Another Celebrity

My blog on meeting famous people at Sun Valley has received the most clicks of all my blogs to date. But whoever selects which ones are to reach more than a dozen other countries, has not opted for the series about my military service. Some political reason, do you suppose? I wonder what success the Company is having in selling its products through my blogs. Why don’t I get a percentage? Whatever, it's fun to see those countries' names in the list.

There’s another celebrity I’d like to tell you about, though there isn’t enough space in one blog. I shall leave you to the Internet to read more about her and the world-wide fame she eventually garnered. When Helen Keller came to Nashville to speak to the Legislature, my freshman classmate, Jessie Mae Mercer, and I skipped a college class to go to a hotel downtown where Keller stayed, and meet her. This was sometime after her first teacher Miss Anne Sullivan had died and another companion, Miss Polly Thomson, had joined her daily life.

At the age of 19 months, Keller was stricken with what was called at the time brain fever which left her both deaf and blind before she had begun to speak. When she was about six or seven, Miss Sullivan, who had been blind but who had regained some sight through operations, came to Keller’s home in Alabama and began a life of staying with Helen all the time and teaching her to read, write, speak, and behave. Keller became a writer (check the Internet) of books and articles for magazines. She graduated from Radcliffe College, received numerous awards during her lifetime, and eventually in her later years came to Nashville with Polly Thomson.

Jessie Mae and I went up to the hotel suite and found it full of guests meeting Keller. She shook hands with us, delighted to know we were students, speaking through her fingers dancing hieroglyphics in the hand of her companion who interpreted for us. She could also place her fingers on Thomson’s lips and read the spoken words. Later we received in the mail the requested autographs in manuscript writing, perfectly straight on an invisible line.

Helen Keller spent her life working for others, especially the blind, through her writings and speeches. She died at age 88, having shown the world there are no boundaries to courage and faith. Her life story won Oscars for actresses Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft in “The Miracle Worker.” A great DVD to pick up on your way home.

♥