Helen Keller
Helen Keller was a very successful woman despite her deaf and blindness. Her illness started off with her having a very bad headache and a stiff neck. The doctors called it the fever of the brain and stomach. They believed she had scarlet fever. Then her mom and dad noticed that Helen wasn’t responding to her name when they called it. Helen would hardly blink even when she was in the bath. When she was 19 months old she lost her sight and hearing. Her doctor’s didn’t know if she would live. When she was six her dad took her to a doctor and he said that Helen would never see again. Then a teacher was offered to work with Helen and she took it. When Anne Sullivan came into Helens life Helen said “it’s the most important day I can remember in my life.” Anne came to Tuscumbia to teacher Helen. Anne started teaching Helen with a doll she would spell it in her hand then would have her touch the doll. The first word that Helen actually understood was water. Anne spelled it into Helens hand and then poured water into her hand. By the end of the night she learned 30 words. Anne would spell it into her hand and then made her spell it back into her hand. Helen wanted to speak when she was 10. Her first speech teacher was Horace Man. Helen had a bad behavior when Anne first came. Anne punished Helen by not “talking” to her by spelling word in her hands. Helen and Anne moved to a different house so Anne could work better with her and could help more. Helens behavior improved as there bond grew between them. When Helen was 13 Helen and Anne moved to New York city. Helen went to the Wright-humason school for the deaf. She was the only one that was blind and deaf. In school Anne read everything and signed everything she read in Helens hand. She became able to communicate with other students. She also was even learning how to speak. Helen said “some day I shall go to college.” and she went to college. Cambridge school for young ladies to prepare for Radcliff college. She went to Radcliff in the fall of 1900. After 25 years later Helen was able to speak in a voice that other people could understand. Anne was a teacher that never gave up on Helen. She was known as the miracle worker. Helen died a few weeks before her 88th birthday on June 1, 1968 at Acan Ridge. Her ashes were placed next to her beloved companions, Anne Sullivan Macy and Polly Thomson, in the st. Josephs Chapel at Washington cathedral.
