Laura Bridgman, Trailblazer for Hellen Keller

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Hellen Keller became famous as the first deaf and blind person to graduate from college. She went on to become an author and an activist for the rights of disabled people. But someone went before her, marking the beginning of the trail she would follow.

Laura Bridgman was born in New Hampshire in 1829. When she was two, her family was struck with Scarlet Fever. Her two older sisters died, and she was left blind, deaf, and with little sense of taste or smell. As she was two, she had little or no sense of language, so she was also mute.

Her mother taught her to do a few household tasks, such as spinning, sewing, and setting the table. Her father taught her the concept of “no,” by stamping on the floor so she could feel the vibrations when she did something wrong. Their hired hand, Asa Tenney, spent a lot of time with her, showing her the world in the only way she could perceive it, through touch. With him, she bottle-fed lambs, learned that the creek froze over in the winter, and held baby birds. In this way, Laura’s curiosity stayed alive.

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Laura impressed visitors with her ability to help around the house and her desire to learn about her environment. Eventually, her name was mentioned to Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins School for the Blind. Howe had recently met another deaf and blind woman who had been taught to communicate via a few simple signs, and he wondered how much such a child could be taught. A few weeks before her eighth birthday, Laura’s family took her to the school in Boston, and left her there.

Laura was devastated, of course. No one could tell her that this was in fact her greatest (and perhaps only) opportunity. All she knew was that her family was gone, to be replaced by near strangers. Slowly, Howe and his sister Jeanette won over Laura’s affections. They began to teach her.

At first, all the teaching seemed like strange games to Laura. She learned to “read” the raised letters on a tag and match them to a specific object. She learned that the tag marked K-E-Y went with the key and the tag marked S-P-O-O-N went with the spoon. Then she learned to arrange the letters into their proper order if they were given to her on separately. Finally, she learned the manual alphabet. 

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Howe, his sister, and Miss Drew (a woman hired to be Laura’s special teacher,) played these games with Laura for two months, before the magical moment came. Howe would later say that he knew almost the precise moment Laura realized that every item had a name that could be spelled. Laura touched every item around her, asking for its name, and Miss Drew patiently spelled it into her hand. That first night, Miss Drew’s spelling hand ached for hours after Laura went to bed.

Miss Drew gradually introduced other types of words such as verbs and adjectives, and slowly Laura learned to communicate.

Of course, since this was the first time such a task had been undertaken, they didn’t do everything right. They didn’t know the importance of spelling complete sentences to Laura, so her grammar never become correct. She particularly struggled with word order.

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Still, this experiment opened the world to future blind and deaf children. Laura’s progress became a central point in Howe’s annual reports of his institute. These reports were read so widely that when Charles Dickens visited America in 1842, he made it a point to visit Laura, and mentioned her in his book, American Notes. At this point, Laura became famous around the world.

At age 20, Laura returned home to live with her family, but with few people knowing how to communicate with her, she didn’t do well. Her health declined, and Howe created an endowment to ensure that Laura could live out her life at Perkins—though she often spent summers with her family in New Hampshire.

In 1880, Anne Sullivan joined the Perkins School for the Blind. While there, she and Laura became friends. Anne learned the manual alphabet from Laura. She also had medical treatments that greatly improved her eyesight. In 1886, she graduated from Perkins.

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Also in 1886, a desperate mother in Alabama read Charles Dickens’ book, American Notes. There, Mrs. Keller learned that a blind deaf child could be educated. She contacted the Perkins Institute, who recommended Anne Sullivan as a teacher. Anne traveled to Alabama, carrying with her the manual alphabet Laura had taught her and a doll for Helen that Laura had dressed.

Laura died in 1889, too soon to learn just how far young Helen would travel along the path that Laura blazed. But I think she would have been happy to know how well the second round of this experiment went.

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Martha Hutchens is a transplanted southerner who lives in Los Alamos, NM where she is surrounded by history so unbelievable it can only be true. She won the 2019 Golden Heart for Romance with Religious and Spiritual Elements. A former analytical chemist and retired homeschool mom, Martha is frequently found working on her latest knitting project when she isn’t writing.

