Helen Keller, 87, Died June 1,1968

As a young girl I watched The Miracle Worker with Patty Duke and Ann Bancroft and fell in love with Helen who had overcome such tremendous obstacles in life. I read everything I could get my hands on that could tell me more about this remarkable woman.

For the first 18 months of her life Helen Keller was a normal infant who cooed and cried, learned to recognize the voices of her father and mother and took joy in looking at their faces and at objects about her home. 'Then,' as she recalled later, 'came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a newborn baby.'
The illness, perhaps scarlet fever, vanished as quickly as it struck, but it erased not only the child's vision and hearing but also, as a result, her powers of articulate speech. Her life thereafter, as a girl and as a woman, became a triumph over crushing adversity and shattering affliction. In time, Miss Keller learned to circumvent her blindness, deafness and muteness; she could 'see' and 'hear' with exceptional acuity; she even learned to talk passably and to dance in time to a fox trot or a waltz. Her remarkable mind unfolded, and she was in and of the world, a full and happy participant in life.