HerStory 2022-2024
Intro panel
HerStorians Ruth Crow, Annie Hayes, Jancie Krakowski, Maryjo Lemanski, Carol Peterson, Toni Perrine, Gemina Petruzzelli, Barri Rosenbluth, Peg Sanford, Sally Winthers and Christa Wise
HerStorians Ruth Crow, Annie Hayes, Jancie Krakowski, Maryjo Lemanski, Carol Peterson, Toni Perrine, Gemina Petruzzelli, Barri Rosenbluth, Peg Sanford, Sally Winthers and Christa Wise
![SARAH UNWIN SHERIDAN 1887–1967: She Kept the Light...
A mother’s struggle to keep her family together through hard times.
In June 1909, Sarah Sheridan arrived at a remote Saugatuck beach to join her husband
George, the newly-posted keeper of the Kalamazoo Lighthouse. The couple brought
with them two young sons. A third son would be born a t the lighthouse in 1911.
Summers were filled with fun and visiting family but the winters were lonely and
desolate. And the constant vigilance required of a lighthouse keeper was taking its toll
on George’s mental health. Increasingly, he suffered from what was then called “bouts
of melancholy.”
In the summer of 1914, the family received orders that the Kalamazoo light would be
closed in October and George would be transferred to the lighthouse in St. Joseph,
Michigan. Sarah was made Keeper by Temporary Appointment and took over the lightkeeping
duties so George could seek treatment for his depression at a sanatorium. While
keeping the light, Sarah also made arrangements to rent lodging in Saugatuck until the
family could move to St. Joe. On October 6, 1914 Sarah lit the Kalamazoo light for the
last time. That same day an automated navigational light on a tower at the new channel
entered service.
Relieved of duty, the family spent that winter in Saugatuck but George’s depression only
deepened. In March 1915, George left again to seek treatment. A few days later Sarah
received word that George had committed suicide.
Suddenly Sarah was a widow—responsible for three children aged nine, six and four—
and unprepared to do any sort of skilled work. A newspaper account of George’s death
concluded that “their case presents another argument for a pension for government
employees who have given the best years of their life in service to their country.” Sarah’s
childless sister in South Chicago pressured Sarah to give her boys up, declaring a widow
with three little children could never survive.
But Sarah did survive. According to the Kalamazoo Gazette, “after a long conference
with [her son] 10-year-old Joseph … [Sarah] decided to make every effort to hold her
fatherless family together.”
To earn an income, she took in washing, much to the dismay of her Chicago family. Later
she worked as a maid at the Hotel Butler. She scrimped and saved to purchase a house
at 241 Culver. In the summers she moved her family to a tent in Cook park so she could
rent out the family house for additional income. And all the while she nurtured her three
sons and somehow found time to be a life member of the Saugatuck Women’s Club,
the Saugatuck Congregational Church and a twice worthy matron [presiding officer] of
the Order of the Eastern Star, an axillary of the Masons. She cared for her community
as well as her children.
A woman of grit and gentle persistence, Sarah Sheridan crocheted her final afghan square
in 1967 at age 88. Although she is known as the Kalamazoo Lighthouse’s last keeper,
the flame she kept alive was that of the Sheridan family who are to this day an integral part
of the community.
Sarah Unwin Sheridan researched by fellow
Team HerStorian, Sally Winthers based on work
by Stephen and Jack Sheridan](https://d3f1jyudfg58oi.cloudfront.net/4124/image/5a9bc5e0-7d18-11ef-ae6e-7f7382cb34cf-uqC4nyJ.tn@2x.jpg)
