The guests in this episode are Gloria Coder and Lorna Pierce. Gloria and Lorna are the daughters of the late Seamond Ponsart Roberts (1940-2023). Seamond was the daughter of a longtime lighthouse keeper in Massachusetts, and she was the author of the book Everyday Heroes: The True Story of a Lighthouse Family.
Seamond’s father, Octave Ponsart, began his lighthouse keeping career at Great Point on Nantucket. He spent five years as the keeper at Dumpling Rock in southeastern Massachusetts, and he and his family barely survived the hurricane of 1938. He became the keeper of Cuttyhunk Light off Cape Cod in 1940. He then spent 11 years as keeper at West Chop Light on Martha’s Vineyard. Seamond spent just a few years as a child at Cuttyhunk, but she always considered it home because of her mother’s family’s roots there. This is part one of a two part interview.
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U.S. Lighthouse Society Historian Jeremy D’Entremont is the author of 24 books and hundreds of articles on lighthouses and maritime history. He is a past president of the American Lighthouse Foundation and founder of Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses, and he has lectured and narrated cruises throughout the Northeast and in other regions. He is also the producer and host of the U.S. Lighthouse Society’s weekly podcast, “Light Hearted.” He can be emailed at Jeremy@uslhs.org