 Her father was transferred to the Lighthouse Service and appointed keeper of Lime Rock Light on the small near-island Lime Rock in Newport in 1854, taking his family to live on the rock in 1857.After the family had been at Lime Rock for less than four months, he suffered a stroke and became disabled.Ida Lewis expanded her domestic duties to include caring for him and a seriously ill sister and also, with her mother's assistance, tending the light