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Man inspired by Keller visits Ivy Green | TimesDaily.com | Times Daily | Florence, AL
When Tom Cooney was 9 years old, he opened a Who's Who book about famous people to find a subject for a school report and saw the name Helen Keller.
"I chose her because she's deaf," he said.
Cooney is deaf, too. Now in his 70s, he traveled to Tuscumbia for the first time Saturday, not only to speak at Hook Street Baptist Church on Saturday and Sunday, but to visit Ivy Green, Keller's birthplace.
It was an experience that at many times overwhelmed the gregarious man who, like Keller, is a motivational and inspirational speaker.
Cooney said he didn't realize the significance of Keller's life at the time he chose her as the subject for his school report.
He wrote to her as part of the research and she replied. Not only did she reply, she invited him to her home in Westport, Conn., to visit her in person.
His mother went with him. Cooney stood in the foyer of Ivy Green and kept a small group of people, including the curator, spellbound as he used voice and sign to recount that meeting.
"When I met Helen Keller, I still remember her putting her hand over mine," he said.
Keller, who was deaf and blind, would curve her hand over that of her interpreter or over the hand of someone who knew sign language in order feel the movements of the hand as the person communicated with her.
"How are you? It's a pleasure to meet you," Cooney said Keller signed to him and placed her hand over his to receive his greeting.
"Goosebumps came over me," Cooney said, describing his feeling when Keller touched his hand, and he paused, emotion choking his voice and stilling his hands as he recalled that moment.
He said Keller was "a beautiful lady with her hair in a bun at the back of her head," which was Keller's signature hairstyle in the latter years of her life.
She would have been in her 60s when Cooney met her.
Cooney said he indicated to Keller that his mother was with him.
"Do you sign?" she asked his mother.
Those listening to Cooney laughed when he mimicked the horrified look that came over his mother's face. His mother couldn't sign.
"She looked at me like she wanted to kill me," he said.
He said Keller then placed her fingers lightly over his mother's mouth and over the area of her throat where the larynx is located and waited for his mother to speak.
Because Keller couldn't see to lip read, she mastered the ability to understand what people said by feeling the movement of their lips and the vibration of their vocal cords.
The clutch of people listening to Cooney laughed again as he mimicked the frozen look on his mother's face when Keller placed her fingers against his mother's mouth. Then, a strange thing happened.
"They moved to the couch to sit down and for 15 minutes those two ladies were yakking away," he said.
When he told his teacher he had visited Keller at her home, she at first didn't believe him. Once she was convinced, his school principal wanted Cooney to speak to the school to tell them about the visit.
He indicated how the request affected him by quivering his legs to indicate how his knees shook. He joked that the request launched his speaking career.
Before becoming a speaker, Cooney was a sports writer for The Silent Jersey and The Silent News. After his retirement, he cofounded Lily the Love Frog Inc., a nonprofit organization headquartered in Tampa, Fla., and dedicated to raising deaf awareness.
Tom and his interpreter of five years, Camie Gallo, met Mark and Ann Ware and a group of youth from Hook Street Baptist during a mission trip to a school for the deaf in Harvest, Ga.
"He's just phenomenal," Mark Ware said. "We would work (at the mission) during the day, and when we went back to camp, he'd come over and hang out with us."
Ware said Cooney immediately had anyone around him hanging on his every word as he told stories from his life. The Wares invited Cooney to Tuscumbia.
Gallo said there are many facets to Cooney - not only is he a writer and speaker, he's the father of two sons and three grandchildren. He lost his hearing at 9 months after an infection.
He also has an extensive collection of autographs, mostly on baseballs, including every U.S. president except Bill Clinton since Herbert Hoover, who he met while traveling from his New Jersey home by train to New York to wait outside Hoover's hotel and join the president on his morning walk.
Gallo said not only did Cooney get autographs of presidents, but always had a separate baseball to get the autograph of the first lady, too.
But he always wanted to visit the birthplace of the woman who inspired him all those years ago.
He was visibly moved as he stood at the water pump where Keller finally understood the significance of the hand signs Sullivan had been teaching her and where Keller spoke her first word.
"She said 'wah-wah,'" Cooney said. "My first word was 'pencil.'"
Cooney, like Keller, learned to speak and can read lips.
He was visibly overwhelmed as he stood in the dining room - "My favorite" - and simulated eating with his fingers from the same dishes Keller used as a child when she lived in the home as an untutored, wild little girl before the arrival of her first teacher, Annie Sullivan.
"The dining room is still my favorite," he said. "It's so expressive. I can't hear anything, but when," here he indicates with his hands the motion of dishes being flung to the ground, "I understand."
