To the Editor:
Helen Keller, a blind-deaf pioneer, is my choice for Women’s History Monday this March. She overcame many obstacles in her lifetime. An illness at 19 months of age made Keller deaf and blind.
She was born in Alabama, June 27, 1880.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was also active in teaching the deaf. With his assistance, the teacher, Anne Sullivan, was chosen to be a life-long teacher for Keller.
Sullivan taught Keller fingerspelling into her hand. Bell became a life-long friend of Keller and Sullivan.
On many occasions, Keller helped to raise money to send deaf-blind students to school. Keller felt that before she was in communication with human language at 7 years old, she was like a phantom.
Keller could read and write four languages to enter college: French, German, Latin, and Greek, besides Braille.
She graduated from Radcliffe College with honors. She wrote 13 books and raised money for the American Foundation for the Blind.
Remarkably Keller loved life. She was an idealist. She was taught religion by a friend named Bishop Brooks.
Mark Twain was a friend. Also, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote poetry that Keller liked, was her friend.
Keller, most of all embodies courage; she even rode a tandem bicycle and rode a horse. Thank God for her parents Arthur H. and Kate Keller, and teacher Anne Sullivan. Keller died in 1968.
Two books about Keller are “The Story of my Life,” an autobiography, and “The Miracle Workers,” a play by William Gibson.
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