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Helen Keller Oak Tree She Climbed As A Girl Cut Down

By Tara Dodrill
Published on: 04:32 PST, Sep 23, 2015

Helen Keller’s tree was cut down by workers. The 200-year-old tree adorned the birthplace of the renowned writer and activist. Keller frequently climbed the massive water oak tree as a little girl.

The Helen Keller oak tree was cut down with chainsaws on Monday. Ivy Green, Keller’s birthplace, is now a museum in her hometown of Tuscumbia, Alabama, ABC News reports. The water oak tree was damaged when a tornado hit the area in July, museum executive director Sue Pilkilton told the local media. Years of insect infestation and decay caused the beloved tree to become hollowed out, the Times Free Press reports.

“For the safety of visitors and of our neighbors around us, we just had to take it down,” Pilkilton also added.

Helen Keller was born a happy and healthy baby girl in 1880. Due to a high fever and a childhood illness, she was left both deaf and blind. Anne Sullivan (or Annie Sullivan as she was known by friends) became just as famous as Keller after the young teacher did what most thought was impossible — she taught the deaf and blind girl to communicate. Keller garnered international fame before her death, at the age of 87, in 1968.

Ann Sullivan was once forced to rescue Helen from the tree. Then a child, Keller had climbed up too far in the tree’s massive branches to climb back down on her own without fear. Keller’s childhood illness, which struck at 19 months, was presumed to be either rubella or scarlet fever. As she grew into a toddler and a little girl, she became “unruly and wild” from the anger and confusion she felt at not being able to communicate.

“Miss Sullivan had to climb up there and get her,” Pilkilton said.

Anne Sullivan
Anne Sullivan

“Anne was a 20-year-old graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind. Compared with Helen, Anne couldn’t have had a more different childhood and upbringing. The daughter of poor Irish immigrants, she entered Perkins at 14 years of age after four horrific years as a ward of the state at the Tewksbury Almshouse in Massachusetts,” according to the American Foundation for the Blind. “She was just 14 years older than her pupil Helen, and she too suffered from serious vision problems. Anne underwent many botched operations at a young age before her sight was partially restored.”

Sullivan and Keller wrote more than a dozen books together, the first being published in 1902. The best-selling book was penned while Helen Keller was still a student at Radcliffe College in Boston. The 1962 movie The Miracle Worker was based upon the book.

[Image via Screengrab/Youtube and the American Foundation for the Blind]

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