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Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Hey, I'm Eli, I'm Diana, and we are

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Speaker 1: back here with another exciting episode of Ridiculous Romance. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the show. If you're new, welcome, We're getting new

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Speaker 1: listeners all the time and we love you so much.

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Speaker 1: You were great today, by the way. Yeah, hell yeah.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you heard about us from a recent episode of

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Speaker 1: The Daily Zeitgeist, which yeah, I was fortunate enough to

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Speaker 1: guests start last week on their show, and Diana did

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Speaker 1: just yesterday as of the air date for this episode. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was really fun. I had a great time talking

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Speaker 1: to them. Yes, Jack and Miles are awesome. Yeah. If

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Speaker 1: you don't listen to The Daily zeit guys, a good

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Speaker 1: way to get some get some comedic, comedic take on

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Speaker 1: the news it is. You know, I really prefer it

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Speaker 1: to just like the Twitter scroll in the morning where

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Speaker 1: I'm like, what's trending? Oh? Horrible, terrible, not funny? Uh

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Speaker 1: oh a celebrity name? Oh god, why is this celebrity trending?

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Speaker 1: Oh it's just their birthday, you know that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: It's good stuff. Yeah, it's good time. Go check out

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Speaker 1: our episodes if you haven't, and if you have heard them,

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Speaker 1: and that's why you're here then, we're so happy to

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Speaker 1: have you yea. And of course our returning listeners as

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Speaker 1: well are the nearest and dearest to our hearts. Oh

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Speaker 1: my god, yeah, I love you. You look great today

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Speaker 1: as well. Hell yes, uh, what have we been up to?

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Speaker 1: We haven't checked in lately, I guess not. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: we we started watching Why the Last Man is one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite comics from back in the day two two,

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Speaker 1: I think it came out and I love it. It's it.

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Speaker 1: It's a good time right now for people who liked

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Speaker 1: comic books in two thousands two. I just say, because

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Speaker 1: Watchman came out was amazing, and like Sandman is about

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Speaker 1: to come out and it looks really cool. I hope

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Speaker 1: it's good. Fingers crossed And yeah, we got Why the

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Speaker 1: Last Man. Preacher was pretty good too. I know we

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Speaker 1: kind of fell off there, but that first season was

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Speaker 1: pretty dope, so anyway, I don't know. I was just like,

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Speaker 1: that's the thing about all these things that we read,

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Speaker 1: swapped Mick novels amongst all our friends to get through

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Speaker 1: all of them because we're broke and now they're all

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Speaker 1: TV shows. But anyway, all out aside Ashley Romans, who

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Speaker 1: plays Agent three is incredible. Uh in five episodes. I'm

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Speaker 1: just like, so good, this is so good. The acting

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Speaker 1: has been really impressive. Diane Lane legend Dane Lane, legendary,

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Speaker 1: Diane Lane Lane, who looks incredible by the way, Like

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Speaker 1: her skin is so smooth. I'm just like, what are

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Speaker 1: what moisturizer? What what is it? Just tell me what

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Speaker 1: it is. She's just got that Lane look, she's got

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Speaker 1: that Lane look. But we're not here to talk about

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Speaker 1: Diane Lane, sadly. No. Uh, We're here with a brand

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Speaker 1: new episode today. But first I think we got to

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Speaker 1: check inside this deep little mail bag here. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: looks like we've got time for a mail called Awesome.

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Speaker 1: We've got a review from a user called little park

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Speaker 1: Bow on Apple Podcasts that we wanted to share. They said,

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Speaker 1: I was skeptical at first, but the first episode I

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Speaker 1: listened to about Maha would your long Corn was well

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Speaker 1: done and as a thie person knowing what I believe,

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Speaker 1: to just assume that the hosts are not Tie did

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Speaker 1: a pretty good job at pronunciations. Only constructive criticism is

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Speaker 1: episodes run a little too long. Great concept, though, kudos

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Speaker 1: to the creators. Thank you little pork back. So that's

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Speaker 1: so great to hear. Really, that's the thing. We don't

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Speaker 1: want to just read every review blow and smoke up

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Speaker 1: our ass. But were the main ones to be honest,

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Speaker 1: because feeling but correct, we are not tie. We are

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Speaker 1: not tied. So but that did mean a lot to us,

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Speaker 1: um that we got this pronunciations right, because we definitely

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Speaker 1: spent some time on YouTube trying to make sure, yes,

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Speaker 1: we got them all right, because you don't want to,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, and I'm very glad we did

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Speaker 1: because I was like really pronouncing it phonetically a lot

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Speaker 1: of the names, and I was very off. You know,

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Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I really thought that this would be

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Speaker 1: a lot closer to the truth, but I was wrong.

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Speaker 1: So I'm very glad we checked about and I'm glad

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Speaker 1: that it worked out. And you know, sometimes I think

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Speaker 1: these episodes run a little long too, I mean, as

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Speaker 1: the as one of the researchers, one of the speakers,

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Speaker 1: and the editor. Yeah, sure, these episodes weren't a little long.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you know, we just get too into it, That's

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Speaker 1: how it is. We love finding out about the story,

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Speaker 1: so we get real into the research and then when

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Speaker 1: we're telling the story, we get real into it. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: some of them are a little long. It's fair. It's

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Speaker 1: a fair constructive criticism. And very nicely said, trust me,

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Speaker 1: they're not as long as what we recorded. Yes, that's

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Speaker 1: very true. I think we've got time for another little

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Speaker 1: reach down into the mail bag here and yeah, here's

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Speaker 1: one at Emma Lennon three. On Twitter, she commented on

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Speaker 1: our post about the Jackie Robinson episode Jackie and Rachel Robinson,

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Speaker 1: we did good. I love that episode. Uh that I

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Speaker 1: mentioned branch Ricky sounded like Kevin Klein character Kevin Alert

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Speaker 1: and because Kevin could play anything, and it just sounded

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Speaker 1: like a part he'd play in the movie. Well, actually,

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Speaker 1: in the movie forty two that starred Chadwick Boseman may

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Speaker 1: he Rest in Peace as Jackie Robinson, that character branch

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Speaker 1: Ricky was played by Harrison Ford, everybody's favorite curmudgeon. There

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Speaker 1: you go. Yeah, totally. I could see branch Tricky being

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Speaker 1: played by Harrison Ford. Absolutely just the right kind of grump.

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Speaker 1: Yeah for brand Tricky to be like, you know what,

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Speaker 1: I'm unders do whatever I want to do and y'all

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Speaker 1: can follow a line. I see it, I said, we

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Speaker 1: need to watch that movie because I love you. We

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Speaker 1: haven't watched again, but yeah, really want. We are a

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Speaker 1: house that loves Chadwick Boseman, so that's a good one.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, thank you, Emma Lennon three. If you're telling

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Speaker 1: us to watch that movie because I do, you want

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Speaker 1: to see it? Yeah. So we're here today to talk

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Speaker 1: about the famous, the legendary, the household name we all

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Speaker 1: know and love, Helen Keller and her lover, Peter Fagin.

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Speaker 1: You probably don't know by name. I sure didn't, so yeah.

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Speaker 1: Helen Keller was only nineteen months old when she got

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Speaker 1: so sick that she became deaf and blind, and for

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Speaker 1: much of her childhood she could only communicate with her

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Speaker 1: family with a variety of home signs and gestures, until

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Speaker 1: a young teacher named Anne Sullivan arrived and taught Helen

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Speaker 1: ways to communicate, opening up her world. But many of

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Speaker 1: us only know about Helen's childhood. Very few people know

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Speaker 1: how she spent the rest of her life or what

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Speaker 1: she used her hard won communication skills for. Helen was

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Speaker 1: a prominent activist. She was a socialist. She wrote several

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Speaker 1: books and articles. She did lecture tours to advance her

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Speaker 1: various causes, and she fell in love too. So let's

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Speaker 1: learn about the real Helen Killer and her star crossed lover,

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Speaker 1: Peter Fagin. I'm ready, let's go. Hey, they're French. Come listen. Well,

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Speaker 1: Elia and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking,

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Speaker 1: all romantic tips. It's just about pridiculous relationships. A lover

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Speaker 1: might be any type of person at all, and abstract

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Speaker 1: concert at a concrete wall. But if there's a story

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Speaker 1: with the second glance, ridiculous roles. A production of I

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Speaker 1: Heeart Radio. Helen was born in Tescumbia, Alabama, in eighteen eighty.

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Speaker 1: When she was nineteen months old, she was stricken with

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Speaker 1: what her doctors called an acute congestion of the stomach

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Speaker 1: and brain. So today they're kind of like, could be meningitis,

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Speaker 1: rebella scarlet fever, something els. You know, they're trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out what it might have been. But at the

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Speaker 1: time they were just like, there's demons in your skin,

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Speaker 1: you know, something like eighties practice, Like I guess I'll

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Speaker 1: bleed you out and then give you some cocaine see

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Speaker 1: if anything changes. But whatever it was, it did leave

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Speaker 1: the previously perfectly healthy and precocious baby, both blind and deaf,

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Speaker 1: and as Helen described it in her autobiography, she quote

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Speaker 1: lived at sea in a dense fog. Boy, that is evocative.

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Speaker 1: I know it. Like just those words, I feel like

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Speaker 1: I know exactly what she means as well as I can.

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Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, yeah, she's good at that. Surprise spoiler alert,

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Speaker 1: she's a good writer. The writer is a good writer.

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Speaker 1: Helen and her family both kind of described her as

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Speaker 1: being sort of feral in her childhood, Like she'd kind

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Speaker 1: of wander around. She'd grab food off of their plates

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Speaker 1: and like eat with her hands, and she would scream,

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Speaker 1: she would slap their faces. She quote cried for no reason,

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Speaker 1: which has like, I think you have a great reason

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Speaker 1: to cry. Any child has a good reason to cry.

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Speaker 1: First of all, any child has a good reason to cry.

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Speaker 1: And if any child has a good reason to cry,

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Speaker 1: I feel like it's Helen Keller who could not see

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Speaker 1: her hear or anything or communicate. Yeah yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was like, so something, you know, she was missing something

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Speaker 1: she needed and she wasn't getting something she needed, and

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Speaker 1: so she was crying for oh, great reasons. But I

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Speaker 1: guess to them it appeared to be for no reason

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Speaker 1: at all. I don't know. She just started crying out

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Speaker 1: of nowhere. Again, we were busy with other things. You

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Speaker 1: think if she wanted something, she'd let us know. Come on,

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Speaker 1: come on now. It's not like she had no communication

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Speaker 1: at all. Kind of As I mentioned, she did have

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Speaker 1: some home signs, which are basically they're signs that are

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Speaker 1: understood by your immediate family. But they're not like a

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Speaker 1: formalized language, you know, like they're very personal. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So she had about sixty home signs that that everyone

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Speaker 1: in the house understood. She could tell which family member

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Speaker 1: was which based on the vibrations of their footsteps. So

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Speaker 1: she had kind of an idea like who's in the

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Speaker 1: room and stuff. I mean, you know, she's she's got

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Speaker 1: some rudimentary stuff getting down. You know, I can tell

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Speaker 1: when you're coming sound of your footsteps. I knew you

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Speaker 1: were going to say that when I wrote that. Dear listeners, Diana,

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Speaker 1: if you don't know, is a tiny girl. Hunter pounds soaken, wet.

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Speaker 1: She will rattle your neighborhood. She has walking from the

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Speaker 1: living room, put all hundred pounds down on each foot.

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Speaker 1: I think we've found a couple of hundred extra because

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Speaker 1: I have lost fragile things off of shelves. That's nice,

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Speaker 1: walk by to get a glass of water, listen it.

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Speaker 1: You know, I wanted. I wanted a presence, all right,

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Speaker 1: found one. I actually don't know why I walk like that.

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Speaker 1: Do people know why they walk the way they walk? Oh,

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Speaker 1: there's a whole like body language studies about how you

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Speaker 1: walk and what it means. Yeah, definitely. I guess I

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Speaker 1: should look that up and see what it says about me.

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Speaker 1: I feel like they'd charge us double. We had to

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Speaker 1: put her on the sprung dance floor. Geez alright. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: so she's she can definitely tell when I'm coming, and

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Speaker 1: she knows when you're coming to more likely if she's

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Speaker 1: met you before, she's figured some way of of you know,

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Speaker 1: identifying the people around her. Um. So there's some rudimentary stuff,

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Speaker 1: as I say, but she's still mostly stuck in her

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Speaker 1: own head, you know, for the most part, and she

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Speaker 1: you know, they can't figure out how to help her

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Speaker 1: progress in the house, so her parents were looking for solutions.

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Speaker 1: Of course, her mom had heard about this woman named

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Speaker 1: Laura Bridgeman, who was the first deaf and blind person

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Speaker 1: to get a full education. They wrote to a specialist

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Speaker 1: in Baltimore, who referred them to a man named Alexander Graham.

