Living as a Blind Person in 1889
Thanks for having me back on the
Reds, Julia! I’m happy to send a copy of Judge Thee Not to one
commenter here today.
In my latest Quaker MidwifeMystery, I wanted to include a blind character (and I love that
Leslie Karst’s recent post on Jungle Reds addressed the same
topic). I have a good friend here in Amesbury who has been blind her
entire life. Jeanne Papka Smith raised two children, recently retired
from a full-time career as a social worker, plays fiddle and guitar
beautifully, and is a fellow Quaker and international traveler with
whom I not only share a natal state (California) but a birthday!
Jeanne was the model for Jeanette
Papka in Judge Thee Not. In this book, the fifth in the series,
Jeanette is pregnant with her second child, so midwife Rose is
watching over her pregnancy. Jeanette is trilingual and interprets
French and Polish in the courts. Her parents had sent her to the
Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, and she is well educated.
Besides Helen Keller, the only
real blind person from the late nineteenth century I knew of was Mary
Ingalls, the oldest sister of Laura. And what I knew came from
reading children’s books. So I set myself to learning about the
past, as we historical novelists do.
I was able to find Mary Ingalls:
the College Years by Marie Tschopp, an account of Mary’s school
years and picked up a few good tidbits. I also read a reproduction
of The World as I Hear It by Lansing V. Hall, published in 1878. From
these books and elsewhere I learned that the blind and deaf were
generally considered morons in that period.
My main historical research
source was a field trip I made to the Perkins School, which is still
operating today. A wonderful research librarian let me into the
files. She gave me a tour of the museum. She sent me home with
Braille samples and so much more.
Check out how kids learned the
shapes of countries and states. They could feel life-sized relief
amphibians.
I noticed how they used different
kinds of tiles in the floor to mark out pathways.
The librarian said the genders
were segregated as teenagers. Boy scouts were brought in to socialize
with the girls, and girl scouts with the boys. Despite Perkins being
an enlightened school devoted to educating the blind, the thinking
was that the students shouldn’t be allowed to fall in love with
each other because they then might intermarry and, heaven forbid,
reproduce. She also said that of course the kids found ways to get
around the segregation, making holes in the cafeteria dividing wall,
for example, so they could talk and touch.
I also learned that American
braille lagged behind French braille. By 1889 not that many books
were yet published in American braille, so I put a scene in my book
where Jeanette is sitting outside reading Jane Austen in French.
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| Photo by antonioxalonso, Wikimedia Commons |
Modern-day Jeanne kindly read
(well, listened to) my manuscript twice over before I submitted it.
She set me straight in several spots, one being where Rose had
commented that of naturally the blind have better hearing. Jeanne
told me, “No, our hearing isn’t any better than anyone else’s.
But we don’t have sight to distract us from listening.” Off I
went to fix the passage, with 1889 Jeannette correcting Rose.
In my story, because of the
prevailing beliefs, people around town and in court say things in
Jeanette’s hearing that they wouldn’t otherwise in public. They
don’t think she can make sense of them. She gladly relays important
bits of information about the murder to Rose. Rose’s lesbian pal
Bertie is also subject to a great deal of judgment. Justice-minded
Rose stands up for both her friends.
I loved writing this book, as I
do all the Quaker Midwife mysteries, and bringing the past to life
for readers.
Readers: what have you learned
from differently-abled people you have known or admired from a
distance? One lucky commentor will win a copy of JUDGE THEE NOT!
No
stranger to judgmental attitudes in her small town, 1880s Quaker
midwife Rose Carroll is nonetheless stunned when society matron Mayme
Settle publicly snubs Rose’s good friend Bertie for her
nontraditional ways. When Mrs. Settle is later found murdered—and a
supposed witness insists Bertie was spotted near the scene of the
crime—the police blame her. Rose is certain her friend is innocent,
and she enlists the help of a blind pregnant client—who’s endured
her own share of prejudice—to help her sift through the clues. As
the two uncover a slew of suspects tied to financial intrigues,
illicit love, and an age-old grudge over perceived wrongs,
circumstantial evidence looms large in small minds, and Rose fears
her friend will soon become the victim of a grave injustice—or
worse.
EdithMaxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and award-winning short
crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries
and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. Maxwell, with nineteen
novels in print and four more completed, has been nominated for an
Agatha Award six times. She lives north of Boston with her beau and
an elderly cat, and gardens and cooks when she isn’t killing people
on the page or wasting time on Facebook. Please find her at
edithmaxwell.com,
on
Instagram,
and
at the Wicked
Authors blog.
