Piedras Blancas: Lighthouse Memories

My father joined the U.S. Lighthouse Service in California in 1924. He and my mother were 24 at the time, I was one-year-old and my brother Norman two. Prior to entering the service dad had been in the Merchant Marine, so the sea was no stranger to him. Our first lighthouse home was the Point Reyes station, just north of San Francisco where he was the 3rd assistant to the keeper. Two years later we were transferred to the Los Angeles Breakwater lighthouse where he was assigned as 2nd assistant. This lighthouse, located on the end of a long breakwater, had no provision for families so our family lived ashore with my grandmother.