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Speaker 1: Bell might have heard of him if you've ever made

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Speaker 1: a phone call before. He was working with deaf children

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Speaker 1: at the time, and he suggested to them that they

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Speaker 1: should contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, where Laura

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Speaker 1: Bridgeman had been educated, and that director of the school

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Speaker 1: asked his star pupil, recent graduate and valedictorian and Sullivan

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Speaker 1: to be Helen's instructor and Sullivan the Miracle Worker. You

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Speaker 1: might know her as the Miracle Worker if you've ever

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Speaker 1: seen that play, the famed show stage play I saw.

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Speaker 1: I think I saw it in high school at like

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Speaker 1: Thespian conference or something, but I blocked so much of

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Speaker 1: that out. I remember with the whole thing and I

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Speaker 1: and you know what, there's a bunch of theater kids

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Speaker 1: out there being like, yeah, there's been conference. That's where

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Speaker 1: we got to cut loose and do drugs and have sex.

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Speaker 1: And you know that was just not my experience. My

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Speaker 1: Thespian conference was I saw a bunch of mediocre high

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Speaker 1: school theater shows. UM performed in a few mediocre high

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Speaker 1: school theater shows and then went home. So once again,

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Speaker 1: everybody in high school was having more fun than was having.

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Speaker 1: You'll never have to go back, I hope not if

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Speaker 1: I end up as a high school drama teacher. Something

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Speaker 1: went wrong. Yeah, right. Shout out to the high school

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Speaker 1: drama teachers out there who are uh, you know, creating

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Speaker 1: the ellis of the future right now, for better or words. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe it's something for the best. It's for the better

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Speaker 1: because it means that there's money for a drama teacher

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Speaker 1: freaking school. Yeah. So yes, And Sullivan was asked to

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Speaker 1: be Helen's instructor, and it sounds like a great choice honestly.

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Speaker 1: When you look at Anne Sullivan's life, her early life

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Speaker 1: was pretty marked with tragedy. When she was five, she

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Speaker 1: got a bacterial and action called trachoma, which caused painful

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Speaker 1: infections in her eyes and made her partially blind before

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Speaker 1: she had learned to read her write. When she was eight,

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Speaker 1: her mother died of tuberculosis, and two years later her

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Speaker 1: father abandoned the family, just abandon his children because he

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Speaker 1: was like, I don't think I can raise them on

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Speaker 1: my own, which made me be like, oh, so they

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Speaker 1: should raise themselves. On their own. That's a better option.

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Speaker 1: I don't talk about privilege. Right to go, Nah, not

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Speaker 1: doing this. Yeah, by he's like, oh, things are difficult.

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Speaker 1: You know what I'm gonna do. Walk the funk away,

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Speaker 1: no more problems, dust off the hands, and to go. Boy,

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Speaker 1: my life is so much better now. I can't wait

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Speaker 1: to make some new problems for someone else who really

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Speaker 1: dodged a bullet. They're raising that terrible family I didn't want, jeez,

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Speaker 1: So yeah, he's stucked. And Anne and her younger brother James,

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Speaker 1: who was also disabled, they both went to go live

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Speaker 1: in this poorhouse basic It was a hospital for orphaned children, UM,

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Speaker 1: particularly if they had any kind of disability, mental or physical.

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Speaker 1: And only four months later James would also die of

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Speaker 1: tuberculosis at the hospital, and she underwent like a number

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Speaker 1: of unsuccessful operations to restore her eyesight, which is like

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Speaker 1: sounds just just frustrating to have to go through all

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Speaker 1: that and then not get anything out of it. Um

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Speaker 1: And she got sent to the Perkins Institute after the

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Speaker 1: hospital she was in, which was called Tewksbury Almshouse, was

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Speaker 1: accused by Massachusetts Governor Benjamin Butler of abusing and neglecting

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Speaker 1: their patients, of killing orphaned babies and selling their bodies

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Speaker 1: to doctors for dissection and study, and even of cannibalism.

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Speaker 1: So he was making a big stink about Twokspaire Almshouse,

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, what happened at Dukesbury eating babies, selling babies? Well,

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Speaker 1: apparently that was not unusual. And you know, eighteen eighties

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Speaker 1: was a prime time for grave robin for science purposes,

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Speaker 1: so it was not unusual for that to happen, actually,

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Speaker 1: and especially among the poor. If you were poor and

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Speaker 1: you died, that's probably what happened to you. You know,

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Speaker 1: Dr Frankenstein's out there looking for subjects, dig holes. I mean,

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Speaker 1: apparently a lot of his more outrageous claims were disproven,

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Speaker 1: so it sounds like maybe he was just trying to

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Speaker 1: kick up a big old dust to get the real problems.

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Speaker 1: That they weren't sexy enough on their own or something.

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Speaker 1: But the conditions there were still extremely bleak and abusive.

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Speaker 1: And Anne wrote about it. She she you know, and

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Speaker 1: kind of in support of his his whole investigation, and

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Speaker 1: she's like, oh, yeah, it sucks there. I lived there.

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Speaker 1: It sucks. And Tewkesbury underwent several inspections, and one of

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Speaker 1: the inspectors was the head of the Perkins School. So

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Speaker 1: and like pleaded with him to please let her come

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Speaker 1: study there, and he said all right, And so she

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Speaker 1: arrived at the school in eighteen eighty. So ask never

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Speaker 1: heard ask I like that he was inspectors there, and

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Speaker 1: She's like, get me out of here, please look around you.

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Speaker 1: So at the Perkins Institute, teachers found Anne to be

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Speaker 1: rude and defiant. They called her miss Spitfire, which I

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Speaker 1: mean would be a total fucking badge of honor. Please

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Speaker 1: call me now. But back then they was like, probably

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Speaker 1: like a scarlet letter. She had rough manners, but she

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Speaker 1: was also super smart. She graduated in seven the valedictorian

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Speaker 1: of her class. And maybe in talking to Helen's mother

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Speaker 1: and father about her, the director of the school might

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Speaker 1: have been like, I've got an idea of this child,

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Speaker 1: and we'll know how to deal with her. Yes, And

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Speaker 1: you know, he might have been right, because An knew

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Speaker 1: something about being lonely, about being isolated, about not having

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Speaker 1: anyone to talk to. When she arrived in Alabama in March,

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Speaker 1: she wrote, The Loneliness of my Heart was an old

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Speaker 1: acquaintance anyway, I had been lonely all my life. My

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Speaker 1: surroundings only were to be different. She arrived at Helen's

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Speaker 1: house on March five, a day Helen called my soul's birthday. Hm. Wow, yeah,

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Speaker 1: banner banner day, red letter day. Oh yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: and I get it, just like finally somebody is here

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Speaker 1: to like freaking change my life. So An almost immediately

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Speaker 1: got into an argument with Helen's parents because Helen's parents

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Speaker 1: Helen's family, you know, I mentioned they were kind of

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Speaker 1: rich Southerners. Well, yeah, no surprise. They had had enslaved

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Speaker 1: people and they had fought for the Confederacy during the

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Speaker 1: Civil War. So Anna is still a spitfire. She was

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Speaker 1: fully willing to enter into a battle with her employers

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Speaker 1: at their home about this serious issue, which I think

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Speaker 1: is kind of awesome. Hi, thanks so much for hiring me.

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Speaker 1: First of all, I got something to say. But she

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Speaker 1: did manage to really connect with Helen. I mean eventually,

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Speaker 1: it took. It did take a few weeks to make

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Speaker 1: a significant breakthrough with Helen because and first of all,

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Speaker 1: was like, she needs to not be wandering around and

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Speaker 1: grab it. She's a human being, Like she can't be

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Speaker 1: wandering around like this. She's got to be taught manners,

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Speaker 1: and she can learn manners. It's totally fine and it's doable.

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Speaker 1: So she's going to sit at the table and she's

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Speaker 1: going to eat with a knife and fork, and she's

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Speaker 1: going to you know, like act like a normal child

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Speaker 1: as much as possible. And she was very strict about that,

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Speaker 1: and that made Helen really frustrated. Of course, she had

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Speaker 1: not been doing that before. Um. And also she was

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Speaker 1: constantly grabbing Helen's hand and like spelling words into her palm.

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Speaker 1: The first words she spelled for her was doll d

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Speaker 1: O L L because she had brought her a doll,

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Speaker 1: so she spelled it and then she hands her the doll. Um.

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Speaker 1: But Helen didn't know what words were really at this

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Speaker 1: point because again she was just a baby really when

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Speaker 1: she lost those senses. Um. She had not been taught

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Speaker 1: to speak, to read to you know, she didn't have

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Speaker 1: any of that concept brain at all. The idea of

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Speaker 1: assigning a word to a thing, yeah, was foreign to her.

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Speaker 1: So I imagine a lot of her home signs were

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Speaker 1: like verbs like get you know that, I need to eat,

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Speaker 1: drink something like that, but not so much like this

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Speaker 1: is a glass, this is a thing. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's that's so interesting to think if you didn't if

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Speaker 1: you didn't know, God, it's hard to even wrap your

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Speaker 1: brain around because you do know words, right, I mean

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Speaker 1: because we learned them as babies, so we don't remember

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Speaker 1: not having that concept. Our brains form around that concept, right.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, So when she's grabbing Helen's hand and spelling

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Speaker 1: words into her palm, Helen just thought it was a

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Speaker 1: fun game she was doing, and she immediately started trying

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Speaker 1: to mimic the hand movements herself. But again, she just

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Speaker 1: thought it was a fun things she would go and

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Speaker 1: show her mom. She thought was like a fun thing

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Speaker 1: they were doing together, So she didn't know what they

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Speaker 1: meant at all. She she called it monkey like imitation herself.

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Speaker 1: So she's like, I really, I was just like cool whatever.

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Speaker 1: But Anne was always constantly grabbing her hands spelling something,

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Speaker 1: grabbing her hands spelling something, and so they without being

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Speaker 1: able to understand what she was doing. Obviously, it was

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Speaker 1: a very frustrating experience. She threw lots of tantrums. They

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Speaker 1: had a lot of clashes, She broke some stuff, like

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Speaker 1: she was they were having a hard time for a

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Speaker 1: little while, but then finally one day and followed Helen

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Speaker 1: out of the house and they ended up at the

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Speaker 1: water pump. And this, if there's any part of this

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Speaker 1: story that you've heard, it's probably this. While Helen held

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Speaker 1: her hand under the flow of the water and spelled

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Speaker 1: out the word water in her palm, and like magic,

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Speaker 1: it just clicked that it has a name. Is the

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Speaker 1: famous scene from the Miracle Workers. But yeah, it's just

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Speaker 1: the suddenly the idea just all came together. Things have names,

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Speaker 1: words have meaning. Helen describes the moment herself. She said,

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Speaker 1: I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions

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Speaker 1: of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness, as

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Speaker 1: of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought, And somehow

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Speaker 1: the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew

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Speaker 1: then that W A T E R meant the wonderful

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Speaker 1: cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living

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Speaker 1: word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing. The idea just suddenly, like a spark of

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Speaker 1: conscious thought, just exploding into this whole realm of knowledge

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Speaker 1: that you hadn't realized before. That's so cool, it's so fascinating. Well,

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Speaker 1: and for someone to be old enough to be able

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Speaker 1: to remember that happening, I think, like I said, we

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Speaker 1: all have that moment, but we can't remember it because

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Speaker 1: it happens when were really young. So it's kind of

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Speaker 1: cool to have someone tell you what that would have

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Speaker 1: been for your little toddler self when you would have

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Speaker 1: learned that concept. Does that make sense? Yeah, definitely, So

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Speaker 1: that's kind of cool too. And again, just a great writer,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, after that, she became a voracious learner. She

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Speaker 1: almost exhausted and being like spelled this, what's this? What's this?

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Speaker 1: What's this? All over the house. She'd be like, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, it's a table, you know whatever? Right, she

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Speaker 1: was suddenly why why why? I? And all over the house.

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Speaker 1: But Anne was only when it could answer her. So

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Speaker 1: Anne got tired, but Anne loved it. She talked a

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Speaker 1: little bit about her educational how it changed, because she

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Speaker 1: said she showed up with a very strict curriculum in

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Speaker 1: mind of like we're going to do this for a

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Speaker 1: certain period of time, and this is how we're going

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Speaker 1: to do it. And then she was like I quickly

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Speaker 1: realized that was not working. It was just causing a

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Speaker 1: lot of frustration. If I just follow what interests her

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Speaker 1: and tell her about it, she'll be excited to learn

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Speaker 1: about it. And she was like, honestly, it's not just

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Speaker 1: a deaf blind child that can learn from that that method.

