By the time she was four years old, her family had moved to Beaver Island where her father, a carpenter, worked for the Mormon leader "King" James Strang.

[2] After Strang was assassinated and the Mormons were forced out, the Whitney family returned to Beaver Island in 1857 where Williams met and married Clement Van Riper, a cooper from Detroit, in 1860.

[3] However, Van Riper was also often in poor health and Williams assisted her husband by cleaning and polishing the Fresnel lens.

The duty fell on Williams to keep the light burning in the lighthouse during the three-day storm and she was left "weak from sorrow.

[4] By 1897, she was one of only four female lighthouse keepers on the Great Lakes, down from about 30 in 1851, due to the position becoming a political appointment and thus a way to repay campaign favors.