Helen Keller

The uniquely remarkable life of Helen Keller

Keller is remembered for her advocacy for persons with blindness and other physical disabilities. But her social and political advocacy may not be so well known, it wasn’t to me. In politics, she could be considered an early progressive, having joined the Socialist Party of America. She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara

illustrated by Sam Rudd

a Little People, BIG DREAMS book

We all began life as children, often with a dream we hoped to achieve. Some people overcome monumental challenges to achieve their dream and Helen Keller was one of them.

This children’s book from Quarto Publishing Group-Frances Lincoln Children’s Books tells her story differently from what you have heard before.

I reviewed a complimentary advance digital copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. I’m using affiliate links in this post to help fund this blog.

Helen Keller, the disabled child

Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara begins Helen’s story with her childhood in Alabama, raised by loving parents, facing the challenge of raising a child rendered deaf and blind from a serious illness as an infant. Despite their attention and her own innate resourcefulness to cope with this devastating disability, she remained isolated and frustrated-that is until Annie Sullivan, a teacher for the blind, came into her life.

With Annie’s help, and eventual friendship, Helen learned to understand words and to read Braille. She also learned to speak from a teacher of deaf persons. With these skills, she went to college, becoming the first deafblind person to earn a college degree and wrote a book about her life.

Helen Keller, the advocate

But Helen’s remarkable life did not stop there and neither does this story. Ms. Vegara chronicles Helen’s life as an activist and advocate for other people with disabilities, for women’s right to vote, and for African Americans’ civil rights. She travelled the world giving speeches, met United States presidents and other famous people.

The pictures are attractive to children without looking childish. Mr. Rudd’s colorful illustrations capture Helen’s personality and interactions with various people who played important roles in her life- her Black childhood playmate who was the daughter of the family’s cook, and adult friends Mark Twain and Alexander Graham Bell.

Parents will find this book a valuable resource to introduce this remarkable woman to their children. The author tells Helen’s story tastefully, never minimizing the severity of her condition but not emphasizing it over her achievements.

Helen Keller’s complex life

Reading this children’s book prompted me to reflect on what I already knew about Helen Keller. I was in high school when Keller died in 1968 and despite the lack of streaming television, internet, and social media I was familiar with her as a famous living person.

Even if you’re younger, you may know of Helen Keller from the movie, The Miracle Worker. The 1962 original version starred Patty Duke as Helen and Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan, both won Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.

Ms. Duke also acted in a TV movie version in 1979; in it she played Annie and Helen was portrayed by Melissa Gilbert. (Depending on your age, you may remember her from the TV show Little House on the Prairie; she later portrayed Anne in The Diary of Anne Frank.)

But still some things in the book surprised me. I didn’t know that Helen, born in 1880, grew up in the American south, Alabama. This was barely 20 years after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, which supported the Southern economy. Her father, a newspaper editor, was a captain in the Confederate Army. Her mother’s father was a Confederate general. “The family lost most of its wealth during the Civil War and lived modestly.”

Keller is remembered for her advocacy for persons with blindness and other physical disabilities. But her social and political advocacy may not be so well known. In politics, she could be considered an early progressive, having joined the Socialist Party of America. She was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

On social issues, she favored women, African Americans, workers, and the poor. She was a suffragist and pacifist, and supported civil rights and the NAACP.

From an early age, she championed the rights of the underdog and used her skills as a writer to speak truth to power.
AFB website

Helen Keller wrote her own life story as well as other books, essays, and magazine articles. Her autobiography, The Story of My Life, was published in 1903. It has been translated into 50 languages..

Helen’s other published works include Optimism, an essay; The World I Live In; The Song of the Stone Wall; Out of the Dark; My Religion; Midstream—My Later Life; Peace at Eventide; Helen Keller in Scotland; Helen Keller’s Journal; Let Us Have Faith; Teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy; and The Open Door. In addition, she was a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers.

