On June 27, 1880, in a farmhouse called Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama, a healthy baby girl named Helen Keller was born. She crawled, giggled, and even said her first words on schedule. But when Helen was 19 months old, a sudden fever - probably scarlet fever or meningitis - left her completely deaf and blind. She remembered almost nothing of light or sound. For five years, she lived in silent darkness, growing wild and frustrated, hurling dishes off the table when no one understood her.
Then, in March 1887, a 20-year-old teacher named Anne Sullivan arrived from Boston. Anne had been mostly blind herself as a child and knew sign language. Day after day, she tapped letters onto Helen's hand. One April morning at the family water pump, Anne pumped cold water over Helen's hand while spelling W-A-T-E-R into her palm. Suddenly, Helen understood - those finger taps were names for things in the world. By bedtime that day, she had learned 30 words. Within months, she could read braille. By age 10, she was learning to speak out loud. At 24, she became the first deaf-blind person ever to earn a college degree, graduating from Radcliffe with honors.
Helen went on to write fourteen books and travel to 35 countries, giving speeches and raising money for people with disabilities. She met every U.S. president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson. In 1964 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her old water pump still stands in Alabama, dripping quietly in the sunshine - the spot where one little girl discovered that words could open the world.
