[Colorado-Talk] News article from our past.

[Peggy Chong]

Hello All:

 

In June Julie Hunter received the Minoru Yasui Community Service award for
all the work she is doing on our PHD project.  We learned about the award
from old records in the files when Elsie Cowen won the award in the first
year it was established.  Elsie was recognized for being a braille proof
reader.  Julie and her crew of volunteers just finished an article about
Elsie that is undated, but most likely from the late 1940’s.  It describes
the process of putting a braille book together, not just brailling the
pages, but, proofing, shellacking, and sewing.  Below is the text of the
article.  

 

Happy Reading, Peggy Chong, The Blind History Lady

 

[Newspaper article:  Source and date unknown]

 

Denver’s Red Cross volunteers transcribe everything from recipes to Yogi
textbooks into Braille

 

[Photo: Two woman are sitting at a desk.  One woman is pointing at the open
book in front of her.  The woman on her right is working with a slate and
stylus.] 

[Photo caption:] Mrs. Nan McGhee teaches Braille to Red Cross volunteers.
Mrs. Harry Youngman, group chairman, shows how students learn to use a
stylus and slate.

 

[Two photos side by side:  In the photo on the left a woman is sitting with
an open book in her lap and her fingers placed on the page.  In the photo on
the right the same woman is standing at a kitchen counter pouring an
ingredient into a bowl while one hand is placed on a piece of paper.] 

[Photo caption:] Blind Mrs. Elsie Cowan proofreads all Braille
transcriptions.  At home she uses recipes, can labels and other items turned
out by volunteers.

 

[Photo: A woman standing in a room with a variety of pieces of equipment
around her.  She is busy operating a machine.] 

[Photo caption:] Mrs. Iler Watson produces Braille tape measures and
yard-sticks with gadget she made from an old hand-turned wringer.

 

            When a blind person wants to read a specialized book, something
not of general interest, what does he do?  He can get someone to read it for
him, or he can ask the Denver Red Cross to have it transcribed into Braille.
And, thanks to a corps of volunteers, he’ll get his book after a reasonable
wait.

            In the last 22 years, Red Cross volunteers have transcribed
recipe books, hymnals, a manual on Yogi, language lessons, labels for canned
goods, and many other uncommon items into Braille.

            The Braille service was started 22 years ago to provide reading
material not in sufficient demand by the blind to justify commercial
publication.  Mrs. W. W. Williams, who knew nothing about Braille except the
tremendous need for it, was appointed to set up the program.  She located a
Brailling slate and Miss Mary Bushinger, now an occupational therapist at
Colorado General hospital, offered to teach volunteers how to use it.

            Sunday school groups and members of service clubs enrolled in
the first classes.  Brailled Christmas cards, the first project, were so
successful, that the program was soon expanded.  From that halting start,
the Braille service has grown until now there are 20 to 30 Braille workers
handling the requests for special materials.  Many persons who moved away
after working with the Denver Red Cross group have continued their efforts
and now Braillers are scattered through Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Iowa and
Colorado.

            [Words obscured by fold in the paper.]  Sixteen volunteers spent
1,864 hours transcribing 2,000 pages of Braille.  There is no charge to the
blind persons requesting the material.  Red Cross funds pay for all the
equipment used in the transcriptions.

            It takes about nine months to learn Braille well enough to
become a certified transcriber.  The 16-lesson course, conducted by Mrs.
Burt H. McGhee, begins with the alphabet and punctuation of simple
sentences.  Common word and letter combinations which have special
“shorthand” symbols in Braille have to be learned.

            When a student has completed the course, she chooses 50 pages of
her Braille transcriptions for submission to the Library of Congress.  If it
measures up to the required level of accuracy, the student is certified to
transcribe Braille.  If not, she may submit a second sample.  Few persons
are skilled enough to pass the first time.

            Most volunteers do their Braillling at home.  Some have special
Braille typewriters, others use slate and stylus.  In the latter process a
piece of heavy paper, 11”x11½” is placed in the slate and Braille symbols
are punched from below with a stylus which forces the pattern up so the
fingers of the blind may “read” the message.

            The finished page is proofread by Mrs. William E. Cowan, who is
blind.  If it is acceptable, it is shellacked.  This preserves the Brailled
pattern through repeated use.  The pages are sewed together with heavy
carpet thread, the end is glued and a cardboard cover attached.  The Braille
book is then ready to be sent to the blind person who requested it, or to
the Denver Public library.

            Mrs. Iler Watson, who does the binding, also makes plastic tape
measures and aluminum topped yardsticks for the blind on a Rube Goldberg
gadget in her basement.  She rigged the ruler-maker from an old hand-turned
clothes wringer.  The tape measures and yardsticks are given free to any
blind person who requests them.

            The Denver Red Cross Braille service has a mailing list of
approximately 200 blind persons from all over the United States and abroad.
Each blind person receives Brailled greeting cards on holidays and Brailled
calendars at the beginning of the year.

            In 22 years of service, the Braille staff has had many unusual
requests.  A gift shop operator in South Dakota sends her invoices for
transcription so she can handle her business independently.  A sales man in
Oklahoma requested a Brailled edition of his insurance manual.  A blind
amateur radio operator learned Spanish from Braille tests prepared by the
Red Cross volunteers.  Now he can talk with fellow wireless fans south of
the border.

            Although Braille is important to many sightless persons, its
greatest value is in the lives of those who can neither see nor hear.
Talking books and oral assistance from others cannot help them.  This was
the case with a deaf-blind student at Mt. Union college in Ohio.  But thanks
to the Denver organization which transcribed his lessons and other materials
into Braille, he was graduated at the top of his class – the third
deaf-blind person in history to complete college.

 

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