Martha’s current novella is set in southeast Missouri during World War II. It is free to her newsletter subscribers. You can subscribe to my newsletter at my website, www.marthahutchens.com

After saving for years, Dot Finley's brother finally paid a down payment for his own land—only to be drafted into World War II. Now it is up to her to ensure that he doesn't lose his dream while fighting for everyone else's. No one is likely to help a sharecropper's family.

Nate Armstrong has all the land he can manage, especially if he wants any time to spend with his four-year-old daughter. Still, he can't stand by and watch the Finley family lose their dream. Especially after he learns that the banker's nephew has arranged to have their loan called.

Necessity forces them to work together. Can love grow along with crops?

Puzzle Blocks and Cube Puzzles

by Anita Mae Draper

Map block puzzle, 20th century. Courtesy of © McCord Museum

Colored puzzle blocks like the one in the map puzzle image above, courtesy of the © McCord Museum, have been around since Louis Prang presented chromolithography to the world in 1897. Before then, what was called color lithography was lackluster in appearance and often monotone and dull. With Prang's new process using bright multi-colors, imaginations soared for children and adults alike.

Puzzles blocks are created by pasting parts of a large image on hollow blocks of wood. Since a block has six sides, each puzzle box contained a card showing what each completed puzzle looked like. A page from the 1880-81 McLoughlin Brothers' Catalogue of Games shows a listing of what were called cube puzzles. The list shows a variety of topics, including stories our children still read today. 

McLoughlin Brothers Catalogue of Games, 1880-1881. Public Domain, Courtesy American Antiquarian Society

The puzzles were challenging when similar images of the same topic were included in one box, especially so before the use of chromolithography. Interestingly, the left side of the McLoughlin Bros catalog page shows puzzles called comic and transformation cubes which don't necessarily match. This type invites the imagination to create characters, animals, or things without feeling the need to solve a puzzle. 

In 1898, McLoughlin Bros of New York printed this block puzzle of children playing. The colors show the exquisite detailing of the images, similar to the oil paintings which Louis Prang envisioned when he created the chromolithography process. 

Puzzle blocks of this caliber are still available if one takes the time to search out them out. I found this set online at SS Moore Antiques on Rubylane where they were kind enough to let me use the images. My research into puzzle blocks showed that because the pictures were pasted onto the wood cubes, corners tend to show the most wear, and cards grow brittle. Both blocks and cards are often lost over the years, yet they are still valuable if you like to display vintage items in your decor. 

Although the cube puzzles were eye-catching in stores, it would be many years before catalogues advertising them, or any other toys, were printed in color. 

McLoughlin Bro.'s Catalogue, 1900. Public Domain, Courtesy American Antiquarian Society 

If you're interested in puzzles and game boards, check out my previous posts:

Sep 5, 2020 - Dissected Puzzles in Jane Austen's world

Aug 5, 2020 - Carom and Crokinole

July 5, 2020 - The Reach for Success Board Game

June 5, 2020 - Virtue Board Games

May 5, 2020 - Geographical Board Games

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Anita Mae Draper served a 20-year term working on air bases in the communication trade of the Canadian Armed Forces before retiring to the open skies of the prairies. She uses her experience and love of history to pepper her stories of yesteryear's romance with realism as well as faith. Anita Mae Draper's published stories appear in Barbour Publishing, WhiteFire Publishing, and Guideposts Books. Readers can enrich their story experience with visual references by checking out Anita's Pinterest boards. All links available on her website at www.anitamaedraper.com

POW Escapes With Water Wings

by Anita Mae Draper

When I began my research on lifesavers and flotation devices, I had no idea that water wings existed in the early 1900's, nor that I would discover that a 1917 prisoner of war (POW) would use them in his great escape. According to the UK Imperial War Museum's online display, Swimeesy Water Buoys made of cotton, rubber and metal, were used by Lieutenant G. F. Knight of the Royal Flying Corps to float his food and clothes across the River Ems while escaping Strohen POW camp in Germany in September 1917. 

