The Right Key . . .

Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan in July 1888

Dr.  Frank Mayfield was touring Tewksbury Institute when he collided with an elderly floor maid.  To cover the awkward moment he asked, "How long have you worked here?" "Almost since the place opened," the maid replied.  "What can you tell me about this place?" he asked.  "I’ll show you." She led him to the basement.  She pointed to small prison cells, their bars rusted with age.  She said, "That's where they kept Annie." "Who's Annie?" he asked.  "A young girl brought here because she was incorrigible.  Nobody could do anything with her.  She'd bite and scream and throw her food at people.  The doctors and nurses couldn't get near her.  I'd see them trying, with her spitting and scratching.  I was only a few years younger, and I used to think, 'I sure would hate to be locked up in a cage.' I wanted to help her, but if the doctors and nurses couldn't help her, what could someone like me do?  so I baked her brownies.  I walked carefully to her cage and said, 'Annie I baked brownies just for you.’  I'll put them down and then I got out of there as fast as I could.  I was afraid she might throw them at me.  But she took the brownies and ate them.  After that, she was nice to me.  Sometimes I'd talk to her.  Once, I got her laughing.  A nurse noticed and told the doctor.  They asked me if I'd help them with Annie.  I said I’d try.  So every time they wanted to see or examine her, I went into the cage and calmed her down and held her hand.  They discovered Annie was almost blind. After they worked with her a year, Perkins Institute for the Blind opened.  They helped her and she went on to study and become a teacher. 

 

Years later Annie came back to the Tewksbury to visit and asked what she might do to help.  The Director had just received a letter from a man about his daughter.  She was unruly, blind and deaf, deranged and animalistic … but He didn't want to put her in an asylum.  So he wrote to ask if we knew a teacher who would work with his daughter." That is how Annie Sullivan became the lifelong companion of Helen Keller.  Years later, when Keller received the Nobel Prize, she was asked who had the greatest impact on her life.  She said, "Annie Sullivan." But Annie said, "No Helen.  The woman with the greatest influence on both our lives was a floor maid at the Tewksbury Institute.”

 

A scrub maid, who chose to use her power of the keys

          An almost blind incorrigible

          Who chose to use her power of the keys

          And for all that unlocking

                    A world was enriched, a Nobel laureate emerged

                    And a story of dyadic love again finds incarnation.

 

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