|
||||||||||||||||||
2002-2008© AMS Foundation, Inc. Webmaster- Cathleen Mansfield Burke |
||||||||||||||||||
Helen at age 10
|
Helen and Teacher (Annie) at Perkins School 1893.
|
||
Helen Adams Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 27, 1880. When she was a child she was very bright, even advanced. But at the age of nineteen months she contracted a fever that gradually took away her hearing, sight and eventually her speech. In a world of darkness and silence she became as she put it "a phantom." She often acted like a wild animal with no knowledge of right or wrong, no knowledge of anything. Her parents didn't know how to communicate with her nor could they control her.
|
Helen in cap and gown graduated, cum laude, from Radcliffe College in 1904.
|
||
On March 3, 1887, Annie Sullivan began teaching Helen. On Apri 5, 1887, Helen made the connection between the word Annie was spelling into her hand (water) and the feeling of water rushing over her hand. From that point on Annie and Helen embarked upon years of education that culminated in Helen graduating cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904. Helen, with Annie's assistance, wrote ten books and several articles. These two gifted and brilliant women went on to educate the public on issues concerning the deaf and blind. They lectured across the continent, made a silent film, worked the vaudeville circuit and worked for the American Foundation for the Blind. The love and devotion of Annie brought Helen into the world of a being a functioning person. After Annie's death on October 20, 1936, Helen's strength enabled her to continue working for the American Foundation for the Blind. With the help of Polly Thomson, (Annie's successor), Helen continued to travel the world inspiring people everywhere until she had a stroke in 1961. Helen died on June 1, 1968.
|
|||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|