Among Queries: ‘Where’s the Darkhouse?’ Veteran Lighthouse Keeper Fields ‘Em All

NORTH CAPE MAY – “I don’t think I could climb up those 199 steps if I wasn’t a lighthouse keeper for all these years,” said 88-year-old World War II Navy veteran David E. Yeager. “My theory on maintaining a good quality of life is to just keep moving because the grim reaper with the scythe is coming up behind you,” he said with a chuckle.
Yeager was a 17-year-old when he joined the Navy in 1944 because he did not want to be drafted. Besides, everyone else he knew was going in, and he, too, wanted to do his duty.
After basic training, he was eventually assigned to an oceangoing tug, the USS Utina, and was based in Guantanamo, Cuba. He explained that the military does everything alphabetically, and so when his shipmates were being assigned to the Pacific theater after basic training, he was the last name on the list and he wound up in Cuba.
As an Electrician’s Mate 3rd class, Yeager and his shipmates were dispatched whenever a freighter or other ship found itself in trouble at sea; not very glamorous, but a key function nonetheless.
Yeager was employed as an equipment engineer for Bell Telephone Company for 40 years, both before and after his short Navy career. He married his wife Audrey, who passed in 2012 after 62 years of marriage. He has three children, five grandchildren and a recent great grandchild.
Yeager recalled that he also worked the 1964 Democratic National Convention held in Atlantic City in 1964, doing electrical work for the television broadcast. He previously lived in Haddon Heights until his retirement in 1984 when they relocated to this area.
Yeager has served as a lighthouse keeper for the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts and Humanities (MAC) since 1989. His distinguished appearance and tall, thin frame represents the lighthouse keeping service very well to the public that he greets at the lighthouse entrance.
Children seem to gravitate to him as he stands at the base of the lighthouse stairway warning them to walk, don’t run and to be careful of the high winds at the top.
Yeager stands a regular four-hour watch at the Cape May Lighthouse as an ambassador and source of interesting information about the maritime history of this area including the role played by Fort Miles to protect the Delaware Bay during World War II. He describes the fort as a group of artillery batteries with six-inch guns placed about 900 feet inland at the mouth of the bay, at Cape May, and at Lewes, Del.
Other barracks and buildings once here are gone, but the remains of the fort never fail to impress visitors who are unaware of the wartime threats that lurked just offshore from Cape May.
A network of towers, some still standing today, enabled spotters to triangulate an enemy ship’s position to guide their battery cannon fire. These guns were designed to prevent German surface warships from attacking cities and industrial sites as far up as Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del.
Although no attacks occurred in the bay, there was significant German submarine activity just outside the bay that resulted in hundreds of ships being lost throughout the war.
Yeager related that he fields the usual variety of questions from tourists and stands ready for the occasional problem, such as tourists who need assistance coming down the steps after they see the height they reached at the top.
He remembers one very young child who asked with a serious face, “If this is the lighthouse, where is the darkhouse?”
Yeager also performs some interpretive storytelling at special events for the MAC while dressed in the full light keeper’s uniform.
After 25 years at the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts, Yeager has no plans to retire. His motto of “keep on moving” has served him well to this point; his friendly smile and attention to his duties has also served visitors to the Cape May Lighthouse very well.
To contact Jim McCarty, email jmccarty@cmcherald.com.