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Speaker 1: That's the way to teach kids, period because if they're

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Speaker 1: as long as they're engaged, they're learning. But once they're done,

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Speaker 1: they're done. You can't force it anymore. And I thought

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Speaker 1: that was really interesting because again, she's teaching in eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty we're still learning a lot about education. You know.

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Speaker 1: We talked about that kind of in the Margaret Wise

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Speaker 1: Brown episode, and um, I thought it's so interesting that

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Speaker 1: she's kind of saying what we're all saying now. And

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Speaker 1: I think she's a contemporary of the modest story. Then

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Speaker 1: you started the Mones story school, so makes sense. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: so AND's like killing it telling her all these words.

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Speaker 1: Within six months, Helen had learned five seventy five words,

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Speaker 1: she had learned some multiplication tables, and she had learned

423
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: the Brail system. She could read, and she had written

424
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 1: her first letter as well. I mean, Cohen from nothing

425
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: to like just having the concept of words, to all

426
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 1: that is like pretty quick, that's amazing progress. She's only seven,

427
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 1: by the way, at this time. And so Anne told

428
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:10,479
Speaker 1: her parents she should really be educated at Perkins, Um,

429
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 1: she should go to that school now she's she's ready

430
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 1: for school. And so the next year they went together

431
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 1: and accompanied Helen back to the school. She continued to

432
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: kind of head up her instruction, and Helen got real famous,

433
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: real fast for how bright she was, how much she

434
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 1: had overcame, you know, and how smart she was and

435
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:34,640
Speaker 1: how quickly she learned and everything, and so she kind

436
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 1: of became a symbol for the school and she raised

437
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,119
Speaker 1: a lot of money for them, like indirectly she you know,

438
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: just through her accomplishments, um, until they became the most

439
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: sought after school for blind people in the country. But

440
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: when Helen was eleven, she wrote a short story called

441
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: The Frost Giant. I'm sorry you waited it like like

442
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: Loki of Yodenheim. Yeah, she was writing a story about

443
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: Loki of Yoda and how Odin rescued him as a baby. No,

444
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was about something completely different, um, But no,

445
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: she was actually accused of plagiarizing this story whatever it was.

446
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: And this totally piste off an that they would come

447
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 1: for Helen like this, so much so that she left

448
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: the school and never taught there again. She was like,

449
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 1: excuse me, you're gonna be talking about Helen like that,

450
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: thrown shade at my Helen right, goodbye. Hell No, still

451
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: had ties with the school, but she just was like,

452
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:40,159
Speaker 1: I'm good with you. We're good. And Helen had to

453
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 1: go before a panel of suspicious teachers who did not

454
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: believe her at all, including the director of the school

455
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,679
Speaker 1: who had made her this symbol of the school's quality,

456
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: like he had been a passionate advocate for her. We're

457
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 1: teaching Helen Keller here, everybody come to this school. Gather round.

458
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: Look how great she's doing. Look at this amazing work

459
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: we're doing with Helen Killer And then as soon as

460
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: things turned he turned real quick. He called her a

461
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: living lie. I mean, you're eleven years old and you're

462
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: going to call me a living lie. I'm sorry. Have

463
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: you been telling this living lie all the time that

464
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: you were using me to get people to come to

465
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: your school, sir? I feel like probably several people out there,

466
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: eleven year olds were like, oh, they lie, sure, which

467
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 1: is fair. Also, if an eleven year old plagiarizes. You

468
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 1: don't like drag them before a board. This is an

469
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: educational opportunity, and let me teach you about plagiarizing. Why

470
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: it's bad at any rate, especially because apparently was a

471
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 1: little gift for the director, like she wasn't turning it

472
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: in for a grade. Oh my god. So this Slate

473
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: article titled did Helen Keller really do all that? Says

474
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: that Mark Twain, who was later a close friend of Helen's,

475
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 1: called the panel a bunch of decayed turnips case looking

476
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 1: for a new and Philly Congress is full at thecaide turnups.

477
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: It also says that the experience taught Helen how easily quote.

478
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: The same people who had put her on a pedestal

479
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 1: found it to turn on her cruel Yeah, welcome to

480
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: the world, Helen, Man, it's so true. So at fourteen,

481
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: she and Anne moved to New York so she could

482
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,679
Speaker 1: attend the right Humiston's School for the Deaf. In nineteen hundred,

483
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: she was admitted to Radcliffe College at Harvard University. Hey,

484
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:34,400
Speaker 1: that's would have been the same school shortly before Elizabeth Marston. Yeah,

485
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: that's from William and Elizabeth Marston and Olive Byrne, who

486
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: all created Wonder Woman together. Yeah yeah, check out that

487
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: episode if you haven't heard it, it's a hot one. Yeah.

488
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: Mark Twain helped arrange her tuition because he introduced her

489
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: to this like super rich oil magnate or whatever who

490
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: paid for everything. Thanks Mark Twain. Way to get some

491
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 1: some way to ring money out of an oil magnate.

492
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: First something good. In nineteen o three, she published her

493
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: famed autobiography, The Story of My Life, um, and it

494
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: was very well received. As you know, I'm sure many

495
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: of us were assigned it in school probably or whatever. Um.

496
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: She graduated in nineteen o four, becoming the first deaf

497
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: and blind woman to earn a Bachelor of the Arts degree.

498
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: And Helen was really determined to communicate as much as

499
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: possible and as normally as possible. She did learn to speak.

500
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: She went to speech therapy so she was able to

501
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: use her voice. She learned to hear people using the

502
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: Twodoma method, which is where the deaf blind person would

503
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 1: put their little finger on the speaker's lips and there

504
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: are other three fingers along the speaker's jawline, so while

505
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: you're speaking, they can kind of feel the puffs of

506
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: air coming out of your lips. They can feel the

507
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: vibrations of your vocal cords and kind of get a

508
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 1: good idea of what you're saying, which sounds I mean,

509
00:29:55,800 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: it sounds like you would never be able to know

510
00:29:57,600 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 1: what was happening. I don't know if I could get

511
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 1: much out of that, but it worked. It's one of

512
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: those things that I'm like, I would do it once

513
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, no, this is impossible, I could

514
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: never hear. But you know, months and months of practice

515
00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: you can learn lots of crazy shit. Oh yeah, totally.

516
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,719
Speaker 1: It was. It was called tactle lip reading as well

517
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: as the Tudoma method. It's rarely used today, Um, no surprise. Yeah.

518
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: People don't like having fingers in their face, right, especially now.

519
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: I'd be like, please, don't put your hands. And of

520
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: course Helen also learned finger spelling in the manual alphabet

521
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: as well. So now that she was out of school,

522
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: Helen and Anne purchased a house in Rentham, Massachusetts that

523
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: they could live in and work in. This household grew

524
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:44,719
Speaker 1: by one as Anne's suitor, John Albert Macy joined them.

525
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: It's kind of a bonus Romance for y'all and and

526
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: John as well. John was a Harvard instructor and a

527
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: literary critic, and in nineteen o two he helped Helen

528
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: edit her autobiography. For over a year. He asked Anne

529
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: to marry him, but she kept refusing. He was younger

530
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: than her, and she seems to have had kind of

531
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: those maybe the stronger personality of the two, right. And

532
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: she was Catholic and he wasn't. And though she wasn't

533
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:17,120
Speaker 1: very religious, she was still reluctant to break that sacrament

534
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: of marrying outside of Catholicism. They really drill it India,

535
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 1: those Catholics, don't they They do. All my Catholic friends

536
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: are like, even though I am not religious at all,

537
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: everything they taught me is very deep, deep, and not break.

538
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: I recently saw a beautiful picture of a married couple

539
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: who had to be buried in separate cemeteries because they

540
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: were Catholic and Protestants, and so is a wall between

541
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: the Catholic side and the Protestant side. So they bought

542
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 1: their plots right up against the wall. They built like

543
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,560
Speaker 1: a tower, and it has two hands reaching out and

544
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 1: holding clasping over the wall and it's beautiful, and I'm like,

545
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: you should just let them be buried together. The hoops

546
00:31:57,680 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: they make you jump through. They had to do a

547
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 1: whole freaking sculpture projects since they can be like, also,

548
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: we were married, even though there's a wall between. Let's say,

549
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 1: let's say the idea is like God would be angry

550
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: if a Protestant was buried in the Catholic graveyard. Do

551
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: you think God is like, Oh, they pulled one over

552
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: on me. I know they figured it out. Oh God,

553
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: bless him, me bless him now. Of course, both John

554
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: and Anne were very devoted to Helen, but and probably

555
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: also worried about how her marital status would change her

556
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 1: in Helen's relationship. Even though Helen was like, go for it,

557
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: do it, girl, go get married, she once told Anne, oh, teacher,

558
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: if you love John and let him go, I shall

559
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 1: feel like a hideous accident. I mean yeah, Which is

560
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: a great point because the truly the relationship between Helen

561
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: and Anne is the real story, because they had a

562
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: very deep bond as far as anyone can l of course,

563
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: I mean they're not here to talk about it, but

564
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: they really loved each other a lot, and there was

565
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: kind of like such a closeness that I think Anne

566
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: was really worried that John would never really be a

567
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 1: part of that and she could never let him in

568
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 1: like that, you know. So I think she was also

569
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: worried that he would always feel like an outsider in

570
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 1: his own house. It's fair, but I also see like

571
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 1: Helen saying this here. It sounds like she's saying, don't

572
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: let me, of course be different, don't let me be

573
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just your friend. We do this thing together,

574
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: but you can have a relationship that that makes me

575
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: feel like a monster if I'm holding you back. I'm

576
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 1: just a regular person. Everything's going to be okay, Go

577
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: get married, yea dear thing. Yeah. And Anne does seem

578
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: to have been deeply in love with John and her

579
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: letters to him, she wrote, dearest heart, I am always

580
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: a little shivery when you leave me, as if the

581
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 1: spirit of death shut his wings over me. But the

582
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: next moment, the thought of your love for me brings

583
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: a rush of life back to my heart. I sat

584
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: a long time thinking of you and trying to find

585
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: a reason for your love for me. How wonderful it

586
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: is and how impossible to understand love is the very

587
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:15,719
Speaker 1: essence of life itself. Reason has nothing to do with it.

588
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: It is above all things and stronger, lovely, And she

589
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: was funny too. She also wrote, how haven't you had

590
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: enough of New York idling about clubs and going to

591
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 1: the operas and so very much fun is it? Aren't

592
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 1: you longing to come back to your twelve or fifteen

593
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 1: hours of work every day? And me adorable? Now? Eventually

594
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: an acquiesced and they married in May of nineteen o five.

595
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,879
Speaker 1: John became Helen's editor and manager, and he negotiated terms

596
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 1: for her domestic and foreign publications. In nineteen o nine,

597
00:34:55,680 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: Helen joined the Socialist Party, and John a big socialist,

598
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: and he would correspond regularly with other Socialist writers like

599
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 1: Upton Sinclair. And However, probably because of her difficult and

600
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:12,839
Speaker 1: impoverished upbringing, was kind of skeptical that there was any

601
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: chance of society changing in any significant way. But Helen

602
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: had grown up more comfortable in this wealthy southern home.

603
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: You know, they had enough money to meet their needs anyway,

604
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: so she was a little more idealistic. She would correspond

605
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 1: regularly with Eugene Debs and even learned German brail so

606
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: that she could read Carl Marks, so she was never

607
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: a communist. She said, like that people who didn't like

608
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 1: socialism had heard of Carl Marks but didn't understand him

609
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: or hadn't read it at all, which is not untrue.

610
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: But yeah, she was never a communist, even though she

611
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: was monitored by the government at some point, but it

612
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:57,880
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly amongst and as soon as Helen started to

613
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: write about something other than herself and her disabilities, again,

614
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:04,800
Speaker 1: the same people who had put her on a pedestal

615
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 1: before totally turned on her. She was frequently accused in

616
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,959
Speaker 1: the press of faking her disabilities. People assumed that someone

617
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:16,439
Speaker 1: blind and deaf would be incapable of writing a book.

