Scarlet fever caused Helen Keller to go blind and deaf at only nineteen months old. Her parents couldn't communicate with her. Some thought her parents should giver her away, or simply abandon her because of this. Her parents never did such things. Instead, they wrote to a training school for the blind located in Boston, and asked for a teacher to be sent to them.
Anne Sullivan, the teacher that was sent, arrived in March of 1887. Sullivan had herself overcome many obstacles in her childhood and was eager to begin helping Keller.
Sullivan began teaching Keller to communicate by spelling out words in her hands them handing Helen the object to touch. By August, Keller had learned 625 words. Next, she learned braille and even how to use a typewriter!
Keller and Sullivan became extremely close and although Sullivan's eyesight was worsening, she simply couldn't end her tutorship. Sullivan even went with Keller when she entered college, and would sit next to her during lectures so that she could spell them into Keller's hands. In 1904, Keller graduated from Radcliffe College cum laude. Sullivan was by her side when she received her diploma.
The story My Life was Keller's first bestselling book. Keller also toured the country delivering lectures on problems handicapped people had. She raised money for the American Foundation fro the Blind, and tried to get pensions for the blind from legislature.
Sullivan died in 1936. Keller wrote this about her teacher and her dear friend: "I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that her footsteps of my life are in hers."
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