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In 1998, we published an article, along with photos sent by Anita Romleski, regarding her grandfather, Harold Kilton, when he was at the Kennebec River Lighthouse. Then in May of 2001, we published an article from her mother, Doris Kilton Sprague, of her memories in Little River Light with her grandfather, Charles Kenney.
Sadly, Doris Kilton Sprague passed away on March 21, 2005, just 19 days short of her 100th birthday. The sermon at the memorial service for Doris focused on the Lord being the lighthouse and the people being the ships. Doris’s ashes were placed in a lighthouse cookie jar used as an urn, and were buried this past July 15th next to her parents at a cemetery in Bucks Harbor, Maine.
In lieu of flowers, half of the money given in her memory was donated to the Kennebec River Range Light Keepers, the modern day caretakers of the two lighthouses on Maine’s Kennebec River.
While going through Doris’s items, her daughter Anita came across a number of original photographs of their family's lighthouse life at Maine lighthouses, and donated them to us, to be saved.
Because of the historical significance of this large collection of photos, we thought that we should share a few of them here in the pages of Lighthouse Digest. We hope that by doing so, other descendants of lighthouse keeper families will also come forward and donate photos we can save, preserve and publish, so that others may learn and understand our nation’s lighthouse history.
Doris Kilton Sprague
April 9, 1905-March 21, 2005
Doris came from a family of lighthouse keepers. Her father, Harold Kilton, was keeper of Maine's Kennebec River Range Lights and also served for 13 years at Maine's Goose Rocks Lighthouse. Her grandfather, Charles Kenney, served as a keeper at the following Maine lighthouses: Petit Manan
from 1903-1905, Libby Island from 1905-1912, Little River from 1912-1921 and St. Croix from 1923-1930.
This story appeared in the
September 2005 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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