Birthplace of HELEN KELLER Tuscumbia AL

[Music] well hello my friends it's your old pal joy in the lion and of course your old pal ja we're here in Alabama and today what I want to do is I know what pronounces town wrong and I know many of you will let me know that I mispronounced it thank you for always doing that it's either Tuscumbia or Tuscumbia we're going there today because that's the birthplace of a very inspirational woman a woman who started out like many of us when you born she could hear she could speak and then within 18 months she couldn't today we're going to go visit the birthplace of Helen Keller and apparently we're gonna do it in the rain days with Jordan the lion begins now and the rain has him going full force out of here did you get rained on yeah we're passing through Muscle Shoals but I decided not to vlog that this time because I want to have something to do when I come back plus I feel like we've done a ton of recording stuff and they also won't let me video it has to all be photos so I'll just save it for another time here's our first sign ivy green Helen Keller birthplace not helen keller's tank definitely not Helen killers take the Helen Keller is not just an inspirational person because she was the first woman to attend Harvard or because she was eventually stricken at the age of one and a half with something they called brain fever lost her sight lost her hearing and then eventually ended up being able to not only read Braille but sign and eventually learn to speak but she used all of her gifts that she acquired to educate others for the rest of her life and to help raise money so that others that were in her situation could get help and what a wonderful cause her town remembers her and at the end of this month are actually having a festival in her honor [Music] [Applause] the Helen obviously didn't do it alone without her teacher and Sullivan who would eventually be brought to her by Alexander Graham Bell her family originally sought out help from him because he his mother was also afflicted with being deaf and his wife also and he had been a tutor and he basically said let's take her to the Perkins Institute and the Perkins Institute assigned and Sullivan to Helen Keller and that was that was the turning point in Helens life you see Helen was very smart even from the beginning she learned to find ways to communicate with her parents even though she couldn't see or hear she would if she wanted something from the refrigerator she would go up to the like say ice cream was one of the examples she would shiver she would find ways of letting them know but she had found ways also to abuse this and could get anything she wanted she would take food from the family at the table and they said this really got worse when Helen who had been an only child when her parents had a another daughter Helen got very jealous and so this is when they sought out the help of and Sullivan C Anne Sullivan recognized immediately that part of what was the problem with Helen why Helen was so unruly was that her family gave in to everything that she wanted and so Anne immediately started to change that when Helen would try and take things off her plate and would smack her hand away and continue to do that and if the family as they watched and they would have given in and asked them to leave the room and then she just proceeds to eat her food and eventually Helen realizes that is this is not the way you get what you want and she starts eating your own food and she really has her major breakthrough when Anne talked the family into allowing her to take Helen to what she says are what she makes Helen believe is a faraway house but really they got in a carriage and they rode around for an hour and went to another house on the property Keller property not too far from the main house and there Helen was just stuck with an where if she threw a tantrum and would deal with it and Ann would you know eventually be the stronghold that would make Helen see the the way of learning and it would come from that water pump and we're gonna see that today if you're wondering when all that noises it's the little train that goes around this Park here you can see in town they've honored Helen Keller with the public library here but they also have a sign that somewhat describes the times because Helen was born in 1880 and it's saying here in 1878 yellow fever spread through here taking 31 lives in Tuscumbia this committee together with volunteers of both white and black assisted by trained nurses brought from Memphis nurse the sick carried supplies prepared the bodies dug graves and buried the dead now with Helen they called it brain fever but they say now but it was probably meningitis or yellow fever or something like that they're not quite sure we're close only two and a half blocks away all right we have made it the house is right through here she was at one point named the most important woman in the world one year is that incredible no I often think that things happen for a reason this is one of those that you often wonder all the things all the good that she did in her life and everything that came out of it you know it was it was almost like it was meant to be for her to be the one to help do it and she did have one massive setback and this is also one of those learning experiences that I think was probably meant to be is that when she was learning to read she had been read a a book called the frost fairies and unknowingly that story stuck in her subconscious and at the age of 11 she wrote a story herself called the frost King sent it to the man who headed up the Perkins Institute who had sent an to her as a gift he liked it so much he decided to publish it and eventually not long after I was published they found out that it was plagiarized and what they believe is that the way Helens brain would categorize things it was just a different learning method somehow that it's stuck in her subconscious and she unknowingly had play dry someones work but she was so humiliated because she viewed the truth as being the the most important thing in the