A Keeper's Wife Remembers...

 

SLIP POINT LIGHTHOUSE

 

CLALLAM BAY, WASHiNGTON

 

            On December 31, 1961, my husband and I along with our two young sons, moved into the Slip Point Light Station at Clallam Bay, Washington.  We had just come from a very active search and rescue Coast Guard station at Hammond, Oregon and my husband was anxious to have a less dangerous responsibility and activity level for awhile.  I was expecting our third child in late February. 

 

            We had other friends that were at light stations and had heard that life at a light station could be serene and pleasant, but that there were certain demands that were required of both the Coast Guard personnel and their wives.  I was told that the house was to be ready for inspection at all times which was supposedly even more important since my husband was the officer-in-charge.

 

            Slip Point did not have the traditional light house sitting on a hill or bluff as the first one had fallen into the sea many years before our duty began.  Instead, we had a walkway out onto the reef with a light on the end that also included a fog signal.  However, our house, a large duplex was in the typical lighthouse style.  Three stories, many windows, and beautiful cherry wood furniture supposedly made years before in the prison system.

 

1944 image looking back at the keeper's house. (Coast Guard Museum NW)

            On a clear and beautiful Monday afternoon on January 29, 1962, my husband was asleep upstairs after serving on the night watch and our two boys were outside playing.  The station's Seaman knocked at the door all excited and said we were being invaded.  He had heard shells going overhead and was able to convince me that we were in fact being shelled. I got the boys in the house right away.  The next task was to rouse my husband and tell him. 

 

            The news was hard to believe and he was hard to persuade, but he agreed to get up and see what was going on.  As it turned out, yes we were being shelled, by accident of course, but by the Canadian Navy who had sent a drone plane out over the Straits so that their ships could practice firing two or three pound "dud" shells at the plane.  Unfortunately, the plane went over our reef and the shells followed.  One hit the Clallam Bay school yard five minutes before school was let out.  A brass detonator landed a few feet from a fellow in town who was digging in his garden.  A shell did hit one house and knocked off a few shingles.  Another landed embedded in a log that someone was able to locate.  All of these items were gathered up and ended up on my kitchen counter while we waited for our US Naval munitions to arrive and check everything out. 

 

            Lots of excitement and an international event was prevented, but none of us quite got over the close call of nearly being hit with one of those practice bombs.   

Our length of service lasted only 18 months as my husband found that he really missed search and rescue.  Due to a number of incidents, I also agreed that this was not the quiet life we had envisioned and I was glad to move on.  So, in June of 1963, we moved to Cape Disappointment station in Ilwaco, Washington and one of the busiest search and rescue stations in the US.

 

Joan E. Miller

wife of CWO -4 Willis Paul MIlller

 

Paul passed away in 1977 after serving in the Coast Guard for 23 years.

Slip Point had only a foghorn in 1904 when this photo was taken. (Courtesy of Coast Guard Museum NW)

By 1916, Slip Point was a complete working light station, with a fog signal and a light tower. (Coast Guard Museum NW)

By 1952, a landslide behind the lighthouse had so endangered it, the light itself was moved to a small, conical tower nearby. This is the light Joan's husband tended. (Coast Guard Museum NW)

 

Today, nothing remains of Slip Point Lighthouse or the conical tower. If you look closely, you can see some broken remains of the suport for the plank walkway. (Elinor DeWire photo)


Joan Miller attended a lightkeepers' reunion in Silverdale, Washington in 2006. I have not heard from her since that time. I searched for an obituary for her, as she would on in years by now, but did not find one. So, I assume she is still living.