Helen Keller's Water Pump

Helen Keller was born on a farm in Alabama where this water pump sits behind the home for all to see and enjoy.

At just 19 months old, Keller became sick with scarlet fever. Though she eventually recovered, the illness left her blind and deaf. At the age of six, Helen’s parents arranged for a 20-year-old teacher named Anne Sullivan to come live with them and teach Keller. 

With great patience and determination, Keller learned to communicate with the outside world. Before her sickness, she only had a brief experience with spoken words or language of any kind. But as fate would have it, underneath this water pump is where Sullivan taught Keller her first word.

Sullivan placed Keller’s hands under the spout, and as the water began to flow Sullivan spelled into one of Keller’s hands the word “water.” First at a slow pace over and over then rapidly. Until the signals took shape and had meaning to Helen. 

As Keller described it in her own words: “I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy set it free.”