world and to think that you know that that she wasn't being truthful really hurt her and they said so it didn't stop her from writing she would go on to write over a dozen books but she would be so paranoid that she would double check every sentence that she wrote to make sure that it wasn't someone else's they have to hand it to Anne Sullivan she was a true teacher because not only did she help Helen I mean when she first showed up Helen realized what was going on because her mother had been frantically rearranging the house and cleaning up and so she knew something was happening and when Anne hugged her and wouldn't let go Helen started freaking out and she realized that this was this was going to be a change for her she actually knocked out Anne's front tooth within the first couple of days and Anne still stuck with it and stuck with her all the way through as Helen would become world famous at the age of ten and would go on speaking well going on engagements to help raise money she would also go to college and would follow her there and help her through college and then when Anne would get married Helen would move in with Ann and her husband ivy green the family home of Captain Arthur M and Kate Adams Keller was built in 1820 being the second house erected in Tuscumbia here on June 27th 1880 was born America's first lady of courage Helen Adams Keller so they're gonna give me a guided tour inside the house but I wanted to take a walk around the outside first there's the main house and I believe this house over here to the side is the one that they brought hell into the seclusion house basically and then we'll go inside of these hopefully I'll be able to show you everything you know they said that this has been open as a museum since 1954 so we'll go in there in a little while want to take a walk show you this stuff in the back first including the the well which is right in here I mean that's such a historic moment in history before you know at the moment nobody knew it would be so important outside of just this house but at this well and Sullivan Macy revealed the mystery of language to seven-year-old Helen Keller by spelling the words wate our water into her hand as water flowed over the other hand isn't that incredible when you think of all the good that she did in her life it all basically changed right here she went from being what they described as a monster to being someone who was obsessed with learning obsessed with getting better and helping others that's incredible all the historic things that we get a see in this channel it's you know I that's I could never categorize what's the most important because every day I think it's just a conglomeration of important things in the world that help us understand it and her family was somewhat well-off her dad had been married before and had two grown sons and this says the cooks bedroom so lets us know that they had some help inside that house then that would have been the kitchen you can see the pans and everything on the ground and then all the dishes in that corner so great that this place is left unchanged other than maybe a few benches here and there let's go see what that is oh oh it's like a loft area oh I know there's a bell around the corner I want to check that out it's kind of neat look at the bell up there probably the old dinner bell all right let's go on in see what we can see inside awesome we can film in here look it's her handwriting 19:54 she could read Shakespeare at the age of 10 - mr. and mrs. Goldwater there she is reading let's see her book is Braille of course some family photos and built the home on 640 acres now back then there was a lot of English ivy growing in the property so that's why the family named it happy bright no Tigers today but the ivy continues to grow outside now we have pictures of Helens father at the top left corner local office in downtown toots come here he even had a newspaper called the North Alabama and weekly paper and John Quincy Adams are second and a sixth president when the two of them were going to marry there were other family members sleeping here in the main house captain Keller sister lived here her name was Evelyn and she never married like to do with Helen as far as snow training they didn't know how to train her they had money to pay for help but couldn't find anything with her hand they didn't know really no discipline and no tre it's not definitely when she was six years out of her sister Mildred is born she dumped the baby at the cradle fortunately it didn't harm this penguin that was a wake-up call for the family that were very concerned of what in the world would become a pelham doctor but a teacher and encouraged the family to write for this country school for the blind located near Boston Massachusetts and inquire about a teacher which is what they did and that is where they found Pam Sullivan now we have a picture of Anne Sullivan on the wall here for the bond now the reason she's at a school for the blind is because Amy had vision loss and she's finished in school at age 20 and percussion didn't start school until age 14 it took her six years to complete and she completed valedictorian for class so Annie was quite intelligent however she had a very very sad childhood I don't know if you build a fervor said don't know I haven't Annie was abandoned at a young age by her father after her mother passed away with tuberculosis she and her little brother Jimmy her when her little brother was crippled from tuberculosis and they were left in a poor house located in Tewksbury which is about 30 miles from Boston she begged them to please help her go to school well with this I to say she had she qualified for the Perkins school so that's what they took Richmond and that's why surgeries after that so apparently they get surgeries and 18 others on your eyes which is scary yeah really and it's unbelievable that she got that from from the bad living conditions unbelievable I infections and that were just kidding this is just a month and two days after Annie had arrived here she was spelling dolls blowing over Helens hand