Ask Keller

Are you curious about some aspect of Helen Keller's life, and haven't been able to find the answer to your question? Ask Keller Johnson-Thompson, Helen's great-grandniece. This monthly column features real questions from readers like you.

In 1903, while a junior at Radcliffe College, Helen Keller first heard her calling. One afternoon, she received a visit from an enthusiastic young man named Mr. Charles F. F. Campbell, whom she had met while he was still a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Helen Keller knew of his famous father, Sir Francis Campbell, an American blind man who was educated at the Perkins School for the Blind. Sir Campbell then founded the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind in England and was knighted by the King for his service to the sightless. Young Mr. Campbell wanted Helen Keller to join an association that had just been formed by the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston to promote the welfare of adults who were blind. Helen did so, and soon afterward she appeared before the legislature with the new association to urge the necessity of employment for the blind and to ask for the appointment of a State Commission that would make them their special care. The commission was appointed, and although Helen did not know it at the time, the curtain rose on her life's work.

Most people express surprise that Helen Keller did enjoy the outdoors. The sweet voices of the earth reached to her through avenues other than hearing and sight. When Helen was in the woods, she loved to put out her hand and catch the rustling of a small creature in the leaves. She enjoyed following dark roads that smelled of moss and wet grasses, and hill roads and deep valley roads so narrow that the trees and bushes touched her as she passed.

She often stood on little bridges and felt the brook flowing under it with her hands filled with tiny minnows.

Many times, Helen would sit on a fallen tree so long that many shy animals of the forest would step across her feet not realizing that she was there. She would sit still as could be and listen for the sounds that she understood—she would imagine the sounds of leaves, grass, and twigs creaking faintly when birds alight on them. She also could imagine the grass swaying as a small insect brushed its wings against it.

The smells and vibrations of the forest were of great relaxation to Helen Keller and she thoroughly enjoyed every minute she was able to spend with nature.