There came a time not to long ago when this noble structure was in danger of tumbling into the sea. The land it was built on was eroding. Men with great machines and tons of concrete were called in to save it, but they were failing. It was only a matter of time, they said, before the ocean would snuff out that historic light.

That's when I came into the picture. I told the Coast guard that I had a plan that might work. "Let me try to save the lighthouse," I asked. They just stared at me and I knew what they were thinking: Why, she's nothing but a little old lady.

And they were right. I was little, just four feet and eleven inches, and beyond the age of retirement. But so what? A long time ago I found that being little didn't mean you couldn't do a job you set your mind to. I would just have to show them what you can do when you live a lifetime with that attitude.

When I was a teenager growing up in New York City, I worked part-time in the office of then-Congressman Fiorello LaGuardia, later the mayor of New York. They used to call that feisty, warmhearted man "the Little Flower" because of his first name-and because he was just over five feet tall. "Listen to me," LaGuardia said one day as we were riding up in the elevator. "I know what I'm talking about. Trust in God, believe in yourself and you can do anything,"

The elevator doors opened and he stepped out. He may be only five feet tall, I thought, but he's a giant of a man.

In those days I dreamed of becoming an artist. But I had a lot of self-doubt. I made up my mind to heed the Little Flower's advice and do something about those dreams.

In no time at all everything started falling into place. Though I was only 15, the Leonardo da Vinci School in Manhattan, normally open only to college age students, made a special exception for me. From there I went to study in Rome. Back in New York I started a long career as a textile designer. I met my husband, Donald, who was also a textile designer. I even wrote a successful book on photography. The Little Flower was right.

During all those years I had another dream. Ever since I was little, I loved the ocean. Sometimes l'd take the subway to Coney Island just to sit and listen to the waves lapping against the sand. I wanted a cottage beside the sea. So did Donald. A place we could go to every weekend from our apartment in Queens. For years we saved up to buy one. In 1960, about the time we were nearing retirement, we made our dream come true.

Ours was a darling house, a two-bedroom cottage in the village of Rocky Point on Long lsland's north shore. Perched some 15 yards back from the edge of a 100-foot-tall bluff, it looked out over the breathtaking blue vista of Long Island Sound. Down at the bottom of the bluff, we had our own little beach.

But no sooner had we settled in than we began hearing horror stories from our neighbors about the devastating effects of erosion on the bluffs that the houses were built on. In a storm, the wind, rain and high tides could chew away as much as 10 or 20 feet of property at a time. No one seemed to be able to stop it.

Then, barely two years later, in March 1962, it happened. A violent noreaster, coinciding with the highest tides of the month, slammed into Long Island. At our apartment in the city, Donald and I listened aghast at radio news reports of catastrophic damage: piers and houses swept away, the shoreline carved into new geographical contours.

For three days the storm lingered, and all the while we knew nothing about the fate of our little dream cottage. Finally, early Saturday morning, Donald and I got in our car and headed out to Rocky Point. I slipped my hand into his and tried to shake off the feelings of dread for what awaited us. Neither of us talked much until we arrived.

Our cottage, thank the Lord, was intact. But not so the bluff our house was built on. Torrential rains and high winds had washed away about 10 feet of our land. The pine tree, which had once yielded such lovely summer shade, now hung precariously over the edge. I clung to Donald as we neared the cliff's edge. We both gasped at the sight below.

Deep gullies had been etched into the bluffs, as if scored by some giant fork. Our small beach lay obliterated by piles of rocks and boulders, sand and mud, and large planks of washed-up lumber. Donald and I scrambled down ,and picked our way through the destruction.

Donald slowly shook his head. "Do you think we should sell out? Now?"

"No," I cried. Our home by the sea meant too much. We were both getting on in years. We had no children. This was the one dream we had worked for.

Trust in God, believe in yourself and you can do anything, I thought. That's what the Little Flower said.

"No, Donald," I cried again. "Let's not give up. Let's do what we can."