and you would sign him whe er over and over giving to that other pan and all at once it clicked with Helen she had a flashback and realized the cool something flowing up from her hand it's what she had murder back then that she called Wawa see it not ten months hello sorry shorten you know starting to talk yeah she ran all over other things for aimed assigned to her she are 30 words then and over 600 floors in the next six at the age of seven Wow then she would ne convinced the parents to let her take him away to other schools she felt like she had taught her off she could hear in the home and the parents agreed with that so the two of them went back to this Perkins school near Boston that Annie had attended and then Helen went to two schools for the death the Horace Mann School for the death would you still located in Boston is where Helen decided she wanted to learn to talk she was 10 years old so the principal Sarah fuller taught them how to use for both the way Helen would learn is by filling the vibrations of the throat is the person spoke and she also felt the mouth women the tone movement as well as other facial features she said it isn't warm now Annie was my Helen side issue graduating high school she went to a crime school called Cambridge School for Girls that prepared her for college then she entered Radcliffe College at the age of 29 back in that day Harvard and Radcliffe were separated the men went to Harvard and the ladies record right he's graduated four years with honors Parvati the middle she's also sitting down she was quite tall five foot seven to the left is handy and impose behind her psychic her personal secretary yeah but she paulie's also the one that took over for Annie though when Amy passed away is Helens traveling companion Trang and he actually died at the age of 70 in October of 1936 and didn't didn't hell him live with and in her husband even when she got married so Annie Annie died age of 70 so she had been the killer for 50 years but when Polly passed away in 1960 she was with Helen for 46 years recessive they both devoted their life to Helen Helen lived eight additional years she passed on June 1st 1968 just short of her 88th birthday okay we've been three wait flavor on June the 27th you said how old are the floors 109 199 Wow and 85 percent of the furniture in the house is original and everything in the cottage is original that is unbelievable daddy sleeping in the cottage and the parents are sleeping in this room Helens bedroom you'll find upstairs on the left the baby's very own hand-carved the quilt is also very own it's called a pricey quilt and it was made by airline captain her sister that lived in home the dresses hanging up on Helens at different ages for live the future over the fireplace Helen at age 13 and then the picture of the man on the dresser is Helen little brother now he was born when Helen was 10 years out and she night her brother Philips Rose Kepler she named him after her for her well it was a brand he was a friend Phillips Brooks was an Episcopalian minister and they were pen pals together and in fact the minister of several popular hams one being in a little town of Bethlehem oh wow after her good friend so this brother was an engineer and raised his family in Dallas Texas for his descendants continue to live today the sister Mildred was a teacher in Montgomery Alabama but her descendants live right here in Tuscumbia the Hat burgers one Herod wanted thought that they were not sure to photographs over the red sofa under oath that is his great-great-great grandparents three greats elexander Spotswood in his wife Anna for she'll notice his hair or his wig not sure which it is up and I've been calling that his George Washington yeah I kind of that corrected me she's oh no I read about overfilled orchard that was his rural high so I thought well maybe it is yeah maybe that with a 392 Martha Washington George's why nature poverty lilies if I had several political folks in that family that's the painting of Helen we don't think it's a good likeness over over the blue sofa a traveling artist country when she was fifteen and painted that for room and board for a few nights you know back in that day that's how that we do for bringing forward that kind of picture for you the needlework piece by the fireplace is something the killer ladies stitch that frame is adjustable and they use that to shoot for the fire but the ladies particularly show their faces with it back then the maple table was made from beeswax oh the killer furniture but it is 1800 organ and it does it's fully restored and from time to time we have someone that plays it that we have celebrity to play it not long ago Steven Tyler oh yeah Aerosmith he was recording for a week he was in town recording that fine recording studio have you toured they're here no but I'm gonna go but he came in with his two bodyguards and they had only a few minutes but when he got in here he was so impressed with everything in our executive director was she was here and that's her in the photographs with him that by the way went viral on Facebook but she turned him around and so he did spend over an hour then those photographs went viral and the next day people were looking for like excited overnight here like this I'm back now back in that day the mirrors were I guess it must have come out further because the ladies the petticoats couldn't be they were not to show yeah we're not to show it so that was very scandalous something that you know check to make sure nothing we're showing yeah and then on this side of the road this is the fainting couch back to the ladies that I wore the corsets as well under those dresses which was very tight coupled with this these Alabama hot summers they probably had to utilize the thing you got pretty often I bet her mother in here this was a pantry Oh for dry goods and it's also the pantry that Helen well I just showed you that cut lock for mother and when she was five years of almost two years before Annie arrived here everybody was out working the fields that day mom goes into the pantry to get something