A Glimpse of Life at Race Point Light

The following excerpted letter was written by Frances Hallett, wife of Race Point Light Station keeper Osborne Earle Hallett (1945-1955). The letter was published in the December 1952 edition of the Maine Coast Fisherman.

“Will write a few lines. There really hasn’t been too much to write about. Well, summer has gone, and things are quiet once more, and I really mean quiet. All we hear now is the surf and the sea gulls.

“The season is all too short, although things didn’t start to quiet down until mid-October. The children are in school. With two such animated children the house seems gone. The bass season is about over, and it was an exceptionally good one this year; also the beach taxi service, with its many sight-seeing parties is through for the season.

“We had our Eastern Inspection early in August, and now we are getting ready to hibernate for the winter. Hope the winter will be mild. Usually one extreme follows another; the summer was so extremely hot and dry – very little humidity and very little rain. Every day was simply perfect, a lovely summer, and the fall has been so nice too.

“We have been having our Indian Summer these last few days. The foliage is just beautiful everywhere but here. All we see is beach sand, miles of it, with dead grass, no signs of color anywhere. We do, however, get some beautiful sunsets.

“It seems the summer just jumped right into fall and sort of leaves us with that lonely feeling, for from now on it is the lonely time of the year. Of course we have an old jalopy with special sand tires and can go into town whenever we choose, to shop or to take in the movies.

“Yesterday we saw a flock of Canadian geese, Canadian honkers, some people call them, and there were also some beautiful pheasant around the station, the first pheasant we have seen since we have been here.

“There are also wild rabbit and foxes, and occasionally a couple of does go leaping across the dunes. One day they stopped by our oil tanks for quite a while just like they were posing. What a pretty sight. There is very little gunning down here at the Race Run, as they aren’t many duck.

“The beach plums were very plentiful this year, in spite of the drought. Several people from town came down and got their pails full. The jelly is very delicious, and is on sale at all the roadside stands.

“The wild roses were badly burnt during the drought, but had the courage to start blooming all over again after the drought was over. Right now they are done for the season, too. We are having another dry spell and there are several forest fires raging up the Cape. Sure hope they get them under control soon.

“Bob and Shirley McWilliams at Goat Island Light, Cape Porpoise, will be interested to hear that the State is going to enlarge the Race Point Parking Lot, between now and another season. They have already removed one of the garages at the top of the hill, and a telephone pole, and placed them across the way. So many out-of-state cars coming and going all summer that it has been very congested. It is a beautiful spot to view the ocean, and it is also the only place in the United States, we understand, where one can see the sun set right into the ocean.

“We have been lucky, haven’t had but very little fog all summer, and up to date. There isn’t much activity going down here now. We have had our winter coal in since August, also the kerosene and diesel oil at the same time.

“We enjoy the radio, and will be looking forward to the returns of the Presidential election. Only wish we had television, but not having electricity, that is out of the question. At least we can hear if we can’t see.

“The next thing I will be looking forward to is preparing for Christmas. We usually go off for the day, weather permitting of course, to visit with the children. The Christmas season is the brightest and gayest season of all, and I get a big kick out of being with the children on that day, their day.

(Later) “Oz (Osborne Hallett, keeper) has just come in from lighting the light in the tower, and now I must light all the kerosene lamps in the house. How I hate it.”