“The Helen Keller Archives contain over 475 speeches and essays that she wrote on topics such as faith, blindness prevention, birth control, the rise of fascism in Europe, and atomic energy. Helen used a braille typewriter to prepare her manuscripts and then copied them on a regular typewriter.”

Helen Keller’s legacy shines through her work with the blind; she worked for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) from 1924 until 1968. During this time, she toured the United States and traveled to 35 countries around the globe advocating for those with vision loss and raising funds for the organization.

source: Helen Keller archives

For this post I used information from The Helen Keller Archival Collection at the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), the world’s largest collection of writings, letters, speeches, photographs, artifacts, audio-video, and other materials relating to Helen Keller.

Little People, BIG DREAMS

Little People, BIG DREAMS is a best-selling series of books and educational games that explore the lives of outstanding people-designers, artists,scientists and activists. They all achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream.

This empowering series of 101 books offers inspiring messages to children of all ages, in a range of formats. The board books use simple sentences, perfect for reading aloud to babies and toddlers. The hardback versions present expanded stories for beginning readers.

Parents and grandparents can create a collection of the books by theme. Matching games and other fun learning tools provide other ways to make the lives of these role models accessible to children.

Inspire the next generation of outstanding people who will change the world with Little People, BIG DREAMS!

exploring the HEART of health through inspiring people

Thank you for reading this post about Helen Keller’s challenging life, information that can inspire you to turn your health challenges into health opportunities. If you are a parent or grandparent, introduce your kids to her and other people like her. Who knows, they may be the next world changers.

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6 steps to save your sight

An eye doctor, either an optometrist or ophthalmologist, can detect early signs of eye disease, even before you notice a problem.

Keep reading

by Aletha Cress Oglesby, M.D.

6 steps to save your sight

An eye doctor, either an optometrist or ophthalmologist, can detect early signs of eye disease, even before you notice a problem.

When you think about preventing illness, do you focus on the worst diseases, those that threaten life- cancer, heart attacks, stroke, violence. But non-fatal conditions can also “threaten life”, putting the quality of our lives in danger.

Vision impairment may contribute to severe and significant loss of function and well being.

If you include people whose vision problems can be corrected with glasses or contacts, it may be the most common disability in the world. But even excluding those people, vision loss still affects millions of people in the world.

7544656342_0888fb4638_b — diagram of the eye

Courtesy: National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health (NEI/NIH)

(This post includes several affiliate and non-affiliate links for your reference and to support this blog. )

key facts about vision loss

285 million people are estimated to be visually impaired worldwide
39 million people are blind and 246 million have low vision.
About 90% of the world’s visually impaired live in low-income settings.
82% of people living with blindness are aged 50 and above.
Globally, uncorrected refractive errors are the main cause of moderate and severe visual impairment.
Cataracts cause most blindness in middle- and low-income countries.
The number of people visually impaired from infectious diseases has decreased in the last 20 years .
80% of all visual impairment can be prevented or cured.

Braille system: A system of raised-dot writing devised by Louis Braille (1809-1852) for the blind in which each letter is represented as a raised pattern that can be read by touching with the fingers.

The four most common refractive errors are:

A refractive error is a common eye disorder. It occurs when the eye cannot clearly focus the images from the outside world, causing blurred vision.

myopia (nearsightedness): difficulty in seeing distant objects clearly;
hyperopia (farsightedness): difficulty in seeing close objects clearly;
astigmatism: distorted vision resulting from an irregularly curved cornea, the clear covering of the eyeball.
presbyopia: which leads to difficulty in reading or seeing at arm’s length, it is linked to ageing and occurs almost universally.

Refractive errors are commonly corrected with glasses or contact lenses, or refractive surgery.

Glasses or contact lenses for myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism need to be made with a prescription based on the results of an eye exam by a professional.

Glasses for presbyopia, commonly called reading glasses, can be purchased online or in many retail stores and get be fitted by trying on different strengths until you find one that works the best. Most people use them for close work like reading, sewing, crafts, drawing, and games.

