USCGC Katherine Walker, and the woman whose name she bears.

Riding in a cab on the FDR Drive today, I saw a small ship heading northward on the East River. I got this photo out the window. With a bit of on line research I was able to identify her as U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Katherine Walker, a coastal buoy tender of the Keeper class. She was built at Marinette Marine's shipyard in Wisconsin, launched on September 14, 1996, and made her way through the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, and the Atlantic coast to her home port of Bayonne, New Jersey. From there, she is charged with tending to buoys and other navigational aids in the vicinity of New York Harbor. 

 

As noted in the Wikipedia entry linked above, the "Keeper-class cutters are named for distinguished American lighthouse keepers." I was curious to know about Katherine Walker. She was born Katharina Görtler in Germany in 1848. After the birth of a son, Jacob, and death of her husband shortly after, she and Jacob emigrated to the U.S. She got a job as a cook in a boarding house in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and there met Captain John Walker, captain of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse. They were married in 1884, and one year after he was transferred to the Robbins Reef Lighthouse, which marks a reef near the entrance to New York Harbor. Their daughter, Mary, was born there. 

Katherine quickly became proficient in assisting her husband in all the duties necessary to keep the lighthouse functioning. Captain Walker died in 1890; his last words to her were, "Mind the light, Kate." She continued to do this for many years, during which she is said to have rescued fifty people and one dog from the treacherous waters around Robbins Reef. When she retired at age 71 in 1919, her son Jacob replaced her as keeper.