By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
A boy from rural Kentucky showed the world that misfortune early in life, even of the debilitating kind, doesn’t mean one’s life path is doomed to failure.
James Morrison Heady was born in 1829 to a farming family in Spencer County, which lies in the west-central part of Kentucky. Misfortune seemed to follow the boy early. At age six, while watching a man cut wood, a chip landed in his right eye and eventually resulted in loss of sight in the eye. Then, at age sixteen, he was kicked in the other eye while playing a game outside and lost his remaining vision.
Portrait of deaf and blind author Morrison Heady (1829-1915), April 7, 1914 (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
Strangely, the to-be-pitied “Morrison,” as he was usually called, was not finished with his string of terrible luck. Two years after becoming blind, he fell from a horse he was riding and hit his head on a pile of rocks, suffering a brain injury. This time, it resulted in a loss of much of his hearing. Still in his teenage years, Morrison Heady lived in a dark and partially silent world.
Admirably undaunted, he decided to educate himself and plan for a life of using his significant talents to make a difference for others—even with his obstacles. He spent a year at the Kentucky Institute for the Blind, in Louisville, and a similar institution in Ohio for fourteen months. However, Morrison had difficulty writing and taking notes because of his personal barriers. Spurred by this issue, he invented a variant on the diplograph, the machine used to print textured letters for the blind. This improvement on the gadget helped him be successful in his own education, and that propelled him to be an advocate for blind and deaf education. Following is a list of contributions the gifted man made:
• helped expand access to books for the blind, traveling across the U.S. to raise money for printing raised-letter copies of Milton’s iconic book, Paradise Lost.
The “talking glove” invented by Morrison Heady was a cotton glove with the letters of the alphabet printed at multiple places on the hand. Heady memorized the location of each letter on the glove so that friends and others who wished to communicate with him could tap the letters of the glove spelling out words. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
• worked with a blind person from Mississippi to secure funding for the American Printing House for the Blind, established in Louisville in 1858.
• became a writer, publishing a biography of George Washington called The Farmer Boy. He also wrote a couple of historical novels and several books of poetry. He received good reviews for his poetry nationally, including from the New York Times, and the Louisville Journal respectfully called him “The Blind Bard of Kentucky.”
• besides his work with the diplograph, he developed other gadgets helpful to those with visual and hearing disabilities, including “the talking glove.” Despite having the look of a novelty, the glove, indeed, enabled his friends to communicate with him. Though he never took out patents for them, he also designed his versions of a gate opener, a folding bed, and a pedometer.
• was a talented pianist and taught piano lessons until age 40, when his hearing loss severely worsened.
An historical marker near Heady’s burial site in Elk Creek Cemetery, Spencer County (Photo by Mark C. Hilton, HMdb.org)
• late in life, donated his personal raised-letter library (known to be the largest independent collection in the nation) to the Louisville Free Public Library.
• was subject of Ken Thompson’s biography, Beyond the Double Night (Buggy Whip Press, 1996).
Though staying involved in efforts to improve accessibility for those with disabilities nearly all his adult life, James Morrison Heady had another accidental fall in 1911 and died in 1915. Rabbi Joseph Rauch eulogized him as “a man with the vision of a seer, the spirit of a philosopher and the soul of a poet.” Heady is buried in his Spencer County birthplace, Elk Creek. Nearby is a roadside marker describing the native Kentuckian’s life and works, an inspiration for generations following.
Sources: explorekyhistory.ky.gov; The Encyclopedia of Louisville; Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, MA;
Great story Steve.
Thanks, Dean!