Show Notes:
Mary’s parents faced countless challenges, from discrimination to societal judgment, but they never let it define their lives or limit their dreams.

Join us for an inspiring interview with Mary Harper, a psychotherapist, author, and disability advocate. Mary shares her personal experiences growing up with blind parents in the 20th century. Through her captivating storytelling, Mary takes you on a journey of challenges, triumphs, and unwavering love.

Learn about the unique experiences of raising a child with visual impairments, the importance of advocacy and inclusion, and how to foster independence in a child with disabilities. Discover the incredible strength and resilience that can emerge from even the most difficult circumstances.

Mary’s insights offer valuable advice for parents of blind children, providing guidance on overcoming challenges, supporting your child’s development, and creating a positive and inclusive environment.

Don’t miss this powerful and moving story that will leave you inspired and hopeful.

Connect with Mary:

• 💻Website: https://www.marypharper.com
• Instagram: @mary_p_harper

🐕‍🦺Working With a Guide Dog: Episode #44

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Music Used:

“LazyDay” by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://audionautix.com/

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Episode #107: Can Blind People Be Good Parents? Advice for Parents of Blind Children

Mary’s parents faced countless challenges, from discrimination to societal judgment, but they never let it define their lives or limit their dreams.

(Recorded April 11, 2024)

Full Transcript of Interview:

Mary: So as parents, especially back then, what do you do with a blind child? And I think now it’s almost the same way. Although now we’ve got a lot of

Tonya: What do you think it was like to grow up with blind parents in the middle of the 1900s? Can you imagine what childhood might have been like for those parents?

This is an episode you don’t want to miss. It will keep you on the edge of your seat and you won’t believe some of the stories you’re going to hear. Welcome to the Water Prairie Chronicles, a podcast for special needs parents. I’m your host, Tonya Wollum, and I’m glad you’re here. Today, my guest is Mary Harper, a retired psychotherapist and author of the book, The Sound of Her Voice, My Blind Parents’ Story.

Growing up with blind parents, Mary experienced firsthand the challenges faced by the blind community in the 1900s. Mary has a true gift of storytelling, and she kept me moving between concern for her family and enjoying a good laugh as I listened to her talk about her childhood. Her stories offer valuable information for today’s parents of blind and visually impaired children.

Now sit back and enjoy some great stories from Mary’s childhood memories. Stick around to the end to find out why she titled her book, The Sound of Her Voice. Well, Mary, welcome to Water Prairie.

Thank you for having me.

I’ve been looking forward to this one. I shared a little bit earlier with you that, um, that my daughter’s is visually impaired.

And when you first contacted me, I thought this, this is the, the interview I would love to have had. when I was a young mom trying to figure out some things just because I was always searching for someone I could talk to who could tell me that next step or what the future might be. And to help me know what questions I should be asking or when to not worry about it, not to ask questions anymore because, because you don’t know.

And a lot of our listeners are coming in from, from, from that point and they may have a child who’s visually impaired. And I think this can be very helpful for them to, um, to, to maybe get a better perspective or a different perspective than, than they have right now. So for our listeners who haven’t read your bio or haven’t, haven’t seen much about you, tell me, tell me about your parents.

Let’s start with that. And um, and we’ll, we’ll jump from there.

Okay, well, both of my parents were born in central Indiana within four months of each other, and both were born with glaucoma. This was back in 1913, 1914. So back then, there was absolutely nothing doctors could do to help cure or treat this glaucoma.

So, It was interesting to see when I was doing the research for my book, which is called The Sound of Her Voice, My Blind Parent Story, um, I realized that both, like two families, very different. One was a farm family. That was my mom’s family. They were very hardworking, very practical, good problem solvers.

Um, when they had my mother, Excuse me. She, the, they knew immediately there was something wrong with her eyes. The eyes were bulging and greatly enlarged. So, um, the doctor said, I think, I know what’s wrong, but I’m going to consult with, uh, a doctor I know in Indianapolis. That’s the big city back then. And word came back a few weeks later that, um, no, there’s nothing that could be done.

And. Most important advice they gave my parents was, or grandparents, was do not take, uh, spend a lot of money taking her around to different doctors because there’s nothing they can do. So that was one reaction. And I’ll, I’ll tell you a lot more about the other things, but the initial reaction was that.

And then on the other side with my father, he was born to Italian immigrant Uh, parents. Now, they, uh, were recently immigrated, uh, 10 years from my father, uh, grandfather, and about 5 years from my grandmother, um, so it was hard for them, you know, they’re in a new country, um, my grandmother didn’t speak that much English, and here she is just giving birth to a baby with also greatly enlarged eyes, and in 1914, what the heck do you do?

Playing into all that, it’s her Roman Catholic background. They’re very devout Catholics. So she did an awful lot of praying for miracles. She took my dad, she wouldn’t give up. She took my dad to all these different doctors and sometimes they would give them, uh, eyedrops, here, try this. This’ll make you feel better.

And it only hurt and he hated those eyedrops. I don’t blame him. Um, another doctor in, um, Indianapolis that she took him to said, oh, I can fix that. And so by surgery. So. He did a terrible job on that. And the sad story is that, um, my dad had a tiny bit of residual vision before that surgery. And, um, after the surgery, it was all gone.

So, um, yeah, and he told me the last and that’s when he was like, 3, 3 to 4, he was. Had a good memory. Um, his last memory was seeing the train cars. They live near a railroad yard, you know, where all the cars would be coming in and out. And there were on the siding was a coal train and there was black coal and snow on top of the black coal.

