Helen Keller:

Overcoming Challenges In Life

by : Audrey Guo

Helen Keller is very famous. Sometimes people ask,Why is Helen

Keller so famous? Well, because being deaf and blind is hard to get
through in life. Having a smaller advantage of applying to a college and
getting a college degree is hard, if you could imagine not being able to hear
and see. She was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lived with her mother,
Kate Adams, her father, Arthur H. Adams, her sister, Mildred Adams,
and two stepbrothers. She was very important to the world because she
helped the deaf and blind people all over the world in different countries.
She wrote many books, articles, and gave many wonderful speeches.
You might ask,Was she born deaf and blind or did something cause
it? Well, Helen Keller was born a happy, healthy baby, and she was very
talented, even when she was still a small girl. She learned to talk around
6 months old and started walking around at age 1 . But the happiness of
this young child ended when she turned around 19 months old. She turned
very sick, and no one actually knows what the illness it is, people thinks
its scarlet fever or meningitis
,
but to everyones delight, she survived. The
only problem was, the illness left her completely deaf and blind.
For the next few years, Helen had a tough life. She really wanted to
communicate with her family, to ask for things, but couldnt. So
whenever her family didnt know what she wanted, she threw a tantrum.
Her mother found out that Helen needed some special help and good

education. So a student from Perkinswas asked to come and be the

teacher for Helen Keller, and the students name was
Anne Sullivan
.
Anne Sullivan was half blind, because of an illness, trachoma, that
happened when Anne was 5 years old. Anne was Helens teacher, friend,
and companion for 50 years. When Helen was 7, she learned nearly 60
hand gestures to communicate with her family! After months of working
with Anne Sullivan, Helen knew hundreds of words and even simple
sentences! Also, Anne Sullivan taught her to communicate with finger
spelling. By age 9, Helen learned how to speak and lip reading ( lip
reading is
(of a deaf person) understand speech from observing a speaker's
lip movements.
) When Helen grew older, Anne Sullivan taught Helen
braille, raised type and printing block letters.
How did Anne learn to teach deaf and blind people? Before Anne
went to teach Helen, Anne studied very carefully at a Perkins School for
the Blind student, Laura Bridgman, who had scarlet fever when she was
24 months old, and the illness continued for months, which left Laura
blind, deaf, unable to smell, and almost unable to even taste.
On the first day Anne came to Helens house, she brought a doll
with her, and as she put the doll in Helens left hand, she spelled the word
DOLL in Helens other hand. Helen was confused and threw a
tantrum. Soon, Anne found out Helen was completely spoiled. One
morning, while everyone was eating breakfast, Helen went around the
table and got all the food that she liked from her family and tipped all the
food that she hated to her family. Within weeks from the day Anne came,
she gained permission to move to a nearby cottage to teach Helen
separately.

Another time, Anne got a bucket of water from the well, poured it
on Helens hand and wrote WATER. From that day on, Helen noticed
that everything has a name. Within months working with Anne, Helen
knew how to help herself, also to communicate with her parents without
throwing tantrums.
Helen met many famous people in her life. She made friends with
author Mark Twain and inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Helen also met
Charlie Chaplin, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martha
Graham, India's former Prime Minister Nehru, the Queen of England,
and 12 U.S. presidents, from Grover Cleveland to John F. Kennedy.
After people around the world had read about Helens life, they
thought that Helen was brave, intelligent, courageous, inspiring,
amazing, successful, bright, determined, positive, and finally, helpful to
the world.

Work Site
Helen Keller FAQ
Perkins School For The Blind,
Accessed Feb 8, 2016,
http://www.perkins.org/history/people/helenkeller/faq