lighthouse to that of seeing a child go off to college to “have another experience and to find out who they truly are.” The couple’s experience on the island has also led them to write the book Boston Light: A Historical Perspective. She may no longer hold the post, but Snowman wants the world to know “We will leave the light on for you.”
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