NOTE: Our News and Views stories are contributed by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor. 

Dr. Frank Mayfield was touring Tewksbury Institute when, on his way out, he accidentally collided with an elderly floor maid. To cover the awkward moment Dr. Mayfield started asking questions.

‘How long have you worked here?’

‘I’ve worked here almost since the place opened,’ the maid replied.

‘What can you tell me about the history of this place?’ he asked.

‘I can’t tell you anything, but I could show you something.’

With that, she took his hand and led him down to the basement under the oldest section of the building. She pointed to one of what looked like small prison cells, their iron bars rusted with age, and said, ‘That’s the cage where they used to keep Annie Sullivan.’

‘Who’s Annie?’ the doctor asked.

Annie was a young girl who was brought in here because she was incorrigible—nobody could do anything with her. She’d bite and scream and throw her food at people. The doctors and nurses couldn’t even examine her or anything. I’d see them trying with her spitting and scratching at them.

‘I was only a few years younger than her myself and I used to think, ‘I sure would hate to be locked up in a cage like that.’ I wanted to help her, but I didn’t have any idea what I could do. I mean, if the doctors and nurses couldn’t help her, what could someone like me do?

‘I didn’t know what else to do, so I just baked her some brownies one night after work. The next day I brought them in. I walked carefully to her cage and said, ‘Annie, I baked these brownies just for you. I’ll put them right here on the floor and you can come and get them if you want.’

‘Then I got out of there just as fast as I could because I was afraid she might throw them at me. But she didn’t. She actually took the brownies and ate them. After that, she was just a little bit nicer to me when I was around. And sometimes I’d talk to her. Once, I even got her laughing.

One of the nurses noticed this and she told the doctor. They asked me if I’d help them with Annie. I said I would if I could. So that’s how it came about that. Every time they wanted to see Annie or examine her, I went into the cage first and explained and calmed her down and held her hand.

This is how they discovered that Annie was almost blind.’

After they’d been working with her for about a year—and it was tough going with Annie—the Perkins Institute for the Blind opened its doors. They were able to help her and she went on to study and she became a teacher herself.

Annie came back to the Tewksbury Institute to visit, and to see what she could do to help out. At first, the Director didn’t say anything and then he thought about a letter he’d just received.

A man had written to him about his daughter. She was absolutely unruly—almost like an animal. She was blind and deaf as well as ‘deranged.’

He was at his wit’s end, but he didn’t want to put her in an asylum. So, he wrote the Institute to ask if they knew of anyone who would come to his house and work with his daughter.

And that is how Annie Sullivan became the lifelong companion of Helen Keller.

When Helen Keller received the Nobel Prize, she was asked who had the greatest impact on her life and she said, ‘Annie Sullivan.’

But Annie said, ‘No Helen. The woman who had the greatest influence on both our lives was a floor maid at the Tewksbury Institute.’

HELEN KELLER QUOTES: “Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” ~ Helen Keller 1880-1968. 

“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all, the apathy of human beings.  ~ Helen Keller. 1880-1968. “

“Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder!

Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction!”

Be heroes in an army of construction. Helen Keller 1880-1968. ~ Source: Told to an audience at Carnegie Hall one year before the United States entered World War I. From ‘Declarations of Independence’ by Howard Zinn, page 75.

https://michaelwalshbooks.wordpress.com/GREAT SAYINGS AND STORIES OF HISTORY Michael Walsh Compilation. A quiet room in a rustic cottage overlooking a pastoral scene who would you choose as your soul companion? Be inspired by hundreds of wise comments uttered by history’s greatest thinkers. https://michaelwalshbooks.wordpress.com/