WIDOW MADELON'S HEROISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 7 (Supplement)

WIDOW MADELON'S HEROISM.

When the French fishermen and sailors pass the Kerdonis Rock Light'house, Belle He, they salute it as the Widow Madelon's light.

Twenty-five years ago, as dusk was falling and the time to light the great lamp had come, her husband, the lighthouse keeper, about to mount to his nightly task, staggered and fell, dying at her feet. Her first thought was for him, but she had a higher duty to all men at sea. She called her two children to watch their father and then climbed the iron ladder to the lemp.

She did not know how to set in motion the machinery which keeps the lenses revolving about the lantern; but there was hand machinery for an emergency, and to this she looked. All night long the brave and desperate woman toiled at the handle, turning, turning, turning, till dawn. She kept the lighthouse beam flashing its warning for hour after hour.

Then at last she staggered down to where her husband lay, only just in time to close his eyes. Now, 25 years after, the Widow Madelon's own light is quenched, her life ended. But the Widow Madelon's light still burns as brightly as ever in the memories of seamen.