out of it and Helen turns the skeleton key locks her in and she goes and sits outside on the front porch F now she wrote all about this is the reason we know the details in that first book I told you about the story of my life telling rug how funny that was to her how she just beautiful be careful because mom was locked in the pantry and that day is when this home was open to the public for the first time as the truce attraction then it got on the National Register the home did a National Register of Historic Places it's a favorite room that people like to see because this is where the famous food fight between Helen and Annie took place the next morning at breakfast time before we talk more about the food I thought let me show you about some interesting furniture in this left front corner that is how a sugar changes in the key boat back then sugar only run across a year so they had to keep it locked up now the oldest piece in the room is that silver tea set and the far-left for it is well over 200 years old from Angela that is an original Autobot print above fireplace and a Jackson grace at the furniture in the far right corner will doesn't store their linens and silver now the China that you see on the table and in the china cabinet if all the slip under your family China's an elevator oh yeah but the type of you see though it is antique that was not the total she paid from that day it was a larger colonial table that title is right here in Tuscumbia in the home of Helen sister's descendants at live in town they still use it but now the things by any could not believe what she was saying Emily although it was a normal real time for Helen and her family because for all those years Helen never sat down today with her hand she walked around like to play AG from everyone else's and that was just the way it was back then and II couldn't believe it that she's moving her hand back from her flat and she's back by thanking the parents were in stop Helen but they just kept talking and eating so finally Andy took action when Helen came back around her like trying to grab her sausage off of it that's when she popped her own hand and that's when the war began because that was the first time Helen had been disciplined in her whole life she was mad at Andy you know for this winter she grabbed that up captain Keller was mad at Amy as well he said lay felon be never what she wants which is obviously what they've done all those years and you reminded the family that she had been brought here to teach Helen she said the discipline must go along with that they did quite abruptly and he said the teaching needs to start nihilism or the a new labor room which they did and he'll shut them off both of these doors and the food fight begin now last year for several hours so it was a late lunch that day you could probably imagine what this might look like with the chairs turned over food on the floor and broken dishes but if that short length of time tell that a brother sat down to eat when per spoon and even worth over napkin so this was quite pleasing to the parents and to Annie but Annie knew she needed to get Helen away from her parents even for a short time in order to teach her properly detailing in the home after the food fight for the next couple of weeks trying to convince the parents to lever take Helen off the property even to another state so she can help so control of her without their interference yeah well that but that's what Hannibal what about this cottage next door where Helen was born on any of our Helen had not slept out there since she was five so been almost two years and the parents agreed to two weeks in the cottage so Kevin would not know where she was and you rearrange the furniture out there and captain Keller ek Road Helen round and round around the property by our system buggy so she would think she's far away and that way they could check on her next goal now they could get close to Helen need the man because she didn't have a good where she her save her sentence a very keen sense of smell he would know what was going on oh yeah that makes sense water that water was flowing over her over Helens hand she realized it was water and of course the rest is history now this room was Evelyn's bedroom captain Keller strictures have also lived in the home the statue is the replica Washington they say the pest Braille all around it the ladies are buried in the Nationals that they played Washington they say we have a big poster picture of where they're buried and also the world of Helens faith is here that they used to make this column it kind of blends in oh and that's where she's buried she's buried she auntie Amparo what an honor uh-huh and then above is her funeral service at her father's newspaper the North Alabamian in 1877 now we have a weekly newspaper now in his office that up and they still have some of his equipment the weekly newspaper in downtown Tuscola it's called the Carver County report from rail riders and stuff here's a here's her book sheet she wrote and there's a key I was telling you about where she locked any upstairs in the bedroom now you're gonna see pictures with her many dolls pictures with presidents she met every president from Calvin Coolidge to John F Kennedy but we have a picture on the second shelf here of her reading the lips of President Eisenhower so yeah space I don't know she's finishing her tongue you know she also learned to read by the sticking the tongue at the mouth I don't know if that happened but up here she's got a picture with Eleanor Roosevelt now Helen even was good very good friends with Mark Twain he's the person that also first called and Sullivan the miracle worker oh really William Gibson wrote the play in 1968 stuck and that's why I could play the light of the movie I think I think the movie the movies first started playing it because I know the play out here we've been having to play on this grams for 761 it's there were the stages that's behind the brand now those dresses there are not Helens it's actually the first yeah it's the first girl that played The Miracle Worker that's