Dec 20, 2009

The Story of My Life | About the Author

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, the daughter of Captain Arthur Keller, a former Confederate officer, and his second wife, Kate Adams Keller. She lived as a normal, healthy child for the first eighteen months of her life. In February 1882, however, she became ill with what doctors called "acute congestion of the stomach and brain." A conclusive diagnosis of the exact disease has never been made, but her family discovered shortly after her recovery that she had lost both her sight and her hearing.

She spent the next five years unable to...