WhatLIFE

Helen Keller, on account of a mysterious disease, turned deaf and blind when she was only nineteen months old. The memories of her earliest childhood were hazy, and she could not distinguish whether some events were real or just the product of her imagination. So, she was hesitant to write the story of her life. Some incidents stood clearly in her mind, while she had forgotten the others. So, she decided to write only those episodes that she considered most interesting and most important. 

Her family

Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in a small town, Tuscumbia, in Alabama.

The family on her father's side descended from Caspar Keller, a native of Switzerland, who settled in Maryland. One of her Swiss ancestors was the first teacher of the deaf in Zurich and wrote a book on their education. In her opinion, there was no king who had not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who had not had a king among his.

Her grandfather had large tracts of land in Alabama, and once a year he went from Tuscumbia to Philadelphia on horse back to purchase supplies for the plantation, and her aunt had many letters which gave charming accounts of those trips.

Her father, Arthur Keller, a captain in the Confederate Army, and her mother, Kate Adams, was his second wife and many years younger.

Up to the time of her illness that left Helen Keller deaf and blind, she lived in a small house consisting of a large square room and a small one, in which the servant lived. Her father had built this small house after the Civil War and went to live in when he married Helen's mother. It was completely covered with vines, climbing roses and honeysuckles. It was the favorite haunt of humming birds and bees.

The Keller homestead, where the family lived, was a few steps from the little rose bower. Its old-fashioned garden was the paradise of Helen's childhood.

Even before her teacher came, she used to go there, guided by the sense of smell, and found first violets and lilies. She also went there when she was angry, and found comfort in the cool leaves and grass. She could recognize by its leaves and blossoms the vine which covered the tumble-down house at the farther end of the garden. There were several types of beautiful flowers, but the roses were the loveliest of all. They used to hang from the porch, filled the air with their sweet scent, and felt so soft in the early morning.

Giving her a name

Helen was the first baby in the family. There was much discussion what name she should be given. Her father suggested the name of Mildred Campbell, an ancestor whom he highly esteemed. Her mother decided to call her Helen Everett, after her mother's maiden name. But when her father carried her to church he could partly remember it, when the minister asked him for it, he gave her name as Helen Adams.

As a baby

While she was a little baby, she insisted upon doing, what others did. At six months she could say 'how d'ye', and 'Tea' quite plainly. Even after her illness, she remembered the word 'water'. When she could make no other sound, she continued to call it 'w ah'. She could speak the word correctly when she learned to spell it. She could walk when she was just a year old. One day, her mother was holding her in her lap after the bath. She was attracted by the shadows of dancing leaves on the smooth floor. She slipped from her mother's lap, and almost ran towards them.

Her illness

The happy days did not last long. In February, when Helen was 19 months old, came the dreadful disease which closed her eyes and ears. The doctor thought she would not live. One morning the fever left her as mysteriously as it had come. There was much rejoicing in the family, but they did not know that she should never see or hear again.

The memories of those days are dim and hazy. She could remember how her mother tried to comfort her, and how she herself turned her face away from the light that grew more dim each day.

Gradually, she became used to the silence and darkness that surrounded her. But the beauty of nature, green fields, bright sky, and the flowers she had seen during the first nineteen months of her life could not be blotted out of her mind by her illness. They were hers forever.