[Stylist] : Blind Author -The History Lady - if you have not met her

Thu Aug 2 00:30:45 UTC 2018

Hi You All

Below is a recent email that “the Blind History Lady” sent me. Peggy Chong is an NFB member from New Mexico. At the NFB convention this year, she was awarded one of the Jacob Bolotin Awards; individuals or companies who have been an inspiration to the blind, or have contributed to the independence and/or welfare of the blind. (This was the 10th year for these awards; I received one of the fery first, back in 08 for my Thought Provoker series. http.//thoughtprovoker.info

Peggy shares with us information about a blind author who wrote a series of children’s books. 

Respectfully yours,

Robert Leslie Newman 

From: The Blind History Lady [mailto:theblindhistorylady at gmail.com] 

Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2018 6:40 AM

To: robertleslienewman at gmail.com

Subject: Blind Author

Hello Blind History Lady fans:

Since the announcement of the Bolotin Award last month, I have heard from many of you, asking how to get a book published. Well, getting a book published is not a big deal. The first step is to write on a topic that others find interesting. Then, it is selling and promoting the book that is the hard part. 

For centuries, blind men and women have been writing and publishing books, many of them autobiographies focusing on their blindness. Few of them ever made the best seller list and after its first printing, were forgotten. 

Many blind individuals have published books of poetry, novels and children’s books. Some blind men and women have published works in their field. As blindness is not mentioned in their works, you need to know who they are before you can find their books on electricity, chemistry, nature or the law to name just a few of the subjects blind folks have written about. The percentage of successful blind authors is most likely the same as sighted authors. That is to say that writing a book may end up costing money to publish rather than making money. It is certainly that way in my case. 

Most likely we all have read books written by sighted people on Helen Keller, Laura Bridgeman, Ray Charles, Louis Braille, Tom Wiggins and other famous blind people. The blind individuals I write about have not caught the attention of current authors of today. 

Today, I would like to focus on one successful author, a blind woman from Wisconsin that is all but forgotten in the blind community, Beverly Butler. 

Beverly was born, in 1932. The daughter of an engineer, Leslie and Muriel Butler. When she was about 14, her eyesight began to fail quickly from glaucoma. From early childhood, Beverly wanted to be an artist. But with failing eyesight, she did not know how she would be able to pursue the “visual” arts. 

Beverly was taught to type and it was suggested that for therapy in dealing with her blindness, that she write. So, she did. At first it was just stories on her feelings of going blind. Then fictional stories with blindness themes came from her fingers.   But that would not hold the reader. She wrote of what she knew, Wisconsin and its history. Many of her novels such as My Sister’s Keeper were historical juvenile fiction. 

She graduated from her public high school in Milwaukee and went onto college where she graduated in 1954 cum laude from Mount Mary College. It was there that she wrote her first novel for young readers, Song of the Voyager”. That book would go on to win the Dodd Mead's Seventeenth Summer Literary Competition. 

In 1961, she obtained her Masters degree from Marquette University. After graduating, she returned to Mount Mary College and taught for the next 13 years. Although her follow-up books were published during this time, the income was not enough to live off of. 

What made Beverly such a success with her followers was her vivid imagination and descriptive texts that brought the reader into the world of her characters. Part of her ability to do so came from her spirit that would not let anything stand in her way. As a teen, now blind, she got her much younger brother William to teach her how to ride a bicycle. She even convinced him to let her drive a car down the back alley behind the family home. 

In 1976, Beverly married Theodore Victor Olsen. He too was an author and a Wisconsin resident. T. V. had read her book Feather In The Wind while researching one of his books. They met and for the next 8 years developed a strong friendship. The two had almost 20 years of marriage together before his death in 1993. 

T.V. as he was known to friends was an established writer of Western fictional novels and magazine short stories. Before they were married, he also had film credits under his belt for writing films such as,  “The Stalking Moon”, 1968 directed by Robert Mulligan, with Gregory Peck and Eva Marie Saint.   And “Soldier Blue”, 1970 directed by Ralph Nelson with Peter Strauss and Candice Bergen. 

After the death of her husband, she continued to publish the stories written by her husband before his death. She continued to write her own novels almost until the time of her death in 2007. Although Beverly had a strong following, she never reached the level of fame that her husband did. Still, for Beverly, the joy was to write a good book that would hold the attention and love of her reader, not to have as her goal to make money. 

Writing and publishing her books have kept her on the shelves of some libraries, but has not made her famous. Even we in the blind community barely know that she had made a career, eventually, of writing. 

Some of her titles still available include;

Light a Single Candle, published 1962.

My Sister's Keeper, published 1980.

Gift of Gold, published 1972.

Song of the Voyageur, published 1955.

Maggie by My Side, published 1988. 

Witch's Fire, published 1993.

The Silver Key, published 1961.       

Feather in the Wind, published 1965. 

A Girl Named Wendy, published 1976.        

Magnolia Plantation, published 1981.           

The Wind and Me, published 1971.

Captive Thunder, published 1969.    .

The Lion and the Otter

.

I hope some of you will read one of her children’s books. IF you find one you like, it might make a great Christmas gift for the young ones in your lives. When we purchase her books and pass them along, we honor our ancestor, Beverly.

Peggy Chong

www.theblindhistorylady.com

The Blind History Lady | 6303 Indian School Rd NE, 511, Albuquerque, NM 87110 

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