really neat on the ride fellas runnin on the lam and the room in the middle is a truck run there's more original clothing in a truck as well as the sewing machine that's from Captain Keller's print shop and check this out this is Helens christening gown her christening dress and then next to it as a Braille Scrabble set in Braille playing cards it's interesting she was saying that when Helen locked her mom in that room the reason that she thought it was so funny is because her mom was making so much noise and pounding even though Helen couldn't see her here she could feel the vibrations coming from that room down the floor out onto the porch where she was sitting and she was laughing about it so now we could go upstairs and see the bedrooms and we'll see that room that pan was locked in now they said the one on the right where the two was the older boys room captain Keller's grown sons but it was like a full house you know she said it was Helen her mom and dad were out in the outside house that Helen eventually has taken two but the rest of the family was in here now this is a trunk room she said these are all Helens dresses from various periods of life now the first night that Ann came you might remember that story this is the room that takes place Helen of course at this bed and Ann was to have this bed well Helen was up to her old tricks and as soon as Ann got here she locked and in this bedroom and that's what the key was for that we saw and then she hid the key well Helen's family thought that because Ann had been on a train for three hours or for three days that she was just tired so when they went to eat and she didn't come down they didn't think much of it and then later on in the evening when she didn't come down they came up here and knocked on the door and and was sitting embarrassed that she had been locked in and couldn't get out so captain Keller had to take a ladder on the outside of the window and go in that way to get in out of here and that was Helen Keller's bed something so think of how much learning what I went on right there Helen in the small chair and and in the large chair there's a little desk now let's go outside and check out the little cottage that the carriage ride takes Helen Ann Ann - that's literally right next door so here's the side of the house outside of Helen and Anne's bedroom and where a captain Keller would have had to put the ladder to rescue an that first night from the front of the house we're going to walk this direction and there's the cottage now this was originally the plantation office that captain Keller when he got married to Helen's mother the second wife he converted this into a bridal suite and they lived here and Helen was literally born inside of here and they said we can just pull the doors open and there's glass inside there but we'll be able to see in she said 100% of the things inside here are original [Music] this is where they lived so when they first got here Helen was not a fan of this idea and literally fought to the point where Anne had to physically restrain her like hold her hug her for hours for actually like the first week to really get anything but where she could teach her anything so this is this would have been her rocking-chair Helens mother's sewing basket Helens birth crib wow what an experience now we'll go outside this door and there's a door if you go through there to the left we're gonna go in that door out there and we'll get a view into that room and they did clarify the building back here that I was curious about so that was an old Ice House makes sense and that would have been mostly all Helens room Helens area and that's the room in there that we were looking into there's me in the mirror filming it there's the pump let's look at it again it really ought to have a lot of meaning now now you know a lot more about her life and they told me that right around the corner this this definitely was of course the cook and the kitchens and then this back building was the carriage the carriage house and beyond that now they have a stage and they were telling me that in a week for a week they're going to have a miracle worker being performed there live man what a cool experience what a major piece of history what's interesting about Helen Keller is that not only did she graduate from what would have been the female Division of Harvard but she was the first person with a disability to ever graduate from an Ivy League school like that let's go take a look helen lived a long life to 88 years old an an was with her all the way up until Anne passed away here's a statue of Helen right in the center [Applause] Helen's buried in Washington DC and a cemetery that is by invitation only and when they invited her to be buried there she said that she would only do it if the two people that had helped her and been dedicated to her throughout their lives in her life were to be buried there as well so Ann and Helen's personal secretary and Helen all three are buried there together check this out a statue to that momentous moment it's a little bit repetitive isn't it but the water moment well my friends if you're out this direction definitely make a stop here Steven Tyler did it's totally worth it they give a great tour here tons of information and so much of this is actually true to the house it's unbelievable have a great night thank you for watching and we'll see you all tomorrow goodbye [Music]

Channel: Daze with Jordan the Lion

Views: 119,879

Keywords: daily vlogger, travel vlogger, urbex, golden age, hollywood, travel advice, abandoned, old hollywood, history, tourism, cinema, filming locations, adventures, forgotten, travel, my trip, jacob the carpetbagger, daze with jordan the lion, jordan the lion, daily vlog, vlog, vlogger, vlogging, lifestyle, scandals, film, comedy, los angeles, wolters world, anthony bourdain, tourist, adam the woo, Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller, Tuscumbia, Alabama, blind, deaf, braille, Harvard, strong woman

Id: 81LpJhTaT8w

Length: 39min 18sec (2358 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 19 2019