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One of the U.S. Coast Guard's longest-tenured volunteer rescuers also was one of its most colorful characters.
Even though she lived on a small island 30 miles off Cape Cod, disliked water, and could not swim, Mildred Carpenter Jewett, affectionately known as "Madaket Millie," proved to be a consummate volunteer Coast Guardsman over parts of eight decades. She was a curmudgeonly curiosity to Nantucket tourists-whom she called "mop heads" because of the noisy contraptions they drove-but to the Coast Guardsmen she cared for deeply and served alongside, she was soft to the core. And she was an unfaltering friend to those in need, both animal and human.
Millie was born on 24 September 1907 on Nantucket. Her family moved to her grandmother's farm in Madaket Village at the western end of the island in 1911.1 Some sources tell of her doing chores for the nearby U.S Life-Saving Service station keeper and his family that same year.2 Enamored with the mystery and strength of the ocean, Millie often sat atop her house and gazed out to sea for hours. Her mother left when Millie was six months old because of her husband's abuses, but Millie and her dad were close, until his suicide in 1955.3
Millie, her father-a fisherman and scalloper-and her older brother all lived with her grandmother, Etta Jewett. Millie's education was limited by her father's long work hours and Madaket's isolation, eight miles from Nantucket's school. Most of her education came from listening to her grandmother read aloud, while they all shucked scallops.
Millie's first brush with a real maritime disaster came during World War I, when the 382-foot steamer Ruby, caught in a nor' easter storm and guided off course by a German saboteur, ran aground off Madaket. Not much is known about Millie's role in the recovery of the vessel's badly needed cargo of oil, but it is certain the days-long salvage operation made a lasting impression on the ten-year-old.4
By age 11, it was said Millie had the strength and abilities of any two surfmen at the Madaket Lifesaving Station. She could roll over a dory, launch it, and fish with the best of them, and "could handle any sort of craft in almost any type of blow."5
When...