The Story of My Life chapter 1 summary

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This gives you a chapter by chapter summary. In brief, the first chapter is the autobiography of Helen Keller, written in her third year at Radcliffe College. Though the autobiography of a 22-year-old might not interest most people, Helen's was very popular when it was first published in 1903. Helen had been blind and deaf since before the age of two, yet she had earned a place at Radcliffe College among hearing and seeing young women.

Helen was born near Tuscumbia, Alabama on June 23, 1880, into a well-connected family. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, had been a Confederate Captain who was related to Robert E. Lee. Helen's mother, Kate Adams Keller, was a well-read young woman from an intellectual family.

Arthur had two sons from a previous marriage, but Helen was Kate's first child, so she was fussed over, as many first children are. There were several family stories about how outgoing and persistent Helen was, even as a baby. For instance, she was supposed to have said, "How d'ye?" at six months old. She used her infant word for water, "wah-wah," right up until she learned to fingerspell "water" five years later. Helen took her first baby steps on her first birthday, as she chased the light and shadow that played on the bathroom floor. In short, Helen was a thriving, normal child for the first 19 months of her life.

Then, in February 1882, Helen suffered an acute fever, possibly scarlet fever, which took her sight and hearing. She had a few memories of sight and sound, but after her illness, she gradually forgot them. It would be years until she remembered them again, when Anne Sullivan came "to set my spirit free."