Swim bag in textile material and metal valve for inflation, before 1926. Source: Digital Museum

Manufactured by Dean's Rag Book Company of London, England, Dean's Swimeesy Buoys were crafted with a heavy cotton material and filled with "vegetable fibers" that may have been kapok. In the center where the wings meet, a metal valve unscrewed to allow inflation. The reverse of the Swimeesy Buoy displayed the manufacturer and instructions for proper use.

Swim bag in textile material and metal valve for inflation, before 1926. Source: Digital Museum

Reference to these water wings can be found in office specialty, dry good, bookseller and stationer catalogs such as the 1907 January issue of Bookseller & Stationer of Canada which contained this brief article on the Swimeesy Buoy:

Stationery & Office Products Catalogue, 1907. Source: archive.org

Soon, Lieutenant Knight's escape was being used by the manufacturer in its marketing campaign when retail showcards such as this one were used to promote the Swimeesy Buoys. Although Swimeesy Buoys were introduced to mimic the colorful wings of a butterfly, a plain white version was also available. 

Dean's Swimeesy Buoys, circa 1907. Dean's Rag Book Co.

Swimeesy Buoys appeared in all sorts of sales literature including The Chemist and Druggist which advertised companies and their merchandise. In the February 24, 1923 edition we find the following information, perhaps written by someone who was fed up with winter:

The Chemist and Druggist, February 24, 1923. Source: archive.org

In the following 1913 glass negative image, J.N. Callahan is shown displaying water wings marked as Coxey's Life Saver and Water Wings. 

J.N. Callahan with life saving device "Coxey's" Life Saver and Water Wings.", 1913. Source: Library of  Congress

Water wings are shown in this next photo of Claudia and Oliver Gardiner learning how to swim in Mary Lake, Ontario in July 1919. As there is no mention of size or manufacturer, we don't know if they are the Swimeesy or Coxey ones. 

Claudia and Oliver Gardiner learning how to swim in Mary Lake, Ontario in July 1919. Courtesy of Glenbow Archives

In 1931, a water wings design made from rubber appeared in Modern Mechanix and were then demonstrated on public beaches in Los Angeles, California. Twenty-five years later, Bernhard Markwitz of Germany invented and developed a swim aid for children after his three-year-old daughter almost drowned in a fish pond, however his final form of armbands didn't hit stores until 1964 when he marketed Swimming Wings. 

I never imagined water wings have been around so long, yet it's another example of how history continues to surprise me.

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Anita Mae Draper lives on the Canadian prairies where she uses her experience and love of history to enhance her stories of yesteryear's romance with realism and faith. Readers can enrich their story experience with visual references by checking Anita's Pinterest boards. All links available on her website at www.anitamaedraper.com

Those Amazing Beechers

Thomas Beecher among Elmira notaries

In the Nineteenth Century, a certain form of Biblical progressivism rapidly changed the dynamics in regards to women's rights, abolition of slavery, and many other social causes. As I researched several of my stories from The Abolitionist's Daughter, set in a Civil War town where women could get the same college degree as a man in the mid1800's, to my newest Barbour novella project involving school teachers, one family's influence kept coming up over and over, and that is the Beecher Family.


I've previously written about Thomas K. Beecher, a beloved pastor and influential figure in my hometown of Elmira, NY. Members of his congregation were active on the Underground Railroad and committed to Abolition. Reverend Beecher himself ministered to Confederate Prisoners of War at Elmira Prison camp, and served the community for decades, creating a true community where the church extended beyond the walls of his Independent Congregationalist building. He enjoyed people, and loved life, and valued education, and it showed. He helped organize baseball teams in town, led parties to the local observatory and planetarium, participated in croquet, billiards, target shooting, cricket, and encouraged community activity and relationship building with other faiths. He could often be seen riding a three wheeled bicycle through town, wearing his straw hat, waving and calling citizens by name. He organized a library in his church building with his own collection of books for community use. He was a devout man of the Word, and his sermons are filled with inspiration, clearly a man motivated to love others because of a passionate love for the Lord. He had the privilege of officiating the marriage of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, to Elmiran Olivia Langdon. He himself was married to the granddaughter of Noah Webster. Beecher helped sponsor and raise up two different regiments of recruits in Elmira during the Civil War--NY 107th and NY 141st, and served briefly as chaplain for the latter.

