Helen Keller – an Inspiration

Helen Keller was born in 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama.  She was raised on the homestead built by her grandfather.  At the age of 19 months, she came down with an illness that left her deaf and blind.  Helen and her father sought out Dr. J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist for advice.  He, in turn, put them in touch with Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children.  Bell advised them to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind.  It was there Helen met Anne Sullivan, a 20 year old student who was also visually impaired.  Anne became Helen’s instructor and began a 49-year-long relationship.

Anne came to live at Helen’s home in 1887 and began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling words in her hand.  Helen learned to read Braille, a system of raised dots representing letters.  In 1888, Helen enrolled in the Perkins Institute for the Blind and then in 1894, she and Anne moved to New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf.  In 1896, Anne entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies and then on to Radcliffe College in 1990.  She was the first deaf blind person to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts Degree.

While in college, she wrote her first book, “The Story of My Life”.  It was the first of 12 books she would write.  Along with being a well-known author and speaker, she is also remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities.  In 1961, she suffered a series of strokes and in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Much of her later life was devoted to raising money for the American Foundation for the Blind.  She died in 1968 at her home in Easton, Connecticut. 

Some of her more famous quotes are:

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.  Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”

“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart”

Helen Keller’s birthplace is open to the public at Ivy Green, located at 300 W. North Commons in Tuscumbia, Alabama.  On weekends during June through late July the play “The Miracle Worker” by William Gibson is performed on the grounds and has been for over 30 years.