1 Have
you ever wondered what it would be like to be deaf or blind or even
both? Close your eyes tight and put your fingers in your ears.
Everything is dark, and you can't hear. Can you imagine spending your
whole life like that? Helen Keller did, but she learned how to overcome
it.
2 Helen
Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. When she was
less than two years old, she got sick with something the doctors back
then called brain fever. No one expected her to live, but she did. The
only problem was that the disease had taken both her sight and her
hearing.
3 Her
family did not know what to do with her. They did not know how to teach
someone who could neither hear nor see. Other people said to send her
away, but her mother and father wanted to try and help her. They took
her all the way to Baltimore, Maryland to be examined by a specialist,
but he could not help her either. He sent the Kellers to see a man who
was doing good work with the deaf. His name was Alexander Graham Bell.
He told the Kellers how to find a teacher for Helen.
4 In
March 1887 when Helen was almost seven years old, Anne Sullivan arrived
at her home. Anne started working with Helen right away, but Helen did
not understand what her new teacher wanted. Anne started teaching Helen
to use her hands to speak in sign language. One day when Helen was
holding her hands under the gushing water pump, Anne spelled the word
"water" into her hand. Helen finally made the connection between the
finger movements in her hand and the things around her. Within just a
few hours, Helen could spell thirty words.
5 Once
Helen understood how to "talk" to the world, she started learning very
quickly. Anne taught her to read and write in Braille first and then
taught her to type on a regular typewriter. (Braille is a special kind
of writing which is made up of raised dot patterns. Each pattern is a
letter of the alphabet.)
6 Soon
people began to write articles about her, and she met many famous
people of the day. She even traveled to meet Alexander Graham Bell, and
she visited President Grover Cleveland in the White House.
7 In
1897, Helen went to college. She was the first deaf and blind person to
ever graduate from Radcliffe College. Helen wrote a book called "The
Story of My Life," and it has since become a classic. All this time,
she stayed with her teacher, Anne Sullivan. They were to remain good
friends for their whole lives. Even when Anne married, Helen continued
to live with them. Anne helped Helen travel as she spoke to people all
over the world. Anne Sullivan died in 1936. Helen's secretary, Polly
Thomson, continued to travel and live with Helen.
8 In
1957, a story of Helen's life, "The Miracle Worker," was performed for
the first time on TV. Two years later it was made into a Broadway play.
Helen's health soon took a turn for the worse. She suffered the first
of many strokes in 1961 and died in her sleep on June 1, 1968.
9 Helen
Keller helped change people's attitudes about the deaf and blind
through her courage and determination. In her own words she said, "The
public must learn that the blind man is neither genius nor freak, nor
an idiot. He has a mind that can be educated, a hand which can be
trained, ambitions which it is right for him to strive to realize, and
it is the duty of the public to help him make the best of himself so he
can win light through work."
