When Ernest DeRaps and his young family arrived on Monhegan Island in August of 1956, he was the first Coast Guardsman to serve as keeper of the Monhegan Island Light House and it was the lowest tide of the year.

The tide was so low that his wife Pauline, then several months pregnant with their second child, had to climb a greasy old ladder to reach the landing. When she arrived, a group of island women were there to applaud her.

It was a good introduction to life on Maine islands. From that moment, the DeRaps were “in like Flynn” with the close-knit Monhegan community. In addition to keeping the lighthouse, Ernest DeRaps served as island scoutmaster and together he and his wife pitched in whenever someone needed rescuing or their neighbor needed a hand.

DeRaps will offer a talk about his family’s experience on the island and show slides taken during that period at St. Andrews Village on Saturday, Sept. 15 at 2 p.m. 

Ernest served as Officer-in-Charge of Three Family Stations on Monhegan Island, Fort Point at Stockton Springs and Browns Head on Vinalhaven Island. He also served as Engineman-in-Charge at Heron Neck on Green Island, south of Vinalhaven. All told, his tenure in Maine lighthouses was six years and three months.

It was a period of time when lighthouses were being automated and a way of life was changing forever. Being a lighthouse keeper was a 24/7 job and life on the islands was not easy. There was no electricity on Monhegan and only three phones, one of them at the lighthouse. The other two were at the post office and the general store. 

“We just lived and made the best of what we had,” DeRaps said.

Ernest remembers one pitch black night on Monhegan when he received an urgent message. The caller couldn’t reach the other two island phones, so Ernest wrote down the message, grabbed his flashlight and headed down the hill toward the little town by the quickest route, which happened to take him through a cemetery. 

“I got halfway into the cemetery and all of a sudden a partridge flew up between my feet and I am telling you I think I said hello to the good Lord that night,” DeRaps said. On the way back, he took the road. 

Together, the DeRaps wrote a book in two sections about their experiences on Maine islands: “Lighthouse Keeping / Light Housekeeping.”

The book, which was published by Foghorn Publishing, is now out of print, but Ernest hopes to raise enough money to publish another edition so he can give the books to Maine schools. The book carries in it a lesson that children should learn, he said.

“I am kind of at the end of the road in terms of lighthouse keeping and I think it is important that young people know some of the things that we did. Life was very different,” DeRaps said. “Life is give and take and you have to work in order to accomplish anything.”