A Nun, a Frightened Team, and a Forty-Foot Plunge on Whidbey
Sister Gertrude was driving alone on church work when her buggy backed over an Admiralty Head bluff. She survived the fall—and was nursed at the lighthouse.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Sister Gertrude, of the House of Good Shepherd, met with a serious accident near Admiralty Head, Whidbey Island, last week. While engaged in church work and driving alone in a buggy, her team became frightened and backed over a bluff forty feet high. The sister fell the same distance and received painful though not dangerous injuries. She is being cared for at the lighthouse on Admiralty Head.
“While engaged in church work, and driving alone in a buggy, her team became frightened and backed over a bluff forty feet high.”
Admiralty Head Lighthouse still stands at Fort Casey State Park, a landmark of Whidbey Island's maritime past. In the 1890s, a religious sister traveling alone on rural roads had no bridge or modern ambulance to call on; the lighthouse household was the nearest refuge. The item survives as a small reminder of the women who did social-service work at the edges of settlement—and of how much emergency care has changed.
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