618
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,359
Speaker 1: They also assumed that her politics and opinions had come

619
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: from outside influences in her life, which I was kind

620
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 1: of like, I mean, that's sort of that's everyone. I mean,

621
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: everyone heard about something from someone else more than likely,

622
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: so it seems like a weird criticism. But they were like,

623
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: there's caretakers around her, so she's just having people like

624
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: tell her what to think, which sort of takes away

625
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: her own working brain. But all right, yeah, exactly. In

626
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, Helen donated a hundred dollars to the N

627
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 1: double a c P with a note ashamed in my

628
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,360
Speaker 1: very soul, I behold in my own beloved Southland the

629
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: tears of those who are oppressed. Well, of course her

630
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 1: beloved south Land and did not like that. And Alabama

631
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: newspapers claimed she had been misled and quote trained by

632
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: those around her to pair it their own beliefs, like

633
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: I said, as if she was incapable of forming her

634
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: own opinions and things. And another writer said she was

635
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: socialist because of quote the manifest limitations of her development,

636
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:24,320
Speaker 1: which is so patronizing. You'd have to be deaf and

637
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: blind to be a socialist. Like that's very rude. But

638
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: despite all of that, she continued to write. She often

639
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: rebutted this kind of criticism with humor um, but she

640
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: continued to write essays and articles about her politics. She

641
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: advocated for birth control and workers rights and women's right

642
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: to vote, especially particularly where intersected, of course, with with

643
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: issues of being blind or having any vision laws, because

644
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: she was talking a lot about like I went to

645
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: factories and wow, it's no wonder a bunch of our

646
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: workers are becoming blinded because you have terrible conditions and

647
00:37:57,920 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: all you're doing is pocketing all the profit you can

648
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,879
Speaker 1: and you're leaving everyone else behind. Sure, glad that doesn't

649
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:05,880
Speaker 1: happen anymore. I know, right, clean that one up, just

650
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,240
Speaker 1: like Anne thought we wouldn't, And like I personally agree

651
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: with all those stances, and you know, maybe you don't,

652
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: but I do. Maybe you don't think women should have

653
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: the right to poe. Do you think you wish go

654
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: ahead and unplug your headphones on your phone? Uh, set

655
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 1: your phone on a dry towel and threw yourself off

656
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 1: a bridge towel, not a wet towel. Yeah, I don't

657
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: want to ruin your phone. I know, right totally. We

658
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 1: can recycle that. No, but it is not like Helen

659
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: was always right or that you can always agree with

660
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 1: everything everybody ever said. She did also right. In nineteen fifteen,

661
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: in support of eugenics UM, she thought that infants with

662
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 1: severe mental impairments or physical deformities should be denied life

663
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: saving medical procedures because they wouldn't lead quality lives and

664
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: they would probably become criminals, which I think is the

665
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:03,080
Speaker 1: weirdest thing about to assume about people with severe deformities

666
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: or impairments or whatever. To assume that they would turn

667
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: to a life of crime, just trying to imagine that

668
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 1: all disabled like heist movie or they're like making plans,

669
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,839
Speaker 1: you know, and like a discrete location like our stupe Driver,

670
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: and somebody should make that movie. I would totally watch it,

671
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely What are they What are they stealing? Um,

672
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: like decent health care, benefits, marriage equality, first floor apartments

673
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: because they're going to take all the first four apartments

674
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 1: in the city excessively. We stole accessibility and added it

675
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: to all these buildings, like they're going to a lot

676
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:48,800
Speaker 1: of places in the stalling elevators. Really root for the

677
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: heist in that movie. I know, right, someone make that

678
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 1: movie for real. I would totally watch that and I

679
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 1: will I will say, just to put this in a

680
00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:00,120
Speaker 1: little bit of context. During that time, eugenics was like

681
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: a really hot science topic. A lot of science and

682
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 1: like intellectual thinkers were dabbling in eugenics theory, and it

683
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 1: was really some of it wasn't They hadn't quite got

684
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 1: to the whole thing where you should sterilize and all

685
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: that type of thing um, which is where it got

686
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: real dicey um so Helen, like many of those scientists

687
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: from this time period did move away from eugenics later

688
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: on in in in later years, you know what I mean,

689
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: they can they gave up on that idea when it

690
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 1: when again, when it got dicey, which you know arguably

691
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: started dicey. But I will just say just again, at

692
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: the time, it was just like talking about electric cars

693
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: or something. You know, it was like the science thing

694
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: of the day or something, and a lot of people

695
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 1: got got into it. You know, if we just let

696
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 1: a bunch of people die, then the humanity will be

697
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:54,399
Speaker 1: better off. And then they're like, oh wait, I talked

698
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: to one of those people, and I realized that I'm

699
00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 1: an asshole, right, I forgot they're like human beings. But

700
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:03,880
Speaker 1: having opinions and the ability to express them wasn't the

701
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:06,800
Speaker 1: only thing that people thought folks with disabilities couldn't do.

702
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: There was also a lot of debate about whether or

703
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: not anyone with disabilities should marry and have kids. There's

704
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: a blog called something Rind which said that Helen was

705
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,280
Speaker 1: apparently very eager to be attractive to the opposite sex,

706
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: but when her mother found out that a young male

707
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: scholar was going to lead one of Helen's college exams,

708
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: she asked the school to replace him with a woman.

709
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 1: Anne was also so disapproving of the romance novels that

710
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,840
Speaker 1: Helen liked that Helen would read her brail copies of

711
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: them in secret. So she was interested in love and romance,

712
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 1: and she felt natural sexual urges just like anyone else.

713
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,360
Speaker 1: But because she was blind and deaf, people thought that

714
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: she couldn't be allowed to act on these impulses. I

715
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,840
Speaker 1: don't know. We don't know if Anne was specifically against

716
00:41:56,680 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 1: romance for Helen or not being partially blind herself and

717
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 1: already married. We can kind of assume that she would

718
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:06,399
Speaker 1: probably not have a big it's okay with you. It's

719
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 1: possible some scholarly types of the era just didn't like

720
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: romance novels on principle it was like a trash TV

721
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: of the day, So she might have just been like,

722
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: give me that garbage thrown in the trash. You shouldn't

723
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 1: be reading this smut, right, and be like, yeah, your

724
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: teacher being like stopped watching Real Housewives of Potomac and

725
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: freaking watching a documentary or something something to improve your mind.

726
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,919
Speaker 1: But still, Helen's mother and other people of the day were,

727
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 1: you know, of the mindset that Helen, you you shouldn't

728
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: marry because marrying means having children, and you shouldn't have children,

729
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: and you know, all these kinds of just sucked up ideologies,

730
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: which is so weird because hers was specifically a sickness

731
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: to like, it wasn't genetic, so then what's the problem

732
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: with getting married? But they were just like you can't

733
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: have that for some like you're you're unfit to be

734
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 1: a mother. You can have everything else, but you can't

735
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: raise a child. A wife and a mother are a

736
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 1: very specific thing and you can't be those I think

737
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:07,840
Speaker 1: was weird. Like, yeah, still, Helen's life was being deprived

738
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 1: of romance, you know, in many different ways like this.

739
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: But fate was soon to intervene, just as these commercials

740
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:18,919
Speaker 1: are about to intervene in our podcasts. Take a quick break,

741
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. Welcome back. Lovely is to the show. Sadly,

742
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: by nineteen fourteen, Anne and John's marriage had really disintegrated,

743
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: and the reasons not fully clear. It might be that

744
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: the financial situation around the house was produce shanking. It

745
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: might have been Anne's fiery personality. Um, she might have

746
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 1: found it a little bit harder to like rain in

747
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 1: her her temper. Maybe or again, she was the stronger

748
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 1: personality of the two, so maybe he felt kind of

749
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:53,680
Speaker 1: domineered by her something um or could have been that

750
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: devotion to Helen outweighing her devotion to John, and he

751
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 1: did feel like an outsider in their marriage, like like

752
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 1: she made a may have worried about. But whatever the cause,

753
00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 1: John and Anne separated. They were never formally divorced, but

754
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: they did separate, and Anne was really heartbroken. Helen wrote

755
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: for days she would shut herself up, almost stunned, trying

756
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:17,759
Speaker 1: to think of a plan that would bring John back.

757
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 1: Or weeping as only women who are no longer cherished weep.

758
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Helen ouch, as only women who are

759
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: no longer cherished weep. I get it, though, I mean,

760
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: when you go through a dumbing right, that's what it

761
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: means you're not special to someone anymore. And that's really painful.

762
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 1: Singular sound. I mean I feel it, I hear it. Yeah. Again,

763
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 1: she really like brought it right to it. I mean

764
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 1: it's like it's almost like a girl whose entire education

765
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: was very focused on words them very well. Anne herself

766
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:01,439
Speaker 1: said of the many friendship tips that have enriched my life.

767
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 1: None is more interesting than that with John Macy. So

768
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:10,400
Speaker 1: John eventually moved out and a scotswoman named Polly Thompson

769
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 1: moved in to keep house, and not long after they

770
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:18,360
Speaker 1: all went on a fifteen month lecture tour. Lucky Polly,

771
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,440
Speaker 1: I know, right, pretty sweet, click me pretty a good

772
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: job here, Polly, My goodness, you're brogue is so thick.

773
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: A couple of years later, now nineteen sixteen, and Anne

774
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: got really sick. She was misdiagnosed with tuberculosis. Something's telling

775
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 1: me the early late eighteen hundreds medical care was not

776
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: quite up to par. She was recommended to go convalesce

777
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: somewhere warm, and she decided to travel to Puerto Rico

778
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 1: with Polly. Sounds great, yeah, I mean I'd like to

779
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,680
Speaker 1: travel to Puerto Rico. Somebody misdiagnosed me with tuberculosis will

780
00:45:56,719 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 1: be on my way. But that, of course meant Helen

781
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:02,319
Speaker 1: was going to be home alone and that she would

782
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:04,960
Speaker 1: need a full time private secretary while Anne was away,

783
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: So a friend of John Macy's, nine year old named

784
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 1: Peter Fagin, came to rent them. Peter was a young,

785
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: handsome journalist also a socialist, and as he spelled words

786
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: into her palm to help her keep up with her

787
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: correspondence and writings. They learned more and more about each

788
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 1: other and quickly fell in love. And they knew that,

789
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 1: you know what kind of prejudice they would be facing

790
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: in their decision to be married because they were in

791
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 1: love get married? Dare you fall in love and get married?

792
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 1: So they planned to marry in secret. Peter actually investigated

793
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: the possibility of marrying Helen by telephone, which I thought

794
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:51,360
Speaker 1: was very nine six especially. I mean it's like a

795
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:55,799
Speaker 1: like a switchboard wedding. Yeah, totally like Hello, Obretta, how

796
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 1: can I take your call? Ah? Yes that bar? Will

797
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 1: you tell a klondike one nine five that I say?

798
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 1: I do? Yes? Whatever it was, Yes, says I do

799
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 1: your responsib please, Oh I do too. Thank you for

800
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 1: using the telephone. I guess there's only want you kiss

801
00:47:23,200 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 1: the receiver of your telephone. Well that's probably what he

802
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:31,400
Speaker 1: was planning. But no, they wouldn't let them marry by telephone.

803
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: So they applied for a license in Boston, and they

804
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,720
Speaker 1: intended to Elope, but a reporter in Boston got wind

805
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: of it and they published an article about it, like

806
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 1: TMZ Action happening. God in Boston. He's like X three

807
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:52,399
Speaker 1: x three, read all about it. Let's collectively ruin one

808
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:56,560
Speaker 1: woman's only chance to love it. Happiness five cents a copy. Well,

809
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:59,839
Speaker 1: i'll take a copy of that, young man. Oh woman's happy.

810
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:06,479
Speaker 1: We'll have none of it. Not my country. Gross. Well,

811
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:11,160
Speaker 1: so his article comes out and Helen's mother found it

812
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: and read it and got super mad and was like,

813
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 1: oh hell no. One source said she didn't like Peter

814
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: because he believed in equality between black and white people,

815
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:23,680
Speaker 1: and of course she did not, so she was like,

816
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 1: oh no. Um. Other sources said she probably wouldn't have

817
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 1: let Helen marry anybody. Maybe it was a bit of both.

818
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's both. Yeah, that's She's probably like, Okay,

819
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 1: if it was a rich like Southern Confederacy doctor asshole,

820
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 1: then maybe you could have talked me into it. But

821
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 1: it's not. It's a socialist from Boston. So yeah, it

822
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: was probably a bit of both, and she immediately fired Peter.

823
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:50,280
Speaker 1: She hustled Helen onto a train back to Montgomery, Alabama

824
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:52,759
Speaker 1: to get them as far as part apart from each

825
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: other as she could, And it's possible that Peter was

826
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:59,280
Speaker 1: even threatened at gunpoint by someone in the Keller family,

827
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 1: probably want Helen's brothers, Um, but that might just be

828
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: an exaggeration. Now the story kind of gets a little

829
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:10,320
Speaker 1: muddled here. The most common version is that letters between

830
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:12,799
Speaker 1: Peter and Helen were smuggled back and forth between them

831
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: by their friends, and they decided to marry anyway. The

832
00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: plan was for Helen to sneak out of the house

833
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: and be on her porch in the middle of the night,

834
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: and then Peter would come and get her and she

835
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 1: would be gone before anyone knew anything about it. Happily, ever,

836
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:31,399
Speaker 1: after ding dong wedding bells were gone, so Helen packed

837
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: her bags, she sat on the porch waiting, and Peter

838
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,919
Speaker 1: never showed up. Helen was heartbroken and they never saw

839
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 1: each other again. But Peter's daughter and Fagin Ginger says

840
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: that is not quite how it went down. Um. She

841
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:50,680
Speaker 1: told the American Foundation for the Blind that Peter wrote

842
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 1: did write a secret letter in Braille arranging for Helen

843
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: to wait on her front porch for him. She said

844
00:49:57,480 --> 00:49:59,920
Speaker 1: it was arranged in that fashion because my father was

845
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 1: not an athletic man and didn't want to get into

846
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 1: a physical scuffle with Helen's brothers, which makes sense to me,

847
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 1: especially if they threatened him at gunpoint already. Like what

848
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 1: Anne continued, He came down from Boston at the appointed time,

849
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 1: but Helen was not waiting on the porch. He never

850
00:50:16,200 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 1: saw her again. Oh damn. The common thread there is

851
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 1: that they never saw each other again, and they were

852
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: probably forced to part by their families. Yeah, somebody by

853
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:27,839
Speaker 1: her family, I should be more specific. One of them

854
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:29,880
Speaker 1: was there at the porch, and one of them wasn't.

