Helen Keller

This section is being written in the sweet memory of Lady Helen Keller whose Birthday falls on 27th June.

At the age of 23 Lady Helen Keller had written three books and “earned a College Degree”. She said that “good and kind persons, normal or handicap, could do anything”. She had proved this truth for herself and everyone else.

Helen Keller was a woman from the small farm Town of Tuscumbia, Alabama, who taught the world to respect people who are blind and deaf. Born on June 27, 1880 in North West Alabama in the U.S.A. she loved animals also especially dogs. She owned a variety of dogs throughout her life. The first ‘Akita’ dog in the United States was sent to Helen from Japan in 1938. Helen visited 39 countries around the world during her lifetime. She was the first deaf and blind person to obtain a college degree. She graduated from Radcliff College, with honours, in 1904. Among her friends, there were many famous people, including Alexander Graham Ball, inventor of the Telephone, the writer Mark Twain, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

She quoted that “We are never really happy until we try to brighten the lives of others”.

(i) “The best and most beautiful things in the world can not be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart.”
(ii) “Life is either an adventure or nothing”.
(iii) “The handicap of the blind is not blindness, but the attitude of seeing people towards them.”
(iv) “I believe humility is a virtue, but I prefer not to use it unless it is absolutely necessary.”
(v) “What a strange life I lead a kind of Cinderella-life half-glitter in crystal shoes, half nice and cinders!”
(vi) “If I, deaf, blind, find life rich and interesting, have much more can you gain by the use of your five senses!”
(vii) “The most beautiful world is always entered through imagination.”
(viii) “Faith is a mockery if it does not teach us that we can build a more complete”.

Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in TUSCUMBIA, ALABAMA. Her father was Captain Arthur Henley Keller and mother was Kate Adams Keller. In 1882 after seeing her sight and hearing about her disability, one could understand what exactly the disease she had, but some people thought it was scarlett fever.

Anne Sullivan came to the Keller home (on March 3, 1887) and started teaching her letters by signing on to her and (“Manual sign language”). Anne made a “Miracle” break through, by teaching Helen that everything has a name by spelling W-A-T-E-R on to her hand and making water flow over her palm.

In 1889 Helen joined Perkins Institution for the blind in Boston, her first formal education. Helen becomes a member of the freshmen class of 1904 at Radcliffe College and in 1902 Helen wrote the story of my life with the help of an editor.

Helen became the first deaf-blind individual to earn a college degree (in 1904), graduating with honours from Radcliffe.
In 1909 Helen joined the suffragist movement, demanding the right to vote for women. In 1924 Helen and Anne together began their work with the American foundation for the Blind.

Helen, Anne and Polly Thompson started traveling abroad (for the first time in 1930) and visited Scotland, Ireland, and England for over six months. This trip was only the beginning of Helen’s overseas travels who visit 39 countries. In 1943, Helen visited blind, deaf, and disabled soldiers of World War II in military hospitals around the country.

In 1964, Helen was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour by President Lyndon Johnson. She expired in 1968.