Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her father had been a captain in the Confederate army and was running a cotton plantation at the time. She was a normal child until age 19 months when she caught what doctors called “brain fever”. It was probably scarlet fever or meningitis. By age 6, she used about 60 hand gestures to communicate with her parents, but she was frustrated and often acted out. She would throw things and hit people. In 1887, at age 6, her parents learned of a deaf-blind girl who had been taught to communicate. They went to a doctor who put them in touch with Alexander Graham Bell. Bell was noted for teaching the deaf. He recommended the Perkins Institute for the Blind. The school provided one of its valedictorians, Anne Sullivan. Anne had been left almost blind at age 5. Subsequent operations had restored some of her sight. She was 20 when she met Helen. She brought a doll and hand-spelled D-O-L-L in Helen’s palm. Helen did not make the connection between objects and the spelling. She once broke a M-U-G in frustration. The eureka moment came when Anne signed the word water while Helen’s other hand was held under flowing water from a pump. Helen began to attend the Perkins Institute and went on to became an author, speaker, and advocate for the disabled. She and Anne were together for 50 years.
https://www.perkins.org/history/people/helen-keller/faq
https://people.howstuffworks.com/helen-keller.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller
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