855
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 1: But neither of them chose that. Neither of them was

856
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 1: like no, never mind, fuck you right right, because that

857
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 1: wouldn't make sense. Jim Nielsen wrote in Helen Keller's Selected

858
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 1: Writings that quote her extended family vigorously squashed the relationship.

859
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 1: All felt adamantly that marriage and childbearing were not options

860
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:57,320
Speaker 1: for a deaf, blind woman. She apparently acquiesced to this belief.

861
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:03,280
Speaker 1: Peter Fagan disappeared from her life. Damn again, just the rudeness,

862
00:51:03,719 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: the cruelty, So sad to just be like, well, something

863
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:12,320
Speaker 1: happened to you as a baby, so now you have

864
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:18,480
Speaker 1: to be alone forever. That's not very loving, And I

865
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,840
Speaker 1: decide what you can do with your life, and what

866
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: a person can do with their life in general, and

867
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: what you're capable of, Yeah, exactly. Helen herself wrote that

868
00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 1: Peter's love quote, which had come unseen and unexpected, was

869
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 1: a little island of joy surrounded by dark waters. But

870
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 1: her obituary in The New York Times indicates that she

871
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:45,240
Speaker 1: never forgot Peter or her yearning for romance. It says

872
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 1: for years her spinsterhood was a chief disappointment. If I

873
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:55,720
Speaker 1: could see, she said bitterly, I would marry first of all, heartbreaking.

874
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:02,839
Speaker 1: M hmm, God, it just makes me angry. That's sad

875
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:07,839
Speaker 1: for stupid reasons. Seriously, And Peter never forgot about Helen either.

876
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: Another of his daughter's, Jean Fagan Yellen, responded to a

877
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 1: post about Helen and Peter on the blog of Battered Aspect,

878
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:20,280
Speaker 1: and she said that Peter ended up marrying a teacher

879
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,120
Speaker 1: named Sarah Robinson, and they were the center of a

880
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,399
Speaker 1: small radical circle in East Lansing, Michigan. So he kept

881
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:31,120
Speaker 1: that radical politics up and everything, And she wrote, my

882
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:33,919
Speaker 1: father did not often mention Helen, but when he did,

883
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 1: he spoke of her with warmth. It is my understanding

884
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 1: that he left her. When his life was threatened, he

885
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: kept the ring Helen gave him, and when I was

886
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: in my teens, seeing it in a drawer, I asked

887
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:46,960
Speaker 1: him if I could wear it. It has been on

888
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 1: my finger ever since. So it's kind of a few

889
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:53,800
Speaker 1: different little stories. And it's funny to see his family

890
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: respond to these, because some of them are like, according

891
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,319
Speaker 1: to I'm his you know, my mom is his Graham

892
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:01,919
Speaker 1: or whatever, and they all have kind of a little

893
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 1: different story, you know what I mean. So it's just

894
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: funny how memory works kind of. But yeah, the real again,

895
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 1: the main threat is that they never got to get

896
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:16,000
Speaker 1: married and they never saw each other again, because people

897
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:22,280
Speaker 1: are assholes. Star cross love for real real? Uh, Romeo

898
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: and Juliette's story if Romeo doesn't have a family involved

899
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: that we know of, and Juliette's family was a bunch

900
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 1: of racist assholes. But soon the whole country would become

901
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: preoccupied when America declared war on Germany in nineteen seventeen,

902
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,840
Speaker 1: formally entering what was known as the Great War. I

903
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 1: don't know if you've heard of it, um, but it

904
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:49,799
Speaker 1: was kind of a big deal. Had a big franchise,

905
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:56,399
Speaker 1: at least one sequel. So far, so far. Helen wrote

906
00:53:56,480 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 1: to Anne and Polly to let them know that this

907
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,760
Speaker 1: war was happening, and they came back to the US,

908
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:04,800
Speaker 1: which thank god, because Anne said she hadn't gotten a

909
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:07,600
Speaker 1: newspaper in like weeks. Right, Oh, yeah, she's in. She's

910
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:09,160
Speaker 1: like in Puerto Rico. Is just like some of the

911
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 1: males not coming through. We don't have a newspaper. I

912
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: hope we're not at war yet, but I know we

913
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:19,080
Speaker 1: probably will be soon. So let me know, dear Anne,

914
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:24,919
Speaker 1: stop it's happening. Stop We're at wars. Yeah, I wish

915
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:28,879
Speaker 1: we could stop. Stop. So both Helen and Anne now

916
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 1: had very sad memories of their lost loves in the

917
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:36,280
Speaker 1: Rentham House, so they decided we're gonna sell this place,

918
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 1: get the hell out of here, and start over in

919
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: New York. Yeah. Now, Helen was a pacifist, so she

920
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: wrote anti war articles and gave anti war speeches for

921
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 1: several months. Then in nineteen eighteen, she got a call

922
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:54,800
Speaker 1: from Tinseltown and they traveled to California to work on

923
00:54:54,880 --> 00:55:01,319
Speaker 1: a silent film about Helen's life called Deliverance. I saw

924
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:03,560
Speaker 1: Deliverance and I don't think it had anything to do

925
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:08,320
Speaker 1: with Helen Keller. I guess I just misunderstood what was

926
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:11,040
Speaker 1: happening there. I hope not much in the movie Deliverance

927
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 1: is related to Helen Keller's life. No, I uh, I

928
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:23,360
Speaker 1: believe that they are unrelated movies. But this film, Deliverance

929
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:27,400
Speaker 1: was considered too artsy, so it was kind of a

930
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:30,080
Speaker 1: critical hit, but commercially it was a flop. People weren't

931
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 1: going to see it. Plus the studio got upset at

932
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:35,920
Speaker 1: Helen because she took the screenwriter to a dinner for

933
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: Walt Whitman, which was full of like artists and radicals,

934
00:55:40,560 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 1: and that apparently reflected poorly on the film. I guess

935
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:46,759
Speaker 1: they were like Whitman dinner, what did you do plan

936
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 1: the next Bolshevik revolution? And now what a bunch of pinkos?

937
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:57,239
Speaker 1: You know. So you know, after all that, Helen and

938
00:55:57,560 --> 00:56:02,160
Speaker 1: and Polly came back to New York and by people's

939
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 1: literary tastes are kind of change in Helen's writings, aren't

940
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 1: selling your like as well as they were, And they

941
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 1: needed some money up in the house, you know what

942
00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:14,959
Speaker 1: I mean, I gotta have money, So naturally they turned

943
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: to vaudeville. Oh sure, I know, that when I needed money,

944
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: theater was the way to go. Get up a variety show. Today,

945
00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:27,040
Speaker 1: I can't believe your funds need. I can't believe I

946
00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 1: gave up all that sketch comedy money to come to

947
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:33,200
Speaker 1: a podcast. Yeah but no, Yeah, Helen Keller was on vaudeville.

948
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:35,399
Speaker 1: If you didn't know that, because I didn't. I thought

949
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 1: that was super cool. They Helen and Anne joined a

950
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:42,479
Speaker 1: variety show circuit and quickly became the most popular act

951
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:44,919
Speaker 1: in the whole lineup. It was like a twenty minute

952
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 1: routine where Anne would come out, she'd tell a little

953
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 1: bit about Helen's life, you know, give her a little

954
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:52,759
Speaker 1: intro um, and then she would do a question and

955
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:56,799
Speaker 1: answer session. Helen, and bear in mind this is right

956
00:56:56,840 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 1: after prohibition started. Would you like to hear some of

957
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: the hell yeah, yes, welcome bill variety, hurly early extravagance.

958
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 1: I'm dazzling display of splendor to uplifted if I educate

959
00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:13,360
Speaker 1: and a maze. Would you believe it? We have the

960
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:16,720
Speaker 1: miracle Worker herself and Sullivan Macy here with the one

961
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 1: and only Hella Killer was so good and so this

962
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 1: is their routine. Can you feel moonshine? No? But I

963
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:38,040
Speaker 1: smell it. What is your definition of politics? The art

964
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 1: of finding and holding onto profitable jobs. Do you think

965
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 1: America has been true to her ideals? I'm afraid to

966
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 1: answer that. The ku Klux Klan might give me a ducking.

967
00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:52,200
Speaker 1: Do you close your eyes when you sleep? I guess

968
00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: I do, but I never stayed awake to see. What

969
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:58,480
Speaker 1: do you think is the most important question before the

970
00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: country today? How to get a drink? Can you suggest

971
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 1: any tax the people would pay willingly? Yes, a tax

972
00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: on millionaires. Do you believe a woman can keep a secret.

973
00:58:10,600 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 1: Of course we can. It's the person we tell it

974
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: to who can't. What can a person do when his

975
00:58:16,200 --> 00:58:20,440
Speaker 1: constitution is gone? Do as the United States does? Live

976
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 1: on the amendments. That's pretty good comedy, Honestly, I liked

977
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,600
Speaker 1: it pretty good. I mean, a couple of singers in there,

978
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:34,400
Speaker 1: how to get a drink? How long was the whole bit?

979
00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 1: It's about twenty minutes? Yeah, just that, Yeah, pretty much

980
00:58:39,680 --> 00:58:46,040
Speaker 1: minutes of Q and A loved it, Yeah, yeah, it killed.

981
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:49,680
Speaker 1: The show toured from nineteen twenty to nineteen twenty four,

982
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:52,720
Speaker 1: and even though many of Helen's friends like found it

983
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 1: to be scandalous, that this was happening. Helen enjoyed herself

984
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:58,960
Speaker 1: hugely and said that she was helping the causes of

985
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: blind people. She's getting a real kick out of this

986
00:59:01,240 --> 00:59:06,360
Speaker 1: Bodville tour. And though she had already met and befriended

987
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 1: tons of famous people in her life, including Mark Twain

988
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 1: and Alexander Graham Bell, she also made friends with vaudeville

989
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:19,480
Speaker 1: celebrities like Sophie Tucker, Charlie Chaplin, Enrico Caruso, and Harpo

990
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 1: Mark cool legends. And then in Helen and and Polly

991
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 1: started working with the American Foundation for the Blind and

992
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:32,160
Speaker 1: a f B had just gotten started in one because

993
00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:35,320
Speaker 1: so many soldiers came back from the Great War blinded

994
00:59:35,560 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: by mustard gas and so there, you know, they need

995
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:41,880
Speaker 1: a lot of advocacy, their lives who completely changed, and

996
00:59:42,040 --> 00:59:44,280
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of that going around for people

997
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 1: with disabilities until there were veterans. Yeah, there's so much

998
00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 1: packed into that because I'm like, wow, the mustard gas

999
00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:55,320
Speaker 1: was so bad they had to start a whole foundation

1000
00:59:56,200 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 1: out of this, And also, wow, you wouldn't start a

1001
00:59:59,440 --> 01:00:02,360
Speaker 1: foundation for the blind until a bunch of soldiers came

1002
01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:04,520
Speaker 1: back from the war blinded, Like you weren't worried about

1003
01:00:04,560 --> 01:00:06,800
Speaker 1: it until then. Yeah, they were like, there's like, what

1004
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:12,080
Speaker 1: a few schools whatever, They're fine, fine, I was like, okay. Anyway,

1005
01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 1: So they had just they were still a pretty new organization,

1006
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 1: and the idea was that Helen, Ann and Polly were

1007
01:00:19,080 --> 01:00:22,640
Speaker 1: going to be this instrumental in fundraising. They would do

1008
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:25,360
Speaker 1: all these appearances and people would just give, give, give money,

1009
01:00:26,640 --> 01:00:29,360
Speaker 1: and together the women did address over two hundred and

1010
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:32,160
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people in a hundred and twenty seven cities

1011
01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:37,120
Speaker 1: by nine to raise money for the f B. But unfortunately,

1012
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:40,640
Speaker 1: they had made an incredibly ambitious two million dollar goal

1013
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:49,360
Speaker 1: fundraising goal. And that's almost thirty two million dollars. Like,

1014
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: just speaking as someone as to fundraise, that's a lot.

