Helen Keller suffered from an unknown illness at the age of 19 months. The doctor stated that illness as acute congestion of the stomach and the brain that result in victims becoming deft and blind.
However, despite not being able to see or hear, Helen was able to learn more than 60 home signs by the age of seven, which helps her to communicate with her family members. Moreover, Keller also learned to know people from the vibration of their steps while walking.
When Keller was seven, her family decided to hire Annie Sullivan, a young teacher. Keller's teacher Anne played a pivotal role in her life, helping her break through the isolation imposed by the lack of sight and hearing and teaching her to communicate with the world around her. Anne Sullivan became extremely close to Keller and stayed with her long after she taught her. Sullivan married her husband John Macy in 1905. However, 10 years down the line, her health started deteriorating.
By communicating with others, Keller learned to speak and spent much of her life giving speeches and lectures on aspects of her life. She learned to "hear" people's speech by reading their lips with her hands—her sense of touch had heightened with practice.
Keller started attending the Perkins Institute for the blind. Then, Keller moved to New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf and to learn from Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf.
Keller entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies before gaining admittance to Radcliffe College, Harvard University Her admirer Mark Twain had introduced her to Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers, who, with his wife, Abbie, paid for her education.
Keller was also a member of the Socialist Party and actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working class. Many of her speeches and writings were about women's right to vote and the impacts of war. Likewise, Helen also wrote scripts for movies, she has been credited as a writer of movies like The Miracle Worker and Adventures from the Book of Virtues.
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen Keller with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, regarded as the nation's highest civilian award, in 1964. Helen was also elected to Women's Hall of Fame at the New York World's Fair a year after that, in 1965.
After her death in the late sixties, Keller was listed in Gallup's Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. Helen Hospital in Alabam was established and dedicated to her soon after that. Similarly, several streets have been named after her in countries like Switzerland, USA, Spain, Israel, Portugal, France, and others.
Keller remained unmarried throughout her life, dedicated herself to the service of the poor and disabled rather than in elevating her net worth. Her life and achievement cannot be measured in matrices like salary and properties.