I was delighted to learn some time ago that Thomas was brother to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the renowned author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. She wrote 30 books, none as successful as this record-setting novel about the perils of slaves after the Fugitive Slave Law, a book which most scholars argue was a catalyst to the Civil War. The book sold more than 300,000 copies in the US and over a million in Great Britain. It was made into a play which ran in New York City. Stowe was received by President Lincoln in 1862, where it is alleged he greeted her as "the little lady who started this great war." Stowe was active in education and in abolition and the Underground Railroad with her husband.

Henry Ward Beecher was another minister brother, who was also active in the Abolitionist cause. Henry was perhaps the most controversial in the family. He raised money to purchase slaves' freedom, and guns to distribute to the abolitionist militants in bleeding Kansas and Nebraska. The rifles were euphemistically called "Beecher's Bibles." Later in life he took a kindler, gentler view of social reform and the gospel, emphasizing God's love. He championed women's suffrage, and the temperance movement. But he also supported Darwinism and evolution, and was accused of adultery. The subsequent trial over his former business partner's accusation of philandering with his wife resulted in the most sensationalized court proceeding if its day, like an OJ Simpson Murder trial of its time. Despite this controversy in his later years, one can still find inspirational Henry Ward Beecher quotes in calendars and publications. His biographer considered him "The Most Famous Man in America."


Today I learned that one more sibling left a significant mark in history, in the area of education, and women's roles. I've been researching early schools and classrooms in America for a brand new collection in which I have been contracted to write a novella. As I was reading, the name Catharine Beecher appeared as one of the pioneers credited with gaining acceptance for women teachers in the classroom. I thought, no way. Couldn't be. Must be a coincidence. But sure enough, she was also born to Lyman Beecher, the father of Henry, Thomas and Harriet. Catharine grew up in a time when men led classrooms, and women were often undereducated. She achieved her own education, meaning she was self taught in the subjects not offered to girls back then, including math and Latin. She taught a private classroom in Hartford, Connecticut in 1821, and soon started a school for educating women to be teachers, Hartford Female Seminary, which grew in three years time from 7 to 100 students, and where her sister Harriet graduated and assisted. She wrote many of her own textbooks for the school.

Catharine was a crusader. She led the very first national women's political movement, which was against Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal bill. She called on women to write their congressmen and urge them not to fund the bill. Her greatest fame, however, was in her lifelong voice for women as educators. In a time when the country was pushing westward, the need for new educators was strong, and more and more qualified men were leaving the profession for better prospects. Other voices pushed for women to fill the role, especially because they were the cheaper alternative, and readily available. Catharine modeled that women were not only intelligent and capable, but argued that women were a moral force and uniquely created as nurturers to fill the role to shape the next generation. She helped establish teacher training schools in communities on the frontier, women's colleges, and had strong ideals on what the curriculum should include. Physical education, reading aloud, and studying English authors rather than classical Greek literature. She wrote and published books on women's roles in society and the classroom.




Curiously, Catharine was not a proponent of women's suffrage. She believed men and women were created for different roles, and that politics was too dirty if women wanted to retain their moral authority. She felt as instructors, women could shape politics by shaping the young men who would later serve.




Lyman Beecher, the venerable patriarch of this clan, which includes a total of 13 children, was once called "the father of more brains than any man in America." He was a graduate of Yale Divinity School and seemed to witness every major religious and social revolution of his time. From being a proponent of temperance, to favoring gradual emancipation of slaves, to finding agreement with the new evangelism style of revivalism and bucking Presbyterian tradition for the new, Lyman modeled free thought and independence. He headed Lane Theological Seminary and was called "America's most famous preacher."