1015
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:57,200
Speaker 1: I mean, jeez. But even though they weren't as successful

1016
01:00:57,240 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 1: at fundraising as they wanted to be, they were still

1017
01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:04,240
Speaker 1: in valuable to the organization just raising awareness period for

1018
01:01:04,400 --> 01:01:07,960
Speaker 1: the need for you know, these services and this kind

1019
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:11,640
Speaker 1: of advocacy, lobbying and all that kind of stuff. And

1020
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 1: the director of the a f B dubbed Helen and

1021
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:17,640
Speaker 1: and Polly the three Musketeers and thanks to their work

1022
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:21,800
Speaker 1: traveling around the United States. State commissions were created, rehabilitation

1023
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: centers were built, and education was made accessible to people

1024
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:28,160
Speaker 1: with vision laws amazing Throughout these years with the a

1025
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 1: f B and was getting older, her health was deteriorating,

1026
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:36,400
Speaker 1: her eyesight was failing more and more. Polly started to

1027
01:01:36,480 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 1: take over more of Ann's secretarial duties for Helen. When

1028
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:42,160
Speaker 1: she had joined the household back in nineteen fourteen, she

1029
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 1: was just there to keep the house and she never

1030
01:01:44,760 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 1: worked with anyone blind or death before. She had only

1031
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:50,040
Speaker 1: heard about the job through her hairdresser, who was also

1032
01:01:50,120 --> 01:01:54,400
Speaker 1: Ann's hairdresser. Your hair dress talked your hair dresser, you know.

1033
01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:57,720
Speaker 1: Polly came in and she was like, I'm still looking

1034
01:01:57,840 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 1: for work, to find any saying I come to America

1035
01:02:02,240 --> 01:02:06,800
Speaker 1: and there's no there's no bag pipes to play, there's

1036
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 1: no opportunities. But a Scott's woman liked me, and their

1037
01:02:10,920 --> 01:02:14,600
Speaker 1: hairdresser is like, you know, actually I heard about a job.

1038
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 1: She ended up getting this gig. She was interested in

1039
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:19,320
Speaker 1: it because it involved a lot of travel, and Polly

1040
01:02:19,400 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 1: loved it to travel sounds good to me. I would

1041
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:24,400
Speaker 1: take a job with a lot of travel. But she

1042
01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 1: deeply respected Helen and quickly she learned to communicate with

1043
01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:31,680
Speaker 1: her and ended up just as devoted to Anne as

1044
01:02:31,760 --> 01:02:35,200
Speaker 1: she was to Helen. This trio just bonded really tightly,

1045
01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:38,840
Speaker 1: and she also apparently had a very strong personality. She

1046
01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:42,400
Speaker 1: was very protective of Helen. Just just awesome that these

1047
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 1: three very strong personalities had all come together to live

1048
01:02:46,640 --> 01:02:51,080
Speaker 1: together and dominate and spread the good word and raise

1049
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:54,520
Speaker 1: this awareness. Really just a incredible meeting of minds. Like,

1050
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:56,360
Speaker 1: it's amazing that these three people ended up in the

1051
01:02:56,400 --> 01:02:59,120
Speaker 1: same place at the same time. Yeah, could have gone

1052
01:02:59,240 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 1: very differently if she'd if Helen had had you know,

1053
01:03:02,400 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 1: a less competent teacher or a less uh disciplined teacher,

1054
01:03:06,640 --> 01:03:10,919
Speaker 1: someone who wasn't as focused and intense or wasn't ready

1055
01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:15,480
Speaker 1: to improvise her methods um and then yeah, what if

1056
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:18,760
Speaker 1: Anne never talked to her hairdresser? But if Paul, you know,

1057
01:03:18,840 --> 01:03:20,960
Speaker 1: I mean, like, that's the great thing about history. It's

1058
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 1: just these little weird coincidences that changed everything. And along

1059
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:28,720
Speaker 1: came Polly and changed the game. Came I never saw

1060
01:03:28,760 --> 01:03:30,280
Speaker 1: a long pain Polly. I'm going to assume that it

1061
01:03:30,320 --> 01:03:36,400
Speaker 1: was about this, all right, Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson.

1062
01:03:37,400 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 1: No clue. I think it's Owen Wilson, and I think

1063
01:03:40,160 --> 01:03:48,320
Speaker 1: it's about wow. What's wow wow wow wow wow Wow. Whoa,

1064
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:53,880
Speaker 1: I think it's about a parrot. No, that's Polly with

1065
01:03:54,160 --> 01:03:58,440
Speaker 1: Jay Moore. Anyway. Yeah, Anne had to have one of

1066
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 1: her eyes removed. You that's how bad it was getting.

1067
01:04:02,240 --> 01:04:04,720
Speaker 1: And the doctor was like, listen, I know y'all bitches

1068
01:04:04,800 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 1: love to work, Okay, but you need to take a

1069
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:09,600
Speaker 1: break and heal because you just had like a really

1070
01:04:09,840 --> 01:04:13,880
Speaker 1: invasive surgery. Um. So they decided to go overseas to

1071
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:17,240
Speaker 1: go abroad. Okay, you know what, You're right doctor, I

1072
01:04:17,320 --> 01:04:19,720
Speaker 1: do need to rest and heal. Time for a world

1073
01:04:19,800 --> 01:04:24,439
Speaker 1: to right. Yeah, and totally I'm sure they were like, look,

1074
01:04:24,480 --> 01:04:28,320
Speaker 1: I haven't been overseas. Let's do this. And they went

1075
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 1: to visit Polly's family in Scotland, and then they also

1076
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:34,200
Speaker 1: hit up Ireland too while they're over there. Classic trips

1077
01:04:34,200 --> 01:04:36,440
Speaker 1: Scotland and Ireland would love to do that one day.

1078
01:04:37,040 --> 01:04:39,320
Speaker 1: And over the next few years they took a few trips.

1079
01:04:39,400 --> 01:04:42,320
Speaker 1: They went to Europe, they went to Canada, Jamaica, bunch

1080
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:46,560
Speaker 1: of places. But Anne's health and her vision just continued

1081
01:04:46,600 --> 01:04:51,040
Speaker 1: to deteriorate. Helen wrote about her feeling the toast to

1082
01:04:51,200 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 1: make sure it was cooked, and listening intently to the

1083
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 1: coffee as it percolated so she would know when to

1084
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:59,480
Speaker 1: take it off the heat. Um. And she kind of

1085
01:04:59,520 --> 01:05:01,280
Speaker 1: wrote it like she was sort of feeling sorry for

1086
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 1: her having had vision for a period of time not

1087
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:06,640
Speaker 1: have it anymore. She was kind of like seemed to

1088
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 1: be feeling a lot of sympathy for that. She was

1089
01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:12,040
Speaker 1: in a lot of pain. Her eyes bothered her constantly,

1090
01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:14,960
Speaker 1: got to the point where like even a white tablecloth

1091
01:05:15,240 --> 01:05:18,120
Speaker 1: was like painful for her to look at. They talked

1092
01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:21,160
Speaker 1: about how much the spotlight in the Vaudeville act must

1093
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 1: have affected her eyes, that it did Um And she

1094
01:05:25,000 --> 01:05:28,280
Speaker 1: was also diagnosed with like gastric problems and sinility. So

1095
01:05:28,400 --> 01:05:30,560
Speaker 1: she's just not doing very well here at the end,

1096
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:34,840
Speaker 1: and by five she was fully blind, Helen wrote in

1097
01:05:34,880 --> 01:05:39,680
Speaker 1: a letter for fifty years and Sullivan Macy, my beloved teacher,

1098
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:43,040
Speaker 1: has been the light in my life. Now she is ill,

1099
01:05:43,280 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 1: and the darkness that covers me has fallen upon her.

1100
01:05:46,760 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 1: Still the light of her love shines amid the encircling gloom,

1101
01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:56,520
Speaker 1: and we are happy on October, Anne had a coronary

1102
01:05:56,640 --> 01:06:00,400
Speaker 1: thrombosis and died in Queens with Helen holding her her hand.

1103
01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 1: Helen's teacher and companion of fifty years, was gone shortly

1104
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:10,760
Speaker 1: before she died, and dictated this message to Polly. Goodbye,

1105
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:15,000
Speaker 1: John Macy, I'll soon be with you. Goodbye. I loved you.

1106
01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:19,960
Speaker 1: I wanted to be loved. I was lonesome. Then Helen

1107
01:06:20,080 --> 01:06:22,360
Speaker 1: came into my life. I wanted her to love me,

1108
01:06:22,480 --> 01:06:25,600
Speaker 1: and I loved her. Then later Polly came and I

1109
01:06:25,720 --> 01:06:29,400
Speaker 1: loved Polly, and we were always so happy together. My Polly,

1110
01:06:29,880 --> 01:06:33,720
Speaker 1: my Helen, dear children. Maybe all meet together in harmony.

1111
01:06:34,880 --> 01:06:38,680
Speaker 1: My Jimmy, I'll lay these flowers by your face. Don't

1112
01:06:38,760 --> 01:06:41,520
Speaker 1: take him away from me. I loved him, so he's

1113
01:06:41,560 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 1: all I've got. People attended Anne's funeral. She was cremated

1114
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:52,120
Speaker 1: and her ashes were interred in a memorial in Washington,

1115
01:06:52,240 --> 01:06:55,040
Speaker 1: d c. Which is only reserved for people who made

1116
01:06:55,080 --> 01:06:58,600
Speaker 1: a significant contribution to the country. She was the first

1117
01:06:58,680 --> 01:07:01,000
Speaker 1: woman to receive this prom ledge on her own merits.

1118
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:06,280
Speaker 1: It just makes me cry because Jimmy is her brother,

1119
01:07:06,400 --> 01:07:09,400
Speaker 1: you know, and like that's so sad. I mean, it

1120
01:07:09,480 --> 01:07:11,800
Speaker 1: makes sense that she would be thinking of him, you know,

1121
01:07:11,920 --> 01:07:13,840
Speaker 1: at the end of her life. But it's just sad

1122
01:07:15,000 --> 01:07:17,480
Speaker 1: from so long ago, when they were so young. She

1123
01:07:17,640 --> 01:07:22,560
Speaker 1: was thinking about him. D Yeah, I'm gonna go cry.

1124
01:07:23,400 --> 01:07:31,480
Speaker 1: Let's take a commercial break. Sounds good, okay, welcome back.

1125
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 1: I feel better, dry well Helen and Polly. Of course

1126
01:07:38,080 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 1: we're both heartbroken after Anne's death. In Helen's journal, she wrote,

1127
01:07:42,680 --> 01:07:44,960
Speaker 1: most of the time, I appeared to myself to be

1128
01:07:45,040 --> 01:07:49,800
Speaker 1: a somnambulist, impelled only by an intense faith. They decided

1129
01:07:49,840 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 1: to get back to traveling, get back to the work

1130
01:07:52,600 --> 01:07:55,320
Speaker 1: doing something positive for blind people in the world, and

1131
01:07:56,800 --> 01:07:59,760
Speaker 1: Helen and Polly went to Japan for the first time

1132
01:07:59,840 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 1: to help raise money for Japanese deaf and blind people.

1133
01:08:03,120 --> 01:08:07,000
Speaker 1: She gave nineties seven lectures in thirty five cities and

1134
01:08:07,200 --> 01:08:12,040
Speaker 1: raised around three hundred and thirty thousand dollars. She continued

1135
01:08:12,080 --> 01:08:15,880
Speaker 1: to publish books and essays. One of her pieces explaining

1136
01:08:15,960 --> 01:08:19,880
Speaker 1: her socialist politics was burned by Nazi youth, which is

1137
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:22,920
Speaker 1: like what a feather in my cap. I'd be like,

1138
01:08:23,120 --> 01:08:27,200
Speaker 1: I wrote something good, the Nazis are burning it. And

1139
01:08:27,360 --> 01:08:31,360
Speaker 1: she did write an open letter condemning German censorship, and

1140
01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:34,320
Speaker 1: she lobbied the government. She got blind people included as

1141
01:08:34,360 --> 01:08:38,520
Speaker 1: recipients of federal aid in the Social Security Act, including

1142
01:08:38,560 --> 01:08:41,360
Speaker 1: aid for diagnosis and treatment in the bill known as

1143
01:08:41,439 --> 01:08:45,799
Speaker 1: Title ten, and she pressured the President to authorize funds

1144
01:08:46,000 --> 01:08:49,040
Speaker 1: for recorded books to be made for the Library of Congress.