When Tom Cooney was 9 years old, he opened a Who's Who book about famous people to find a subject for a school report and saw the name Helen Keller.
"I chose her because she's deaf," he said.
Cooney is deaf, too. Now in his 70s, he traveled to Tuscumbia for the first time Saturday, not only to speak at Hook Street Baptist Church on Saturday and Sunday, but to visit Ivy Green, Keller's birthplace.
It was an experience that at many times overwhelmed the gregarious man who, like Keller, is a motivational and inspirational speaker.
Cooney said he didn't realize the significance of Keller's life at the time he chose her as the subject for his school report.
He wrote to her as part of the research and she replied. Not only did she reply, she invited him to her home in Westport, Conn., to visit her in person.
His mother went with him. Cooney stood in the foyer of Ivy Green and kept a small group of people, including the curator, spellbound as he used voice and sign to recount that meeting.
"When I met Helen Keller, I still remember her putting her hand over mine," he said.
Keller, who was deaf and blind, would curve her hand over that of her interpreter or over the hand of someone who knew sign language in order feel the movements of the hand as the person communicated with her.
"How are you? It's a pleasure to meet you," Cooney said Keller signed to him and placed her hand over his to receive his greeting.
"Goosebumps came over me," Cooney said, describing his feeling when Keller touched his hand, and he paused, emotion choking his voice and stilling his hands as he recalled that moment.
He said Keller was "a beautiful lady with her hair in a bun at the back of her head," which was Keller's signature hairstyle in the latter years of her life.
She would have been in her 60s when Cooney met her.
Cooney said he indicated to Keller that his mother was with him.
"Do you sign?" she asked his mother.
Those listening to Cooney laughed when he mimicked the horrified look that came over his mother's face. His mother couldn't sign.
"She looked at me like she wanted to kill me," he said.
He said Keller then placed her fingers lightly over his mother's mouth and over the area of her throat where the larynx is located and waited for his mother to speak.
Because Keller couldn't see to lip read, she mastered the ability to understand what people said by feeling the movement of their lips and the vibration of their vocal cords.
The clutch of people listening to Cooney laughed again as he mimicked the frozen look on his mother's face when Keller placed her fingers against his mother's mouth. Then, a strange thing happened.
"They moved to the couch to sit down and for 15 minutes those two ladies were yakking away," he said.
When he told his teacher he had visited Keller at her home, she at first didn't believe him. Once she was convinced, his school principal wanted Cooney to speak to the school to tell them about the visit.
He indicated how the request affected him by quivering his legs to indicate how his knees shook. He joked that the request launched his speaking career.
Before becoming a speaker, Cooney was a sports writer for The Silent Jersey and The Silent News. After his retirement, he cofounded Lily the Love Frog Inc., a nonprofit organization headquartered in Tampa, Fla., and dedicated to raising deaf awareness.
Tom and his interpreter of five years, Camie Gallo, met Mark and Ann Ware and a group of youth from Hook Street Baptist during a mission trip to a school for the deaf in Harvest, Ga.
"He's just phenomenal," Mark Ware said. "We would work (at the mission) during the day, and when we went back to camp, he'd come over and hang out with us."
Ware said Cooney immediately had anyone around him hanging on his every word as he told stories from his life. The Wares invited Cooney to Tuscumbia.
Gallo said there are many facets to Cooney - not only is he a writer and speaker, he's the father of two sons and three grandchildren. He lost his hearing at 9 months after an infection.
He also has an extensive collection of autographs, mostly on baseballs, including every U.S. president except Bill Clinton since Herbert Hoover, who he met while traveling from his New Jersey home by train to New York to wait outside Hoover's hotel and join the president on his morning walk.
Gallo said not only did Cooney get autographs of presidents, but always had a separate baseball to get the autograph of the first lady, too.
But he always wanted to visit the birthplace of the woman who inspired him all those years ago.
He was visibly moved as he stood at the water pump where Keller finally understood the significance of the hand signs Sullivan had been teaching her and where Keller spoke her first word.
"She said 'wah-wah,'" Cooney said. "My first word was 'pencil.'"
Cooney, like Keller, learned to speak and can read lips.
He was visibly overwhelmed as he stood in the dining room - "My favorite" - and simulated eating with his fingers from the same dishes Keller used as a child when she lived in the home as an untutored, wild little girl before the arrival of her first teacher, Annie Sullivan.
"The dining room is still my favorite," he said. "It's so expressive. I can't hear anything, but when," here he indicates with his hands the motion of dishes being flung to the ground, "I understand."