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As Helen grew older she learned how to see with her hands by feeling the object she was holding. To listen to people talk she put her fingers up to their lips and felt their lips move and their throats vibrate. Then she tried to copy the movements of their lips. When nobody could understand her she kicked, hit screamed and had a temper tantrum.
As Helen grew older her father wanted someone to
teach Helen how to read, write and talk. He asked
his friend Dr Alexander Graham Bell for some
advice. Dr Bell told him to get in touch with
Michael Anagnos. Michael found someone to
teach Helen. Her name was Annie Sullivan
Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama 27th June 1880. When she was two years old Helen became very ill. The illness left Helen blind and deaf.
When Annie arrived at the Kellers house she realised her first job was to tame Helen, who was more like a wild animal than a little girl. Annie took Helen to live with her in a house at the bottom of the Kellers garden. Helen and Annie became great friends.
Unlike Helen Annie did not grow up with her parents. They had fled from Ireland during the great famine. When Annie was five she began to suffer from an eye disease, trachoma, which gradually made her eyesight worse.
When Annie was eight her mother died and after living with relatives she was sent to live in the poor house with 900 other people. When she heard about Perkins Institution for the blind she wanted to go there more than anything in the world. In 1880 at the age of 14, she got her chance to go to Perkins Institution for the blind. The other girls laughed at her because they thought she was poor, ignorant and ill-mannered, but she showed that she had a mind of her own. She surprised the other girls by arguing with the teachers and the school's director Mr Anagnos. She had two operations to help her sight which helped her to read. Annie left school when she was twenty.
After school Helen went to Radcliffe College and she graduated in 1904. Helen began writing about blindness for magazines and soon people were writing to her for information about the blind and their needs. She gave lectures and soon she was giving lectures all over the USA with Annie. In 1921, the American Foundation for the Blind was set up and Helen gave lectures to raise money for it. In 1932 she lectured all over Europe.
Polly
Helen's Last Gift