To study the Beecher family is to understand many of the forces at play in our early republic. Social and religious reform, the Second Great Awakening, slavery and women's issues--all causes that seemed to be taken up by one Beecher or another. And at the center was a deep and abiding love of education. The Beechers were a smart, vital, culture-changing dynasty of America's nineteenth century.







Kathleen L. Maher has had an infatuation with books and fictional heroes ever since her preschool crush, Peter Rabbit. She has a novella releasing with BARBOUR in the 2018 Victorian Christmas Brides collection, featuring her hometown of Elmira, New York. Her debut historical, Bachelor Buttons, blends her Irish heritage and love of the American Civil War. She won the 2012 ACFW Genesis contest for her Civil War story, releasing this summer under a new title The Abolitionist’s Daughter. Kathleen shares an old farmhouse in upstate New York with her husband, children, and a small zoo of rescued animals.

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First Schoolhouse West of the Alleghenies was for Everyone

The Schoenbrunn Schoolhouse

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

Schoenbrunn Schoolhouse

The first schoolhouse west of the Alleghenies was built by a band of Moravian missionaries that had come to Ohio to establish a community to minister to the Lenape (Delaware) Indians. The band was led by David Zeisberger who believed everyone had the right to an education. He translated the Bible in the Lenape language and opened the Christian school to teach white and native children alike. School was taught in German, the Moravian native language, and the Lenape languague.

In colonial times, most schools did not teach boys and girls together. Girls from prosperious families went to seperate schools that taught home-making skills. Public schools didn't allow girls to attend. Puritans believed in teaching girls how to read so they could learn Scripture, but that was as far as their formal education would get. Educated girls were considered to not be suitable wives. Schools where blacks and native Americans attended with white children were unheard of although there were some Quaker and missionary schools that taught black and native Americans.

The Schoenbrunn School bucked all of these colonial traditions. In Moravian schools, blacks, native Americans, and girls were taught together with white boys. The Moravians believed that all children should receive an education so they could study the Bible and minister to others. Schoenbrunn School was one of the first public schools in the United States to do this.

The school and village only lasted until 1777. At that time, British troops questioned Zeisberger's neutrality in the Revolutionary War. The Moravians were forced to move on to Sandusky County, but their legacy of equality in education of all races and both genders in the Christian faith lives on until today. The Moravians destroyed the school and church to keep British troops from using the buildings, but the village has been rebuilt as a historic site in it's original location in Tuscarawus County in Ohio.

Tamera Lynn Kraft has always loved adventures and writes Christian historical fiction set in America because there are so many adventures in American history. She is married to the love of her life, has two grown children, and lives in Akron, Ohio. Soldier’s Heart and A Christmas Promise are two of her historical novellas that have been published. She has received 2nd place in the NOCW contest, 3rd place TARA writer’s contest, and is a finalist in the Frasier Writing Contest. Her third novella, A Resurrection of Hope, will be released in March.

You can contact Tamera online at these sites.

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A Christmas Promise

by Tamera Lynn Kraft

A Moravian Holiday Story, Circa 1773

During colonial times, John and Anna settle in an Ohio village to become Moravian missionaries to the Lenape. When John is called away to help at another settlement two days before Christmas, he promises he’ll be back by Christmas Day.

When he doesn’t show up, Anna works hard to not fear the worst while she provides her children with a traditional Moravian Christmas.

Through it all, she discovers a Christmas promise that will give her the peace she craves.

“Revel in the spirit of a Colonial Christmas with this achingly tender love story that will warm both your heart and your faith. With rich historical detail and characters who live and breathe on the page, Tamera Lynn Kraft has penned a haunting tale of Moravian missionaries who selflessly bring the promise of Christ to the Lenape Indians. A beautiful way to set your season aglow, A Christmas Promise is truly a promise kept for a heartwarming holiday tale.” – Julie Lessman

You can purchase A Christmas Promise at Pelican Book Group.