The Courage to Ask: How Getting Help Transformed Helen Keller’s Life

by Rochelle Melander

We imagine that writing and making art is easy.

Sometimes it is. An idea hits us and we execute it with ease.

But that’s very rare.

In fact, making art can be hard.

In his book, Several short sentences about writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg writes, “It’s hard work, and it’s been hard work for everyone all along.” (68)

Did you read that: “It’s been hard work for everyone all along.”

But for some people it’s even more difficult.

Imagine if your situation required you to get help to create?

That’s Helen Keller’s story.

She wrote, “I am not an easy, prolific writer. … When I remember the books I have written, it is with pain, not joy; for I cannot forget the stern labor that went into them.”

She developed a process that made it possible for her to write many books, even though she was both blind and deaf:

• She wrote and revised her words on a Braille typewriter.
• She’d then translate the words for Annie, who’d type them on a regular typewriter.
• To revise, her helpers would read her words back to her through fingerspelling. If she wanted to change a phrase, she’d fingerspell it back to them.

According to Dorothy Herrmann in Helen Keller: A Life, “Composing and revising mainly in Braille, she rewrite the book at least four times, and Annie, Polly, and Nella were constantly spelling back to her pages, paragraphs and chapters. To the end she was revising and rewriting and was only able to get a sense of what she had written when the Braille edition was printed.”

But Helen Keller’s willingness to get help didn’t end with her writing.

When Keller knew that advocating for the blind meant giving speeches, she was terrified. She didn’t like speaking.

After her first ever speech in Montclair, New Jersey, she wrote:

“Terror invaded my flesh, my mind froze, my heart stopped beating. I kept repeating, ‘What shall I do? What shall I do to calm this tumult within me?’”

Feeling like a failure, Helen burst into tears.

But Helen didn’t give up.

She’d already had her damaged eyes replaced with glass ones.

She was taking voice lessons and would take more.

She delved into speaking, giving lectures and performing on Vaudeville with Annie.

Then Robert Irwin, director of the American Foundation for the Blind, asked Helen to help the organization raise money. From 1924 to 1927, Helen traveled coast to coast and spoke at 249 meetings in 123 cities, reaching 250,000 people.

During this time, she also wrote two books.

Helen said, “Books are the eyes of the blind. They reveal to us the glories of the light-filled world, they keep us in touch with what people are thinking and doing, they help us to forget our limitations. With our hands plunged into an interesting book, we feel independent and happy.”

In 1937, Helen and her new assistant, Polly Thompson, traveled to Japan and throughout Europe to speak and raise money for the blind. During the war, Keller made several trips to army and navy hospitals to visit deaf and blind soldiers. From 1943 to 1955, “Helen traveled to thirty-five different countries on five continents to make presentations and raise money on behalf of the disabled. This involved countless hours of composing, memorizing, and practicing speeches.” (Herrmann, 145)

But she wasn’t done yet!

When Keller was 74, she took a 40,000-mile tour of Asia to help invite and inspire people to create facilities to help blind and deaf people.

Inspiring.

Making art is hard work. Getting it out in the world might be even harder work.

But with the help of others, we can do it.

What type of support would make the most difference in your life?

TL;DR

Writing is hard work.

It was especially challenging for the blind and deaf Helen Keller.

But speaking was more difficult.

Keller got help to write her books and improve her speaking.

Because of that, Keller reached many people with her words and advocacy.

What kind of support would make the most difference in your life?