Helen Adams Keller was a remarkable young woman who overcame her problems even with disabilities. With the help of Anne Sullivan, she learned how to read and write. She was the one who taught people to respect those who were blind and deaf. Helen was born with both sight and hearing, but when illness struck her on February 1882, her life changed forever .
Helen Adams Keller was born on 27 June 1880 in Tuscumbia, in Northwest Alabama, USA. When Helen was only 1 ½ old, she got very sick on February 1882. In fact her fever got so high, she was expected to die in a few days, but soon the fever started to drop down. The family soon knew that Helen had gone deaf and blind from the illness. Over the next few years, Helen became unmanageable to handle. She threw tantrums, smashed things, and had no manners at all.
When Helen was six her family decided to seek help from doctors or specialists. They went to see many different people even the famous Alexander Graham Bell. Soon they found a woman named Anne Sullivan. On 3 March 1887, Anne did finger spelling with Helen. She spelt out doll on her finger to represent the doll she brought as a gift for her on the first day. Anne kept doing that with her all the time. Even though Helen could repeat the movements and strokes on her hand that Anne was doing, however she did not understand what they meant. .
Anne and Helen moved into a small cottage to try to get Helen to improve her behavior. Soon the two relationship grew and Helen's manners increased a bit. On April 5 1887, after about a month of teaching, Anne walked with Helen to a water pump. Anne pumped some water onto Helen's hand and then she spelled water onto the girl's other hand. That was when Helen realized what it meant. In her own words, she said "Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought, and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.