U.S. Lighthouse Service. Assigned to the isolated North Manitou Island Lighthouse in the northern part of Lake Michigan, he boarded a car ferry with his wife to reach the island. This trip, which normally took four hours, took seventeen days because the boat became stuck in the ice. Life on the island taught resilience. When Grandpa wasn’t on watch or maintaining the light, he painted the lantern room, tower, and barn, and whitewashed the oil house. The keepers and their families raised chickens, planted corn and potatoes, picked blackberries, and hunted foxes.

Shortly after being assigned to the Sheboygan Harbor Lighthouse, Vivian’s mother tragically drowned. At the age of nine, she assumed the duties of cooking and caring for her younger brother. As a family, they did their best to move forward. In her journal, Vivian wrote: Each night, the lighthouse keepers and their families would gather together in their quarters. The men would keep us spellbound with stories of their sailing and lighthouse days. We witnessed duty and responsibility each day, and we were taught good values to live by for the rest of our lives.

Although she experienced significant trauma during her childhood, Vivian chose to rise above her circumstances. As I considered the choices my mother made and the lessons she taught her children, I realized she had developed an inner posture of trust and surrendering to the divine, which allowed her to live calmly in the present, centered in life’s flow. As she watched for little miracles each day, signs others may view as coincidences, she found divine comfort and reassurance. With God as her guiding light, she lived her life in service of others.