At that moment, I noticed them: millions of reed stems, huge masses of them, three to eight feet long, pencil thin and topped by a feathery plume. They'd been blown to our beach from a nearby marsh. I knelt and picked up a reed. I didn't know it then, but I'd been given a gift from the sea.

That day, Donald and I started in trying to save our house and our land. Every weekend after that, we worked. "With the washed-up lumber we built retaining walls and stuffed reeds and sand between them. We clawed our way up the steep sandy slopes dragging boards and sacks of reeds behind us. As we worked our way up the 100 foot bluff, we kept refining our method until, in the end, we had created a series of terraces, each filled with the reeds and topped with sand. But would our homespun system work?

The answer came the following year, on June 15, 1963, when another noreaster dumped more than four inches of rain in less than eight hours. Again there was massive destruction. Several houses went crashing down onto the beach.

But the bluff under our house stood intact. We lost not an inch of property.

And mainly it was thanks to the reeds. I was astonished by all the useful properties of the remarkable plants. When placed at the bottom of the retaining walls, they act as seals, preventing the sand from sifting out. Their hollow stems serve as tiny pipes perfectly suited for retaining rainwater-a miniature underground irrigation system. When they decay, they blend with the roots of plantings above, holding the soil together like millions of tiny fingers.

It was all so elegant in its simplicity. Now, instead of working against nature, we were working along with it. To my amazement, we had developed a method of bluff erosion control.

Soon I had all the neighbors using my technique. When it worked for them, I knew I was on to something. Word of what we'd accomplished spread all over Long Island's east end. I patented my method and wrote a book titled "How to Hold Up a Bank".

Then one day in 1970 a newspaper reporter told me about the plight of the lighthouse at Montauk Point.

Its construction had been commissioned by the Second Congress in 1792, authorizing George Washington to build the Lighthouse. When completed in 1796 it stood safe and secure above a 68 foot-high bluff known as Turtle Hill and set back safely from the ocean 297 feet to be exact. But after nearly two centuries of erosion caused by wind, rain and surf, the lighthouse stood a precarious fifty feet from disaster. A stone revetment built by the Army Corps of Engineers helped diminish the pounding surf, but big hunks of the bluff still came sliding down. Unless something was done quickly, the tower would go. And if that wasn't bad enough, the Coast Guard had announced plans to replace it with an ugly steel stanchion.

I made up my mind, then and there, that I wouldn't let this wonderful piece of our history disappear. Trust in God and believe in yourself... When I first wrote the Coast Guard, asking permission to try my "reed-trench terracing" method on what was left of Turtle Hill, they didn't take me very seriously. And the engineers and local old salts didn't help matters. No one can stop the wind, rain and sea, they said. How could I succeed where the Army Corps of Engineers had failed? How could a tiny old woman prevail where strong men had been beaten? How could I win where modern science had lost?

But when I sent along a copy of my book and patent, they realized I was serious. Since previous attempts at stemming the bluff erosion had failed, the Coast Guard had nothing to lose, so they wrote back with an enthusiastic yes. With that, Donald and I began to spend our weekends combing the Long Island shore for washed-up reeds, raking them up, stuffing them into potato sacks, and taking them out to Montauk Point, where we buried them in the terraces. The Coast Guard was supportive and local residents came to help. And all the while, Donald was the unsung hero, driving me the 120 miles to the point each week for nearly 20 years.

But I loved the work and I loved that old light. Up on the bluff, with the sun warming my back and the breeze cooling my brow, I thought about God, the sea and me. With God's help I had come to terms with nature--no longer was I battling it; I was using it, working with it. Often, before burying a handful of reeds, I'd stare at them with awe. Who would have dreamed that I, a city girl, would unlock their secret for erosion control?

The Montauk Lighthouse is safe for now and I hope for future generations. More work remains, but the lion's share of the job has been completed.

In the Bible, God often used the least likely person to accomplish His purposes. I believe He used me. After all, with trust in God and a belief in yourself, you can do anything.

Just as the Little Flower said.