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Carole Reilly is known around New Jersey and Delaware as well as other parts of the country as "The Lighthouse Lady."
Why? Because this lady really loves lighthouses, so much so that not only does she collect them, but she now sells them and she even founded a now very active lighthouse group.
When you pull into her driveway (in Buena Vista Township, New Jersey) to visit her, you know at once you're in her "Lighthouse Territory." Outside the front door is a welcome sign in the shape of a lighthouse, and the van in her driveway has a lighthouse license plate. Once inside her home you'd think you're in a lighthouse gift shop and once you meet her you'd think, by the clothes she's wearing, she was a walking billboard for lighthouses. She often jokes that the only thing she wears that's not lighthouses is underwear.
What started as a hobby from one antique post card 15 years ago has grown into what she likes to call lighthouse mania. Now she produces her own line of some of the most unique lighthouse post cards in the country. They are all of Delaware Bay Lighthouses and depict an inset as to how they appeared many years ago compared to how they look today.
She also has designed a number of wooden lighthouse replicas that are now part of the "Hometown" line of lighthouse collectibles. And research, don't forget research, she spends hours researching lighthouses, primarily of the Delaware Bay and she has located many of the keepers that served at these unique old beacons. She even organized an association where the keepers get together from time to time to keep alive the memories of lighthouse keeping.
Editors note: Carole's Delaware Bay Lighthouse post cards are all available from Lighthouse Depot in Wells, Maine, as well as the Hometown Lighthouse Collectibles that she designed.
This story appeared in the May 1998 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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