Keeper Purdy was well known for his hard work despite his daunting disability – Purdy had lost an arm in an accident in the engine room of the lighthouse tender Azalea some years earlier. The Vineyard Gazette editions of May, 1928 noted an incident that tells of Purdy’s determination: “George W. Purdy, one-armed keeper of East Chop lighthouse, has previously astonished his acquaintances with his engineering feat, but his latest one is the more remarkable of any yet performed. Supplies for the light are landed on the beach at the foot of the high bluff on which the lighthouse is situated. All along the shore of the government reservation is a heavy wall of loose boulders, weighing from one to several hundred pounds each. Placed in an unbroken line to prevent the sea from wearing away the bank, they lie at the water’s edge and prevent boats from landing. Because of this, it has been necessary for the lighthouse tender’s boat to land on a privately-owned beach, from which the supplies had to be carried over to the government beach and thence up the bank by a flight of stairs. As this made much extra work for Mr. Purdy, he has been engaged in building a boat landing during the past winter, and the completed job is a thing to marvel at. Several boulders, weighing hundreds of pounds, were moved by Mr. Purdy, who worked with his spade and a huge wooden pry to accomplish it. Nearly anyone who considers the prodigious amount of labor necessary in such construction will agree that Mr. Purdy’s one arm is worth more than two as used by the average man.”