Women Heroes

Think about small town Alabama in the 1880’s.  Your baby is born fine yet when she is 19 months old she is struck down with a terrible fever.  Suddenly she doesn’t react to sounds and looks at you but doesn’t seem to see you.  Her sweet babbling ends.  Think of the despair for that mom. 

Kate Keller was Helen Keller’s mother. What a hero!

From all viewpoints it was hopeless. Her baby was deaf, blind and soon mute. So little could be done.  Yet Kate searched and searched because she knew there had to be something that could be done for her daughter.  Finally she read about a deaf, mute and blind girl in New England who had been reached by Samuel Howe, head of the Perkins Institute.

Helen’s mother brought her to the Perkins Institute and she hired Helen’s teacher and lifelong companion, Anne Sullivan.  

When, at age 10, Helen learned of a child who was deaf, dumb and blind, but who had been taught to speak, her mother and Anne Sullivan brought her to Mrs. Fuller, a teacher who was able to teach Helen to speak.

Eventually, Helen Keller completed college, the first deaf and blind individual to do so and she became an international spokesperson for peace and for those with different abilities. The whole world opened before this child through the efforts of her mother, Kate Keller, a woman who didn’t give up hope.