1145
01:08:49,960 --> 01:08:52,479
Speaker 1: So she got real close with Fdr. And Eleanor Roosevelt

1146
01:08:52,520 --> 01:08:56,120
Speaker 1: throughout this time and when during the war she worked

1147
01:08:56,200 --> 01:08:59,280
Speaker 1: with soldiers a lot. She that was her particular interest.

1148
01:08:59,439 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 1: During the war, she would go visit hospital wards, especially

1149
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:05,800
Speaker 1: of newly blind soldiers, if they had any kind of

1150
01:09:06,240 --> 01:09:09,600
Speaker 1: of um, any kind of injury, you know, that that

1151
01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:12,720
Speaker 1: had caused a disability. She was particularly interested in going

1152
01:09:12,800 --> 01:09:14,880
Speaker 1: to visit with them and uplift them and kind of

1153
01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:17,280
Speaker 1: let them know that like life was not over, they

1154
01:09:17,320 --> 01:09:19,560
Speaker 1: could be just as cheerful and jolly as she was

1155
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:22,240
Speaker 1: and have a great time be all right. So after

1156
01:09:22,320 --> 01:09:25,680
Speaker 1: the war, Helen and Polly got back to traveling, and

1157
01:09:25,760 --> 01:09:29,479
Speaker 1: between nineteen forty six and nineteen fifty seven she visited

1158
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:34,240
Speaker 1: thirty five countries on five continents. She met Winston Churchill

1159
01:09:34,720 --> 01:09:37,080
Speaker 1: golden Meyer, who was the Prime Minister of Israel at

1160
01:09:37,120 --> 01:09:40,879
Speaker 1: the time Jawaharlal Nehru, who was the PM of India,

1161
01:09:41,560 --> 01:09:44,720
Speaker 1: and she met privately with Pope Pious the twelfth and

1162
01:09:44,920 --> 01:09:52,759
Speaker 1: the Queen of England too, And then in nineteen General

1163
01:09:52,880 --> 01:09:56,639
Speaker 1: Douglas MacArthur sent her back to Japan as the first

1164
01:09:56,760 --> 01:10:00,599
Speaker 1: good will ambassador. I love him being like, hey, uh,

1165
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:04,679
Speaker 1: you go say something, Go go go make sure everything's cool.

1166
01:10:04,720 --> 01:10:08,160
Speaker 1: All right, tell us and I Helen. We just dropped

1167
01:10:08,200 --> 01:10:12,040
Speaker 1: two enormous bombs on these tiny islands, so we really

1168
01:10:12,120 --> 01:10:15,160
Speaker 1: need somebody to go over there. Charm um mancho, say

1169
01:10:15,240 --> 01:10:18,599
Speaker 1: something nice. Go over there and hand him this note.

1170
01:10:18,680 --> 01:10:20,960
Speaker 1: It says do you like me chick? Yes or no?

1171
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:28,679
Speaker 1: Are we cool? Yeah? Try try and smooth things over. Geez.

1172
01:10:29,520 --> 01:10:33,679
Speaker 1: Her appearance in Japan drew a crowd of two million people.

1173
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:37,719
Speaker 1: They loved her in Japan. Yeah. They toured the Middle

1174
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:41,160
Speaker 1: East and they received an honorary degree from the only

1175
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:46,519
Speaker 1: integrated university in South Africa. It's pretty cool. When she

1176
01:10:46,680 --> 01:10:49,720
Speaker 1: was seventy five years old, Helen went on her most

1177
01:10:49,800 --> 01:10:54,120
Speaker 1: grueling trip yet, a forty thousand mile five month long

1178
01:10:54,200 --> 01:10:59,280
Speaker 1: tour of Asia. As they both got older, Polly became

1179
01:11:00,200 --> 01:11:03,479
Speaker 1: more and more possessive of Helen. She didn't like it

1180
01:11:03,560 --> 01:11:06,679
Speaker 1: when people could hold conversations with Helen without her, because

1181
01:11:06,720 --> 01:11:08,800
Speaker 1: then she wouldn't know exactly what was said about it,

1182
01:11:08,920 --> 01:11:12,760
Speaker 1: you know, everything. And Helen's friends started to worry that

1183
01:11:12,800 --> 01:11:17,000
Speaker 1: it would become impossible to train a replacement for Polly,

1184
01:11:17,560 --> 01:11:19,560
Speaker 1: you know, because Anne, of course had trained Polly. She

1185
01:11:19,640 --> 01:11:21,800
Speaker 1: wanted Helen to be able to talk to both of them,

1186
01:11:21,880 --> 01:11:23,400
Speaker 1: and wanted both of them to be able to talk

1187
01:11:23,439 --> 01:11:27,760
Speaker 1: to her, but Polly was really like proprietary about being

1188
01:11:27,880 --> 01:11:32,120
Speaker 1: the one the middleman between Helen's uh, you know communications.

1189
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:35,559
Speaker 1: And they were right to worry because in n seven,

1190
01:11:35,800 --> 01:11:38,160
Speaker 1: Polly had a stroke while she was in the kitchen

1191
01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:40,920
Speaker 1: with Helen, and Helen was able to lower her to

1192
01:11:41,000 --> 01:11:42,840
Speaker 1: the floor so she not like crashed to the ground

1193
01:11:42,920 --> 01:11:45,599
Speaker 1: or something, but she had no way to call for help,

1194
01:11:46,360 --> 01:11:48,800
Speaker 1: like it's just her and Polly and no way to

1195
01:11:48,880 --> 01:11:52,719
Speaker 1: call for help at all. Two hours later, a neighbor

1196
01:11:52,880 --> 01:11:55,360
Speaker 1: noticed that the door was open, and so they poked

1197
01:11:55,400 --> 01:11:57,320
Speaker 1: their head in to see if everything was okay, and

1198
01:11:57,400 --> 01:11:59,920
Speaker 1: they saw Helen sitting on the floor next to Polly,

1199
01:12:00,600 --> 01:12:03,960
Speaker 1: and finally she got taken to a hospital. Polly did

1200
01:12:04,040 --> 01:12:07,519
Speaker 1: not die, but she did suffer some brain damage, and

1201
01:12:07,720 --> 01:12:11,400
Speaker 1: two caretakers named Winifred and Evelyn came home from the

1202
01:12:11,479 --> 01:12:14,479
Speaker 1: hospital with Polly to take care of Polly and of Helen.

1203
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:19,120
Speaker 1: Polly unfortunately never fully recovered. She passed away in March

1204
01:12:19,200 --> 01:12:22,960
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty after forty six years with Helen, which

1205
01:12:23,080 --> 01:12:26,920
Speaker 1: was more than half of Polly's life incredible. In nineteen

1206
01:12:27,000 --> 01:12:31,080
Speaker 1: sixty one, Helen was one years old and her health

1207
01:12:31,280 --> 01:12:33,960
Speaker 1: started to fail as well. She'd had a series of

1208
01:12:34,040 --> 01:12:37,559
Speaker 1: small strokes and she had developed diabetes, and she began

1209
01:12:37,600 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 1: to spend her days in a wheelchair. She became too

1210
01:12:40,280 --> 01:12:43,639
Speaker 1: tired even to read sometimes, and she continued to receive

1211
01:12:43,760 --> 01:12:46,679
Speaker 1: honors and awards, but after Polly died, she never really

1212
01:12:46,880 --> 01:12:50,920
Speaker 1: became close to anyone again. She stopped traveling. In May

1213
01:12:51,000 --> 01:12:54,040
Speaker 1: of nine sixty eight, she suffered a heart attack, and

1214
01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:57,200
Speaker 1: a few days later, on June one, Helen died in

1215
01:12:57,240 --> 01:13:01,120
Speaker 1: her sleep. Her ashes were all interred next to her

1216
01:13:01,160 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 1: lifelong companions and and Polly in Washington, d C. I

1217
01:13:05,800 --> 01:13:08,040
Speaker 1: think that's sad because it kind of indicates like how

1218
01:13:08,120 --> 01:13:10,800
Speaker 1: hard it would be to become close to someone like

1219
01:13:10,960 --> 01:13:12,840
Speaker 1: by the time she's in her eighties, She's like, I

1220
01:13:12,960 --> 01:13:16,000
Speaker 1: just don't have anything. But that makes it such a

1221
01:13:16,080 --> 01:13:20,599
Speaker 1: lonely last few years. Although apparently Winnifred and Evelyn were

1222
01:13:20,880 --> 01:13:23,400
Speaker 1: pretty fun loving. They're very different from Polly in that way,

1223
01:13:23,520 --> 01:13:26,320
Speaker 1: so she did have some good times with her caretakers.

1224
01:13:28,760 --> 01:13:31,280
Speaker 1: And like, obviously we're talking about a huge legacy of

1225
01:13:31,360 --> 01:13:35,719
Speaker 1: Helen Kelly. I mean, besides the many plays and movies

1226
01:13:35,880 --> 01:13:38,280
Speaker 1: and books about her life and all the work she

1227
01:13:38,400 --> 01:13:41,280
Speaker 1: did for people with disabilities around the world, and the

1228
01:13:41,360 --> 01:13:43,880
Speaker 1: hundreds of essays and articles and thousands of speeches and

1229
01:13:44,000 --> 01:13:46,720
Speaker 1: dozen books that she wrote, and then honorary degrees and

1230
01:13:46,800 --> 01:13:51,000
Speaker 1: awards and honors and medals, like all her celebrity friends,

1231
01:13:51,160 --> 01:13:55,919
Speaker 1: Like she met every president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson,

1232
01:13:57,080 --> 01:13:58,639
Speaker 1: and she was I mean, she would have met Grover

1233
01:13:58,760 --> 01:14:03,880
Speaker 1: Cleveland two nonconsecutive occasions. I didn't think about that. She

1234
01:14:04,400 --> 01:14:09,040
Speaker 1: was friends with Albert Einstein and Will Rogers, and there

1235
01:14:09,080 --> 01:14:13,880
Speaker 1: are museums and foundations bearing her name. She's also one

1236
01:14:13,920 --> 01:14:15,920
Speaker 1: of the original members of the A. C. L U.

1237
01:14:17,080 --> 01:14:20,439
Speaker 1: Her autobiography from three is still in print all over

1238
01:14:20,479 --> 01:14:23,800
Speaker 1: the world today. I mean, this is the legacy, right,

1239
01:14:24,080 --> 01:14:26,360
Speaker 1: but there's also kind of a weird piece to this

1240
01:14:26,560 --> 01:14:32,640
Speaker 1: legacy around TikTok. Conspiracy started, of all places, you know,

1241
01:14:32,800 --> 01:14:38,000
Speaker 1: the best source of information, TikTok, and this conspiracy said

1242
01:14:38,120 --> 01:14:42,960
Speaker 1: that they didn't believe Helen Keller was really disabled. I

1243
01:14:43,200 --> 01:14:46,240
Speaker 1: just like people from back in the day. They questioned

1244
01:14:46,280 --> 01:14:49,640
Speaker 1: whether someone with disabilities was capable of doing all the

1245
01:14:49,680 --> 01:14:52,320
Speaker 1: things Helen did, writing books and going on lecture tours.

1246
01:14:52,600 --> 01:14:55,800
Speaker 1: Either Helen was faking one or both of her disabilities,

1247
01:14:56,200 --> 01:14:58,439
Speaker 1: or someone else was really creating the work and Helen

1248
01:14:58,560 --> 01:15:01,240
Speaker 1: was just the gimmick personal they put up there in front.

