One of Leslie Warner's first memories is of waves crashing onto rocks outside his bedroom window.

He moved onto the Cuckolds when he was five, with his father, lighthouse keeper Leo Warner, Aids to Navigation Office, and his mother Theresa. They were there for two years, 1950-52.

Warner doesn't remember a lot of that time, being five and six, but his father filled him in.

“My dad kept telling me 'don't go on the rocks.' It was the wrong thing to do because I went on the rocks. He yelled, and I slipped and fell in the water. I couldn't swim, and my dad grabbed me by my hair and pulled me out.”

He was taken to the hospital in Boothbay Harbor and pronounced OK.

“I was a hellion,” he said.

He does remember getting free candy at a Newagen store called E. Gray & Son.

He also remembers a tutor who came out the island on Sundays for Sunday School.

Warner said his father was responsible for the light at the lighthouse and even the buoys around the island.

“My dad told me one story about the fishing boats that used to come in. He would wave his bucket and they would come in and chat,” Warner said. “They gave us lobster and fish, and whiskey and rum.”

In 1967, Nancy Urquhart Conley moved onto the island. Her husband, Boatswain's Mate 1st Class Harvard Urquhart, had been assigned as the new keeper. They spent 11 months there, with their 2-year-old son Wendell, and a German Shepherd named Roxanna.

“She was all over the rocks,” Conley said.

Conley said it was always a treat to get to the mainland.

“I remember in the spring and summer we had a pod (a double-ended skiff) with a motor,” Conley said. “We would go over to Newagen in the pod and get in the car to go to Brunswick for groceries. Once we got off that island we wanted to get out and go somewhere.”

Winters on the Cuckolds could be trying.

“Winter was the pits,” Conley said. “I remember running out of fuel one time and the big fuel boat coming out. Both we women and the men had to drag the lines up across the rocks to get it up high enough. And those rocks were icy.”

She remembered having to crawl up the icy boat slip at times with her son on her back.

“I'd say, hang on Wendell, we'll get through this.”

Looking at a photo of the island and house from 1967, the two agreed that the house looked pretty much the same in 1967 as it did in 1950.

They both remember two phones. One was black and one was red.

“The red one was strictly for emergencies,” Conley said.

Conley's husband was CEO of the Coast Guard Station in Boothbay Harbor, too, and she remembers him being called ashore from the red phone.

“There was an incident I remember, involving a gun. That red phone was ringing. He got in the pod and headed in.”

The Warners didn’t have easy winters, either. The only heat source for the them was a wood stove.

“That stove radiated a lot of heat, but not upstairs,” Warner said. “In the winter it was dreadfully cold. My mother would keep that wood stove running all the time.”

“We had some wicked bad winter storms. I remember the waves hitting outside and my bed shaking and I'd cry 'we're going to sink.' My father would say 'Don't worry. We're on a rock.'”

Kathleen Eyles was four years old when her father, Bosun's Mate James Eyles, and her mother, Lorraine, became the keepers in 1954. They were there for two years.

Eyles said though she doesn't remember a lot about being there, her mother did.

“She loved living there, and took many, many photos. She didn't want to leave.”

Eyles said that for many years after they did leave, they would go to the Newagen pier to look at the lights on the Cuckolds.

“We felt bad because they weren't how we remember them,” she said.

But she has good feelings too.

“It's so much a part of my heart and my family.”

After years of neglect the old light station has a new life. For the first time in 122 years, the island is open to the public.

"The Cuckolds Light Station, having fallen into disrepair, has been rescued and reborn, thanks to many volunteer leaders, skilled craftsmen, and generous contributors," said Janet Reingold, co-founder of the Cuckolds Rescue.

Leslie Warner came back recently with his wife Elizabeth for a two-night stay at the newly renovated Inn at Cuckolds Lighthouse. It was a good experience for Warner, who has fond memories of the old fog horn, no longer running.

“It's historic, but it's also luxurious,” he said. “And they're going to run the fog horn for us tonight because we've been hounding them to.”

“I kept praying that somebody would save it,” Warner said. “If you can restore historical buildings like the lighthouses (considering) the amount of lives that these lighthouses have saved — that's important. It's educational.”

Conley concurred. “We need to save the lighthouses. For our children and grandchildren.”

Hosts and present keepers, Dan and Barb Aube, said they were pleased the Warners came.

"It is both inspiring and reaffirming to meet former keepers and their families, and learn first-hand what this Light Station meant to them,” Barb Aube said. “Their accommodations were in the same location as Leslie's bedroom had been when he was here as a small child. He recalled the crash of the waves on the rocks directly outside his window more than 60 years ago,” Barb Aube said.

Extra: Read an excerpt from a letter Nancy Conley wrote home to her mother on January 26, 1966:

“Well we had quite a bad storm Sunday. I went to bed around 12 and the sea was really kicking up then. The sea was going right over the sea wall and hitting the side of the house like thunder. The lights were going on and off and the emergency bell kept ringing.”