Anne Sullivan

Anne Sullivan with Helen Keller, 1903

"I have lost my patience and courage many, many times; but I have found that one difficult task accomplished makes the next easier." - Anne Sullivan

Anne Sullivan was born in Massachusetts in 1866 to parents Thomas and Alice, immigrants who had left Ireland during the Great Famine, seeking a better life in the United States. The Sullivans, however, found life in their new country challenging. Thomas was a farm laborer who struggled with alcoholism, and the family lived in poverty.

Growing up, Anne experienced much suffering. Atop the poverty and instability, she became partially blind after contracting trachoma at five years old. Then, her mother passed away when Anne was eight, and two years later, her father abandoned his children. At that point, she was separated from her sister and sent to the Tewksbury almshouse, a home for poor people, with her brother.

The conditions at the almshouse were appalling, with overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, inadequate food, and rampant disease. Anne's brother, frail since birth, died three months after their arrival, leaving Anne more alone than ever.

Anne abhorred life at the almshouse and deeply desired to go to school. She would write later, "Very much of what I remember about Tewksbury is indecent, cruel, melancholy." But besides a brief period of living in a hospital, Anne spent about five years there before finally finding a way out. During an almshouse inspection in 1880, she ran up to a group of people, not knowing which one was the State Inspector of Charities, and said while crying, "Mr. Sanborn, Mr. Sanborn, I want to go to school!" This was enough to persuade the State Inspector to move her to the Perkins School for the Blind.