1249
01:15:02,120 --> 01:15:07,600
Speaker 1: Pretty insulting take, honestly. Now, apparently this post originally was

1250
01:15:07,720 --> 01:15:11,960
Speaker 1: started as a joke and probably still is intended as one,

1251
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:15,519
Speaker 1: but of course people jumped on board and started to

1252
01:15:15,600 --> 01:15:18,599
Speaker 1: believe it. You can't play with conspiracy theories these days,

1253
01:15:19,800 --> 01:15:24,240
Speaker 1: even though, as a Guardian article points out, quote after

1254
01:15:24,320 --> 01:15:27,559
Speaker 1: a stroke left him with locked in syndrome, Jean Dominique

1255
01:15:27,600 --> 01:15:30,320
Speaker 1: Bobie wrote the Diving Bell in the Butterfly by blinking

1256
01:15:30,439 --> 01:15:34,519
Speaker 1: his left eyelid. Naoki Higashida, who is severely autistic and

1257
01:15:34,600 --> 01:15:38,439
Speaker 1: has limited verbal communication skills, wrote the Reason I Jump

1258
01:15:38,640 --> 01:15:42,320
Speaker 1: using an alphabet grid Donna Williams overcame shocking abuse and

1259
01:15:42,320 --> 01:15:46,240
Speaker 1: prejudice to produce her memoir Nobody Nowhere. And these are

1260
01:15:46,280 --> 01:15:49,080
Speaker 1: just a few examples of an entire body of literature

1261
01:15:49,240 --> 01:15:53,400
Speaker 1: produced by disabled authors over the years. So not that

1262
01:15:53,600 --> 01:15:56,479
Speaker 1: anybody needed to prove it to you, but yes, there

1263
01:15:56,560 --> 01:16:03,960
Speaker 1: are many examples of people with disabilities doing incredible, incredible things. God,

1264
01:16:04,080 --> 01:16:06,280
Speaker 1: I haven't read it, but I saw the movie Diving

1265
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:08,640
Speaker 1: Bell in the Butterfly and it is something I am

1266
01:16:08,680 --> 01:16:11,120
Speaker 1: still terrified up to this day. Oh my god. But

1267
01:16:11,240 --> 01:16:14,400
Speaker 1: also like, well, if he can do it. It was

1268
01:16:14,439 --> 01:16:17,519
Speaker 1: a good movie, but yeah, markable story, surprisingly funny. But

1269
01:16:17,640 --> 01:16:19,320
Speaker 1: I was definitely like, if that happened to me, I

1270
01:16:19,400 --> 01:16:22,680
Speaker 1: feel like I would go insane. But I was like,

1271
01:16:22,840 --> 01:16:26,280
Speaker 1: you know he hated all right, Yeah right, maybe you

1272
01:16:26,280 --> 01:16:28,800
Speaker 1: could keep that in mind if it happened. Just think

1273
01:16:28,840 --> 01:16:31,040
Speaker 1: of Jean Dominique. Absolutely, if it ever happens to me,

1274
01:16:31,200 --> 01:16:33,800
Speaker 1: I think about it all the time, whatever happens to me.

1275
01:16:33,840 --> 01:16:35,680
Speaker 1: I just got to think of that movie. This guy

1276
01:16:35,760 --> 01:16:39,240
Speaker 1: wrote a whole book. I can do it. I wrote

1277
01:16:39,240 --> 01:16:44,599
Speaker 1: a whole book. Yeah. Well, and not just able bodied

1278
01:16:44,680 --> 01:16:49,160
Speaker 1: people were questioning Helen keller Um. Some people with disabilities

1279
01:16:49,680 --> 01:16:52,800
Speaker 1: really resent Helen Keller because she's always held up is

1280
01:16:52,880 --> 01:16:56,880
Speaker 1: this like saintly figure who overcame so much to do

1281
01:16:57,120 --> 01:17:01,080
Speaker 1: so much, you know, and because we all learned about her,

1282
01:17:02,200 --> 01:17:05,439
Speaker 1: because all we learned about her is her childhood and

1283
01:17:05,920 --> 01:17:09,799
Speaker 1: never really about the woman she became. Kind of besides

1284
01:17:09,840 --> 01:17:11,960
Speaker 1: her long list of accomplishments. Of course, you just kind

1285
01:17:11,960 --> 01:17:15,800
Speaker 1: of hear like Helen Keller couldn't see or talk or here,

1286
01:17:15,960 --> 01:17:18,040
Speaker 1: and then Ann Sullivan came and held her hand under

1287
01:17:18,120 --> 01:17:21,120
Speaker 1: water pump and suddenly at all became clear. And then

1288
01:17:21,640 --> 01:17:23,479
Speaker 1: she got a bunch of awards and wrote a bunch

1289
01:17:23,479 --> 01:17:24,800
Speaker 1: of books and did a bunch of things, and then

1290
01:17:24,840 --> 01:17:27,120
Speaker 1: she died. Like that's sort of the Helen Keller story

1291
01:17:27,200 --> 01:17:31,000
Speaker 1: we know. So because of that, she's really been very diluted,

1292
01:17:31,200 --> 01:17:34,080
Speaker 1: like you don't know, we don't know really the real

1293
01:17:34,160 --> 01:17:38,080
Speaker 1: Helen Keller getting a three dimensional picture here exactly. I mean,

1294
01:17:38,160 --> 01:17:42,439
Speaker 1: in her lifetime, she was prevented from loving someone, sometimes

1295
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:45,559
Speaker 1: prevented from speaking out about things she cared about because

1296
01:17:45,680 --> 01:17:50,080
Speaker 1: she was meant to be this inspirational example to everybody.

1297
01:17:50,880 --> 01:17:53,240
Speaker 1: And you know, she'd been a celebrity since she was

1298
01:17:53,320 --> 01:17:58,000
Speaker 1: eight years old. So that's insane, yes, crazy, And in

1299
01:17:58,120 --> 01:18:01,840
Speaker 1: death she's still depicted mostly as a pre pubescent girl

1300
01:18:01,880 --> 01:18:04,280
Speaker 1: at a water pump. So like, you know, even with

1301
01:18:04,479 --> 01:18:07,840
Speaker 1: all the accomplishments that she made after that, that's the

1302
01:18:08,040 --> 01:18:10,760
Speaker 1: image that is like drawn, you know, drilled into our

1303
01:18:10,840 --> 01:18:14,320
Speaker 1: brain about her. But Helen Keller was a really accomplished person.

1304
01:18:14,439 --> 01:18:17,519
Speaker 1: I mean, even without disabilities. Writing a dozen books and

1305
01:18:17,640 --> 01:18:21,400
Speaker 1: contributing to multiple magazines and going on years long lecture

1306
01:18:21,439 --> 01:18:24,760
Speaker 1: tours across the globe is incredible. I mean, for real, right,

1307
01:18:25,040 --> 01:18:27,640
Speaker 1: please let me do half of that life. But she

1308
01:18:27,840 --> 01:18:30,560
Speaker 1: wasn't a saint. She was a human woman. She was

1309
01:18:30,640 --> 01:18:33,200
Speaker 1: someone who fell in love with this handsome journalist and

1310
01:18:33,280 --> 01:18:35,600
Speaker 1: wanted to run away with him. She liked to go

1311
01:18:35,680 --> 01:18:37,400
Speaker 1: out and get a hot dog from the stand on

1312
01:18:37,479 --> 01:18:40,960
Speaker 1: the corner, or drink a few martinis before bed. She

1313
01:18:41,080 --> 01:18:44,320
Speaker 1: loved a good joke. She had a calm, cheerful outlook

1314
01:18:44,400 --> 01:18:47,240
Speaker 1: on life. She was just a lady. She's just a

1315
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:50,920
Speaker 1: cool lady. And she had a lot of really strong

1316
01:18:51,000 --> 01:18:54,800
Speaker 1: opinions that a lot of people in power really didn't

1317
01:18:54,800 --> 01:18:58,000
Speaker 1: want you to read about. So they were like, let's

1318
01:18:58,080 --> 01:19:02,840
Speaker 1: forget that part her nineteen sixty eight New York Times

1319
01:19:02,880 --> 01:19:09,000
Speaker 1: obituary sums it up well. Tall, handsome, gracious, poised, Miss

1320
01:19:09,120 --> 01:19:12,960
Speaker 1: Keller has a sparkling humor and a warm hand clasp

1321
01:19:13,080 --> 01:19:17,720
Speaker 1: that won her friends easily. She exuded vitality and optimism.

1322
01:19:18,240 --> 01:19:21,080
Speaker 1: My life has been happy because I have had wonderful

1323
01:19:21,160 --> 01:19:24,639
Speaker 1: friends and plenty of interesting work to do, she once remarked,

1324
01:19:25,200 --> 01:19:28,880
Speaker 1: adding I seldom think about my limitations, and they never

1325
01:19:29,000 --> 01:19:31,840
Speaker 1: make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of

1326
01:19:31,960 --> 01:19:35,000
Speaker 1: yearning at times, but it is vague, like a breeze

1327
01:19:35,040 --> 01:19:39,320
Speaker 1: among flowers. The wind passes, and the flowers are content.

1328
01:19:40,600 --> 01:19:45,439
Speaker 1: Tell you just right. I just think it's important to

1329
01:19:45,520 --> 01:19:49,080
Speaker 1: know how deeply she loved people and how I don't know.

1330
01:19:49,240 --> 01:19:53,200
Speaker 1: She's just not not what what I knew about. Now again,

1331
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:55,320
Speaker 1: I read about an eight year old and that was it.

1332
01:19:56,000 --> 01:19:58,280
Speaker 1: But I have to be gross, if I can be

1333
01:19:58,360 --> 01:20:01,760
Speaker 1: gross for a minute, population stations. What it's all about

1334
01:20:01,760 --> 01:20:05,360
Speaker 1: here in Ridiculous Romance? Do you think that Helen and

1335
01:20:05,439 --> 01:20:08,760
Speaker 1: Peter ever had sex? Because I mean she was at

1336
01:20:08,760 --> 01:20:11,920
Speaker 1: our mid thirties by this time, they were alone. I'm

1337
01:20:11,960 --> 01:20:15,120
Speaker 1: not sure. I mean, why not? Come on, they must

1338
01:20:15,120 --> 01:20:17,240
Speaker 1: have done something right. I kind of hope they did.

1339
01:20:17,680 --> 01:20:19,720
Speaker 1: If it was like her one love affair, I feel

1340
01:20:19,760 --> 01:20:21,360
Speaker 1: like I'm like, I hope she went all the way

1341
01:20:21,400 --> 01:20:26,600
Speaker 1: with it. Maybe maybe they just did hand stuff. Oh my,

1342
01:20:26,720 --> 01:20:29,640
Speaker 1: oh my god, I can't believe you just said that.

1343
01:20:30,720 --> 01:20:38,519
Speaker 1: Oh no and stuff. Oh man, Look, we know they

1344
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:42,160
Speaker 1: did hand stuff. But yeah, you should leave. We should leave.

1345
01:20:43,320 --> 01:20:45,880
Speaker 1: I'm jumping right to the email address after that one.

1346
01:20:47,400 --> 01:20:52,519
Speaker 1: You've said enough, I'm sorry canceled. Look if you wanna,

1347
01:20:53,640 --> 01:20:58,360
Speaker 1: if you want to really give Diana what Stern talking to,

1348
01:20:59,160 --> 01:21:01,559
Speaker 1: then you can send us an email at Romance at

1349
01:21:01,600 --> 01:21:07,200
Speaker 1: I heart media dot com, or or slide into my

1350
01:21:07,400 --> 01:21:11,160
Speaker 1: d M. I guess I'm on Twitter and Instagram at

1351
01:21:11,240 --> 01:21:14,200
Speaker 1: dianamite boom and I'm at oh Grade. It's Eli and

1352
01:21:14,360 --> 01:21:17,919
Speaker 1: just remember who said it. The show is at riddic Romance.

1353
01:21:18,120 --> 01:21:20,000
Speaker 1: If you want to tag us and I hate posts,

1354
01:21:21,280 --> 01:21:24,760
Speaker 1: please don't. I didn't mean it like that. I know

1355
01:21:24,920 --> 01:21:28,680
Speaker 1: you didn't, but it was. It came out. It's pretty good.

1356
01:21:28,760 --> 01:21:31,880
Speaker 1: It's pretty good. Um. We're so happy to have you

1357
01:21:31,960 --> 01:21:35,479
Speaker 1: as always, And I hope that you enjoyed this episode

1358
01:21:35,600 --> 01:21:40,320
Speaker 1: about Helen Keller and Peter Fagin and and hopefully learned

1359
01:21:40,479 --> 01:21:45,200
Speaker 1: something about people of disabilities. I certainly did right and

1360
01:21:45,680 --> 01:21:49,120
Speaker 1: how they're perceived and right, you know what that's like

1361
01:21:49,280 --> 01:21:51,400
Speaker 1: going through I mean, and still today they have a

1362
01:21:51,479 --> 01:21:54,760
Speaker 1: hard time getting married, especially to each other, because of

1363
01:21:54,880 --> 01:21:58,120
Speaker 1: the way the benefits work and disability benefits, and so

1364
01:21:58,200 --> 01:22:01,920
Speaker 1: they're they're still fighting for urge equality. This seems like

1365
01:22:02,000 --> 01:22:07,160
Speaker 1: an old, old timey thing, but it's it's happening right now. Well,

1366
01:22:07,320 --> 01:22:09,760
Speaker 1: we hope to hear from you soon, and we will

1367
01:22:09,880 --> 01:22:12,599
Speaker 1: definitely be here for the next episode because if we weren't,

1368
01:22:12,600 --> 01:22:15,479
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be one. But we'll look forward to seeing

1369
01:22:15,520 --> 01:22:17,920
Speaker 1: you then. Thank you so much for tuning in as always,

1370
01:22:18,040 --> 01:22:20,479
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next time. So long, friends, it's

1371
01:22:20,560 --> 01:22:24,679
Speaker 1: time to go. Thanks so listening to our show. Tell

1372
01:22:24,760 --> 01:22:28,040
Speaker 1: your friend's name's uncle Sandance to listen to a show

1373
01:22:28,160 --> 01:22:29,439
Speaker 1: ridiculous Well Nance