New CHS Acquisition Brings Story Of Helen Keller Back To Connecticut

HARTFORD — Most people think of Helen Keller as the young girl from Alabama who was stricken with the tragedy of losing both her sight and her hearing during infancy, without the diagnosis of a definitive disease.

Many associate her with her companion and teacher, Annie Sullivan, who aided Keller in overcoming these challenges by teaching her how to communicate as a deaf and blind person.

One of the lesser-known facts of Ms Keller’s life is that after the death of her long-time and treasured friend Annie in 1936, Helen moved to Easton with her secretary and friend Polly Thompson, where she would spend the remaining years of her life in an elegant Colonial-style home named Arcan Ridge.

Ms Keller’s beloved Easton home was presented to her by G.A. Pfeiffer of the American Foundation for the Blind.  Although the home was built tailored to her needs, Ms Keller had so adopted herself to normal living that the house contained no special architectural innovations.

She did, however, have a special buzzer system installed by which she could call on guests or a servant. The buzzer system was placed in the floor of her study so that she could feel the vibrations. She even had a special system set up whereby the number of buzzes told her whether a guest was waiting or if dinner was ready.

The Connecticut Historical Society Museum recently purchased an etching entitled “An American Shrine: Home of Doctor Helen Keller” by Phillip Kappel, depicting the famous speaker and author’s little known home in Connecticut. The etching shows a two-story frame house surrounded by a high stone retaining wall with a stone step path leading up to the front door.

The etching was commissioned by Ms Keller herself in 1946, so she would presumably have had access to the copper plate from which it was printed.

The artist’s original drawing would have been etched into the copper using acid. In order to print the plate, it would have been inked, then wiped clean; the ink remaining in the etched lines would have been transferred to a sheet of paper when it was printed on the etching press.

A blind person’s sensitive fingers, such as Ms Keller’s, would have been able to feel and perhaps interpret Mr Kappel’s design.

“Perhaps she was able to visualize her beloved home by touching the etched surface of the original copperplate,” speculated Nancy Finlay, PhD, the CHS Museum’s curator of graphics. “It’s nice to think that maybe she could because she could never literally see either the print or the house itself.”

Over the course of her life, Ms Keller lived in many different places as she was lecturing, touring, and going to school.  She spent time in Cambridge and Wrentham, Mass., as well as in Forest Hills, N.Y., before settling in Connecticut. It is believed that her home at Arcan Ridge was her favorite of all her previous residences.

After a series of strokes and with her public life drawing to a close, Ms Keller spent her remaining years at Arcan Ridge under the care of Winnie Corbally following the passing of Polly Thompson in 1960.

Sadly, a fire destroyed the home while Helen Keller was touring overseas in Europe. Although the home was rebuilt the following year and rededicated, Ms Keller lost many precious mementos, and her latest book, entitled Teacher, about Annie Sullivan, was destroyed.

On June 1, 1968, Helen Keller died peacefully in her sleep at Arcan Ridge, just a few weeks short of her 88th birthday.  She was cremated in Bridgeport, and her ashes were deposited next to both Annie Sullivan and Polly Thompson’s in Washington, D.C.