I use contacts to correct my vision impairments-myopia, astigmatism, and presbyopia. One eye is corrected for distance and the other corrected for near . I can read, drive, watch television, dance, take care of my home and work without difficulty.

macular degeneration

My husband fights to protect his vision. He had severe myopia which was partially corrected with surgery. He subsequently developed early onset macular degeneration, a condition which destroys the retina of the eye causing loss of central vision.

Progression of the degeneration is slowed with regular injections of a drug originally developed to treat cancers. (If a shot into the eye sounds painful, it is.) He has had removal of cataracts. So far he is able to function visually, but he appreciates his sight and does whatever he can to preserve it.

Globally, the causes of blindness are

cataract (47.9%) the leading cause of visual impairment in all areas of the world, except for developed countries.
glaucoma (12.3%),
age-related macular degeneration (AMD) (8.7%),
corneal opacities (5.1%),
diabetic retinopathy (4.8%),
childhood blindness (3.9%),
trachoma (3.6%)
onchocerciasis (0.8%).

In many developing areas of the world, public health measures aim to eliminate the source of the infections that cause trachoma and onchocerciasis, and save the sight of millions of people.

basic supplies for eye exams in a developing country — Eye doctors on a volunteer medical team used these supplies to do eye exams in a remote area.

You can protect and save your sight with these steps-

(The following sections contain several affiliate links; using these links costs you nothing extra and helps support this blog. thank you. )

An eye doctor, either an optometrist or ophthalmologist, can detect early signs of eye disease, even before you notice a problem. Go here for an explanation of what each of these professionals do .

an older man having a simple eye test for glasses — A patient reading a chart to determine the appropriate strength for reading glasses. A missions team distributed glasses at no charge in this Central American country.

Smoking constricts the blood vessels supplying the eye with oxygen rich blood, thereby suffocating the tissue. This contributes to cataracts and macular degeneration.

Here are some surprising reasons to avoid smoking

Sun exposure also contributes to cataracts so wearing UV protective sunglasses is recommended.

Macular degeneration has been associated with low intake of vitamins A, C, and E, omega 3 fatty acids, lutein and zinc. The best source for this is food. For people who already have macular degeneration or who are at high risk, eye doctors may recommend a vitamin supplement which provides these nutrients.

Diabetes contributes to blindness by damaging the retina. Good control of blood sugar helps to prevent or slow this, as well as regular monitoring and laser treatment when needed.

Vision loss is one of the most common complications from diabetes and one that can be prevented or minimized. If you have diabetes, take it seriously and work with your doctor to manage it well.

You may have diabetes and not know it. Certain symptoms may indicate diabetes; read about them here.

If you have not been tested for diabetes, ask your doctor if you should. It’s a simple blood test called Hemoglobin A1c

Other chronic conditions associated with vision loss are heart disease and stroke, hypertension, high cholesterol, sickle cell disease, and multiple sclerosis.

In addition to wearing sunglasses when outdoors, appropriate protective lenses should be worn during sports. People who work at jobs involving power tools or chemicals need protective goggles in case of splashes or flying bits of material. Children, adolescents and young adults are most likely to lose vision from traumatic injuries.

I know how tempting it can be to cut corners when cleaning, storing, discarding and wearing contacts. But when used incorrectly, contacts can cause more problems than they solve. Contact lens wear can cause trauma, infections and dryness that can damage the cornea. Don’t risk turning correctable vision problems into long term harm. Get the details on caring for contacts here and use only products recommended by your eye professional.

Helen Keller

lost her sight but gained a mission

The Story of My Life is an autobiography of Helen Keller, a woman who was both blind and deaf since infancy. Her remarkable story was told in a movie, the

The Miracle Worker was a movie about Keller for which Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke as Helen won Oscars for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress

The uniquely remarkable life of Helen Keller

Keep reading

February 2, 2023February 1, 2023

sharing the HEART of health

What did you learn from this post? If you haven’t had an eye exam in the past 1-2 years, consider making an appointment soon. No matter how young or old you are it’s not too early or too late to start protecting your sight.

Please use the highlighted links to get more information about any of the topics I mentioned.

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