Margaret Norvell | |
---|---|
Birth name | Margaret Celeste Dimitry Ruth |
Nickname(s) | Madge |
Born | Washington, DC | February 11, 1860
Died | July 17, 1934 | (aged 74)
Buried | |
Allegiance | United States |
Service | United States Lighthouse Service |
Margaret Norvell (1860-1934) was a lighthouse keeper, employed by the United States Lighthouse Service, a precursor agency to the United States Coast Guard.[1][2] Norvell became a lighthouse keeper in 1891, and remained in that service for 41 years.[3][4] Widows whose husbands were lighthouse keepers, who died in office, were allowed to hold positions as lighthouse keepers themselves.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Norvell's husband drowned in the course of his duties. Norvell was credited with saving many lives, including by venturing out into storms in a rowboat to rescue stranded mariners.
As a member of the U.S. Lighthouse Service, she first served at the Head of Passes Light as an assistant keeper from 1891 to 1896. Her leadership did not go unnoticed and after Head of Passes she was appointed keeper of both the Port Pontchartrain Light from 1896 to 1924 and the West End Light where she served from 1924 to 1932.
Thus Margaret Norvell became a lighthouse keeper in 1891. In 1896, she was reassigned to be the keeper of the Port Pontchartrain Light Station on Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana at the treacherous mouth of the Mississippi River. And for the next 36 years, she handled the job of keeper and was credited with rescuing many shipwrecked sailors.
About 55 of Margaret Norvell's descendants converged on New Orleans for the commissioning, on the Mississippi River in the shadow of the Crescent City Connection bridge.
As a keeper here from 1924-32, Margaret Norvell was one of 141 women who have worked for the Lighthouse Service She took on the job when her husband drowned.
Well before its time, New Orleans had a female lighthouse keeper, Margaret Norvell. Norvell ran three lighthouses in the New Orleans area during her long career spanning from 1891 to 1932. During the Hurricane of 1893, Norvell rescued 200 survivors, sheltering them within the Point Pontchartrain lighthouse, an act for which she was publicly recognized.
Margaret Norvell was the keeper at Port Pontchartrain Light Station in Louisiana, when a 1903 hurricane left her lighthouse as the only building standing along the lower coast of Lake Pontchartrain. She housed over 200 people following the storm and even helped supply and acquire relief funds for those who had lost their homes. This type of work makes these women and men appear to almost be an early form of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) or the Red Cross.[permanent dead link]