"The World's First Lady of Courage" Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
“So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others’ ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness” Helen Keller
The Story of My Life
A Review of Helen Keller’s early Autobiography
By: James Romano
The most recent book I completed from The 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, is The Story of My Life by Helen Keller. The story of Helen Keller is an American success story, one of triumph over tragedy. Helen Keller overcame great challenges to become the leading advocate for the disabled. At the age of 18 months, she was struck down from an illness, many experts speculate meningitis, that left her both blind and deaf. Incredibly she overcame those terrible disabilities to become what Winston Churchill called, “The greatest woman of our age”. That is high praise coming from a patronizing egotist like Churchill.
There are many parts of the Helen Keller story that fascinate me. Helen overcame severe disability which we all cannot fathom but we admire. She had so many other strikes against her from the beginning, such as the fact that she was born a woman in a man’s world. She was from a rural area of Alabama. What I think is most impressive is Helen Keller was born in an era where the disabled were hidden away and ignored, pretended that they did not exist. Yet Keller’s family did not abandon her, they did not isolate her, they strove to help her. She overcame all this while not having a Helen Keller to emulate.
Helen Keller would go on to become “The World’s First Lady of Courage” who would help found the Helen Keller Institute, the American Federation of the Blind, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Keller was an advocate for disability rights, a suffragist, a pacifist and a socialist. She personally donated money to the NAACP and voiced her shame of the southern treatments of African Americans, all the more amazing as she came from Alabama and her father fought for the confederacy. After both world wars, she visited blinded soldiers. Keller embraced education and worked very hard to attend Radcliffe College in Cambridge, the women's university attached to Harvard University. Keller met every sitting president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson. Helen Keller traveled the world advocating for the blind and disabled.
The Story of My Life is the story of Helen’s first 21 years as told by her. As I said she was born in rural Alabama in 1880 in a town named Tuscumbia. Her father, Arthur Keller, was a confederate war veteran and Helen was a product of his second marriage. At 18 months she was struck down by the illnesses that left her disabled. Helen grew up frustrated and temperamental which is understandable. She was uncontrollable, a story in the book was how she almost hurt her infant sister. However, her parents were committed to helping Helen, a testament to how wonderful they were. Helen was taken to Johns Hopkins and eventually was sent to meet with Alexander Graham Bell (the inventor of the telephone) who was also a teacher of the blind. Keller says of Bell, “I at once felt the tenderness and sympathy which endeared Dr. Bell to so many hearts, as his wonderful achievements enlist their admiration…He held me on his knee…He understood my signs, and I knew it and loved him at once.”
Through Bell, Keller went to the Perkins Institute in Boston where eventually she would be paired with her teacher, Anne Sullivan. They would be constant companions from 1887 to Sullivan’s death in 1936. Keller writes that “The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, come to me”. Sullivan taught her the alphabet and a way to communicate by spelling words in her hands. Her love for Anne Sullivan was clear throughout the book, “My teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her.”
The book does describe her life in Alabama, the beautiful scenery. Helen loved the nature of her home, one special item was Keller describing her love of the smell of honeysuckle. My grandmother loved the smell of honeysuckle and my grandfather would cut some and bring home for her. Keller employed her remaining speeches to enjoy nature, “Few know the joy it is to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful motion of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze.”
She worked hard to obtain her education and overcome her slow start in life. In 1890 Helen learned to speak which seems like an amazing task to me. However, the one subject that vexed her, “Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like.” I identify with her dislike for Math. Keller was a gifted linguist speaking French and German. She discusses reading Heidi in its original German. Eventually Helen would be accepted at Radcliffe and graduate.
I firmly believe every school student should read The Story of My Life to understand overcoming adversity. I remember as a child having a fascination about Keller from my "history cards" that I recieved in the mail. My grandfather was struck blind by a stroke when i was in 7th Grade and at times I would read the paper to him or sit and listen to my grandmother read to him. When I was a Capitol Hill Staff member, I embraced the legislative agenda of the American Federation of the Blind.
The book is a good read at approximately 100 pages. Through the book she mentions great stories such as her walking through “Sleepy Hollow”, and Dickens’ American Notes. During his trip to America, in 1842, Charles Dickens met a woman who was blind and deaf but was educated. Helen's mother read that passage and gained hope for her daughter insisting that Helen could be taught. Keller met with many famous people of her day, for example, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain, and Charlie Chaplin.
The Story of my Life was part of the basis for The Miracle Worker, the Academy Award winning film starring Ann Bancroft (winner, Best Actress) and Patty Duke (winner, Best Supporting Actress). Helen Keller was one of the greatest people the United States of America ever produced. Today, the reason why we have become so advanced with the rights of the disabled was because of the ardent advocacy of Helen Keller. She was a godsend to this nation and this world. Please read this inspiring book. Keep Reading My Friends…
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