[NFBWV-Talk] FW: She had an anteater

[Karen Swauger]

karen

Original Message: 
From: The Blind History Lady <theblindhistorylady at gmail.com>
To: karen at pmpmail.com
Subject: She had an anteater
Date: 
Tue, 1 Feb 2022 06:00:22 -0500 (EST)

She had an anteater  Hello Blind History Lady Fans: One of my more
interesting ancestors this past year is Emily Raspberry. There was so
little written about her and yet, so much to tell. Following is a glimpse
into what I have learned of this incredibly strong woman.    Born December
12, 1915, in Alabama, Emily came down with the flu at age four. When Emily
recovered from the flu, she was totally blind. Her little sister, died from
the flu on Dec 20, 1918.   Her mother sent Emily to public school with her
older brother. No accommodations for a blind-black child were possible, so
Emily listened and participated in class orally, not learning to read or
write. Finally, Emily was enrolled at the Alabama School for the Negro Deaf
and Blind in the fall of 1926.   Emily was homesick, but there was so much
to learn. In only two weeks she mastered the braille code and read all 130
books the school owned. A new world opened to Emily. She had a glimpse of
the sighted world and she wanted to be a part of it.    Her teachers were
impressed with Emily's quick accomplishment of the braille code and placed
her in the upper class. She studied hard to cram in several years of
learning into her first year.   Emily returned home for the first time, on
May 22, 1927, to find her mother gravely ill. Emily was home only a few
hours before her mother died.   A funeral was planned in days. After the
funeral, Emily was told she would live with her half-sister, in West
Virginia.   She felt the joy of returning home to show how well she, as a
blind child could learn and be successful, to the shock of the death of her
mother and heart-wrenching separation from her family.    Emily was
enrolled in the West Virginia School for The Colored Blind almost
immediately. She found they had twice the braille books in their library
and magazines in braille.  Emily threw herself into her studies.  Classes
were harder than in Alabama.    Unlike other schools, West Virginia held
unsegregated classes including both the deaf and the blind students. The
boys had one dorm and the girls the other. There were no separate dorms for
the blind and deaf students. Rooms were crowded, sometimes three or four
boys shared a room that would have been considered small for two.    There
is no record of when Emily graduated, but it is believed to be either 1932
or 1933. Emily enrolled at the West Virginia State College for Negro's in
Dunbar. At the end of her first year of college in 1935, she knew she
wanted to be a teacher in a school for the blind. Her hope was to share her
love of reading and literature to open the world for other blind-colored
students to the possibilities of the outside world.   She graduated in 1938
and continued classes through the West Virginia State College, enabling her
to become a certified teacher of the blind. She received her master's
degree from Hampton University.   Emily started as an academic teacher in
the primary grades at the West Virginia School for the Colored Blind in
1940 in Institute (Clarksburg), West Virginia. She taught reading and
writing for the blind kids and deaf children in her classes.    On her
desk, she had a toy anteater. Over the years, the anteater showed its wear.
Emily decided the toy needed to be disposed of. Knowing her students loved
the anteater, frequently saying hello or goodbye to it, she set up a
funeral for the anteater. The class went out and dug a shallow grave for
the toy, placed it in the grave and held a short service.    When the
school for the white, in Romney, and the school for the colored combined in
1955, Emily was one of only three teachers from the colored school that
made the transfer. Not all the colored students from Clarksville
transitioned to Romney.    The staff at Romney were friendly but Emily did
not mix socially. For at least the first year, Emily took a room in the
student dorms as did the other single teachers. As a single woman, and the
only black faculty in the blind department, she may have felt out of place.
   In Reading classes, when she recognized a spark, she assigned a poetry
lesson for spelling class to bring out the creativity of the students. The
children were encouraged to write a poem including all of the spelling
words for the week. In her braille classes, she taught the students to work
with a slate and stylus, while other teachers used the Perkins Braille
Writer.    She incorporated listening to the radio into her classes to
ensure student's interest. Lessons were assigned to write about what they
heard on the radio. The eighth-grade class in 1956, wrote a quiz show based
on the show, "The Big Surprise."   Emily supervised school trips to watch
plays or listen to concerts. For years, Emily had season tickets to the
Cumberland Classical Musical Series. Each year, Emily paid for four student
season passes with an interest in music. She took the students by bus or
driver, to the concerts.    When a movie of interest, mostly historical
films such as Man of All Seasons, she asked students to accompany her to
the movie theater in Romney. She paid for their tickets and treated the
kids to their own box of popcorn.     A memorable year was 1967 when she
was chosen to supervise a student teacher. Emily was honored and proud as
the student teacher was a former blind student.    In 1969, Emily taught
health. Most likely not her favorite subject, but she entered the class
with the same enthusiasm as her English classes, even though textbooks were
more than twenty years old. One assignment was to make up word puzzles
relating to their health lessons. When the project was over, the best
questions were put into an article for school newspaper, The Tablet to show
how much her students learned that semester.   Later, she took an apartment
above a restaurant. Rickety wooden stairs led to her door. The apartment
overlooked Main street. The entire space may have been no more than 900
square feet.    Emily frequently took the Greyhound but to Washington D. C.
When a student of hers also rode the bus, she talked to them about their
schoolwork or family. In class, Emily mentioned her travels to D. C.
commenting on the friendliness of the staff to her, and sadness that maids
in the hotels were paid so little.    Other blind teachers from the school
asked to have their meat cut or their tea poured from the pot on the table,
but not Emily. She insisted she would cut her own meat and pour her own tea
and serve herself.      Summer vacations were never wasted. She took
classes at Harvard. In 1961 she worked as a proofreader for Perkins Braille
Press. Vacations meant in exhibits at the planetarium, museums, concerts,
exhibits on history and more, usually in Boston. There were trips to attend
conventions of the AAWB of which she was a member.   At one concert, she
spoke briefly to Senator Edward Kennedy, also attending. Their meeting was
exciting for Emily, and she took the news back to her students of her
encounter with a man who would make history.      She retired at the end of
the 1977 school term and moved to Boston. Emily kept in touch with some of
the Romney residents. They wrote to her in print, and she answered them in
print. She died September 12, 1988, in Vermont.  If you would like to
schedule a presentation contact me, Peggy Chong, at
theblindhistorylady at gmail.com You can read more of my Books at
https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/24325 www.theblindhistorylady.com
. ? The Blind History Lady | 14152 E Linvale Pl, 201, Aurora, CO 80014
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