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“I used to climb up the stairs of the lighthouse with my grandfather, so they tell me.” Sandra Larrabee Hobson was still a very little girl when grandfather Eugene Larrabee was West Quoddy Lightkeeper. “He was a good man, a kind man, and rather quiet. When lightkeeper duties were done he’d go out to the barn and smoke his pipe.”
Eugene Larrabee came to West Quoddy Light station about 1930, becoming Head Lightkeeper when Ephraim Johnson retired in 1931. (See article about Johnson in Lighthouse Digest, June, 2005). Born in 1875, Larrabee’s career in the old Lighthouse Service extended up to his retirement in the early 1940’s after the U.S. Coast Guard had assumed responsibility in 1939.
“He served at Petit Manan Light,” said granddaughter Sandy Larrabee, “probably about 22 years. My father Floyd was with him there. When Floyd Larrabee came with his lightkeeper father to Lubec during those depression years, he worked in Lubec for the American Can Company, and at the old Lubec Herald newspaper as a printer. With the development of Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” Floyd found employment with the Civilian Conservation Corps, installing metal fences at West Quoddy.
“I was born in Lubec in 1935,” added Sandra. However, her mother died twelve days later, leaving Floyd to raise his new daughter alone. He later remarried.
Sandra’s grandmother out at West Quoddy Light took care of her, the house and the cooking. “She always was my mother,” Sandra said. Eugene and Floyd went lobster fishing, and in addition to his lighthouse responsibilities, Larrabee maintained diverse interests. He raised chickens, cared for the kitchen garden and also his flowers. “He was real proud of his flower garden, and especially liked dahlias.” said Sandy.
“He also did woodwork.” He made the wooden lawn figures, pictured here. “I remember the butterfly net he made for me,” said Sandra. “It had a wooden handle and a cloth bag, and I stalked butterflies in the woods around the Lighthouse. He also built a carriage stroller so he could push me around the Lighthouse grounds.”
He retired to a house at 65, Washington Street in Lubec “with a flower garden,” she added, leaving Howard Gray who had come to West Quoddy in 1934 as head keeper. Gray raised a family at the lighthouse, remaining until 1952. “We’d all get together with the Grays about once a week,” explained Sandra. “His son Bobby was three years ahead of me at Lubec High School, where I graduated in 1954.”
Eugene Larrabee, West Quoddy Lightkeeper, died in May, 1957. “He always kept himself busy all his life,” Sandra Larrabee Hobson remembers.
This story appeared in the
August 2006 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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