[Nfb-history] Meet the blind of our past month

[Peggy Chong]

October is Meet The Blind month.  As the Blind History Lady, I hope that we
all can be aware of how much we all have in common, not look at the
differences, but how we as abled and otherwise abled Americans have in
common that can unite us in our country.  

 

In years past, blind men and women struggled with the same misconceptions
surrounding blindness we still face today.  Hopefully we can learn from the
past and those blind ancestors who brought understanding and balance to the
misbeliefs and sometimes strange ideas of the sighted in their little
community.

 

Let's look at John Wenger, a man who grew up in a Mennonite  family in
Lancaster PA in the last half of the nineteenth century.  Born with "weak
eyes", John, the eldest son,  was expected to do the work expected of a boy
and young man of his age on the family farm. His parents knew he had weak
eyes, but most likely not to the extent of his blindness until John lost all
his sight by age 16.  

 

John's natural curiosity was encouraged by his parents.  Not just in the
love of his religion and participation in the church, but how to accomplish
his farm chores, use his father's carpentry tools and tinker with machinery.
By the time John was totally blind, He had proven his abilities as a  blind
man to his family.  

 

As an adult, he needed to support himself and help support his parents and
their growing family.  The close knit community also knew John from
childhood and although  they had their misgivings that a blind man could
open and run the general store in town, they did not stand in his way.  Some
most likely thought that his family would step in and help John out, and
make the business run.  His family did help him out in the store in later
years, but it  was because John had such a thriving business, that he needed
help, if not from his younger siblings, then he would  have to hire  someone
from town.  

 

While John was making brooms, finishing his carpentry projects, visiting
customers in their fields, repairing their machinery bought through him and
assembling the machinery from the manufacturers, he needed someone to handle
the frequent customers who came in for dry goods, eggs, butter or cheese,
pick up their mail or to answer telephone calls to the store and take orders
to be filled before the customer came to pick up their supplies on their way
back home.  

 

Some of the town's people thought John's warehouse must be haunted as when
he had little help in the store, he was forced to assemble the machinery
late at night.  Passersby could hear the sounds of tinkering, grunts,
banging and thuds coming through the shop doors.  But there were no lights
on inside.  Their conclusion, the blind man's business must be haunted.  

 

If his customers had doubts about the blind man being able to assemble their
machinery, they soon were relieved of those misgivings when in desperation,
they would call John to their fields to repair the non-functioning
equipment.  Even if John had not sold the equipment to the farmer, he still
went to help.  John quickly diagnosed every problem and in most cases was
able to fix the trouble right there in the fields.  If the farmer had not
purchased that first piece of equipment from John,  the farmer did make his
purchases through John for the next season.  

 

Too often it seems that the blind person must go the extra ten miles to
prove their talents.  Let's all take the month of October to see past our
differences and concentrate on the similarities that bind us all.  

 

Peggy Chong

The Blind History Lady

www.theblindhistorylady.com <http://www.theblindhistorylady.com> 

              

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfb-history_nfbnet.org/attachments/20171010/ad9597b2/attachment.html>