"The heroine of Lime Rock" will be the first woman honored with a street name at Arlington National Cemetery
In her day, she was the heroine of the Lime Rock Lighthouse, the intrepid young woman who by herself rowed into the stormy waters of Newport harbor in Rhode Island to rescue mariners in distress.
She was Ida Lewis, the shy daughter of a disabled sea captain. And after bold rescues in the late 1800s, she was front page news. She was given awards. VIPs clamored to see her. A polka, “The Ocean Waves Dashed Wildly High,” was written in her honor, and the sheet music bore her image.
But since she died in 1911, her deeds have been largely forgotten.