So he could see the white and the black, but. Not much else, but because it was so stark, he was able to see that. But then when that was gone, he was like, well, that’s gone. And it didn’t bother him any. He was busy playing with his older brother. His older brother took him under his wing and they did everything together.

And I mean everything back then. They did all kinds of stuff. Um, but I’ll get to that later. Back to my grandparents. So grandma still didn’t want to give up. Even after his sight was completely gone. She thought, well, okay, World War One is over. It’s safe to go back to Italy. I know the Italian doctors are better than the American doctors.

So she took the boys back to visit relatives and, um, and went to a doctor there and he said, I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. She still wouldn’t give up. So then it was time, in Italy, there’s all these shrines to the Virgin Mary, they’re little, pretty little boxes and stuff. So, a bunch of those, my dad had to kneel down and pray for his sight, and he was like, uh, well, okay, I’ll do that.

But, you know, he said, this is a waste of time, but his mother really, really wanted him to. Have that miracle. Then she took him up in the mountains to a faith healer and, um, the faith healer did all this incantation stuff. And my dad was just sort of sitting there rolling his eyes thinking this isn’t going to do anything, but he did it to please his mother.

And of course, none of that worked, but that’s the length that my grandmother. Would go to to do anything to, you know, get her boy to see. So, as parents, especially back then, what do you do with a blind child? And I think now it’s almost the same way. Although now we’ve got a lot of advantages for kids with vision problems.

And you’ve got computers, you’ve got tape recorders, you know, there’s so many different advances that my parents didn’t have a 100 years ago. So it was much harder for them, but on the other hand, when they finally were able to get up to the school for the blind in Indianapolis, it’s called the Indiana school for the blind.

Um, that’s where they met in the 4th grade. That’s when they learned Braille. They were taught so many life skills. And I think if nothing else, I feel sort of sad. Now, I may be really out of line here. I don’t think much is to be gained by mainstreaming. Blind kids, totally blind kids, into a classroom, especially if a teacher doesn’t know how to help a blind child.

Um, about a hundred years ago when my mom was in first grade, second grade, teachers didn’t know what to do with her. They said, well, you can’t see much, so you just sit in the back and look at some pictures if you can see those. And didn’t want to make any effort to educate her. My mom was bright. She wanted to learn.

But these teachers just didn’t know what to do, so they just did nothing. thing. Until she was lucky enough to get to Miss Starr. That was her favorite teacher. Miss Starr put her in the front row and helped her see the board, made big letters, and taught her. My mom could remember how to print. I even remember seeing some printing she did.

I’m like, wow, mom, I didn’t know you could print. So, she had a little bit of residual sight until she was 11 and at age 11 was gone, but the, the school for the blind was wonderful for my parents. Back then, it was interesting because the boys were on 1 side of the room and the girls were on the other side.

They did not. Mix at all. They had private, they had their own dining rooms. They had their own dorms. They had their own playgrounds. The boys and the girls couldn’t talk to each other. Absolutely not. You’re going down the hallway. No, you don’t talk to another boy. So, and you know why I think it was. Based I did a minor on a study on eugenics.

That was a heyday of eugenics, and they figured, Oh, my God, we can’t have blind children falling in love. They might want to get married and had their own children. And then we had more blind children around that certainly does not contribute to a perfect race. So, um, I think that was 1 reason why the school was so terrified of having any interaction.

They did have when they got to high school, um, I think 3 or so. Formal dances a year where the boys and the girls could be together, but they were strictly supervised, you know, that they were being watched every minute, but at least at that point, they could chat with each other. So, um, my parents devised a way my dad, I think, was the one who came up with the idea of ways of communicating with each other that if they’d gotten caught, that would have been highly embarrassing.

Uh, but, um, they, they weren’t caught and, um, their romance. Blossom through high school. Um, I mean, it was nothing terrible with ways of passing notes. Basically where they caught by today’s standards is really mild. You know, um, they were in, uh. A play a musical, I guess, and so they didn’t want to learn all the lines to be on a star on stage.

They were in the choir and they were happy with that. But during the rehearsal breaks, the boys had to be on 1 side and the girls were on the other. So mom dad actually said, hey, hey, Jane. This curtain behind the back wall, it goes down to the bottom. Nobody can see us back there. So they would meet behind the curtain and hold hands and whisper.

I mean, how sweet is that? So the story that I wrote in my book, The Sound of Her Voice, is a lot to do with their romance and how That gave up, but, you know, they had this dream. They wanted to live the American dream. They wanted to be married. They wanted to have a family. And I think so many kids have any kind of handicap or discouraged from that.

It’s like, Oh, you can’t possibly do that. Um, my mom was totally discouraged from doing anything around the house. Um, even in high school, they were taught some cooking for the girls. They were taught some sewing and now keep in mind, not everybody was completely blind at the school for the blind. There’s a whole lot of gradation of vision impairment, but, um, they, my mom knew how to crochet.

She did, made afghans for me and all kinds of fun stuff. And that shows you learn skills. But interestingly enough, back then the girls were not taught mobility. So. My mom never went anywhere with by herself ever. She went around the house. Fine. She was in the yard just fine, but I never saw her even go next door to my grandparents house when I was growing up.

She always had to have someone with her. Now, the boys, the boys were taught mobility. They were taught how to get around. They could go to downtown Indianapolis on the weekend and have fun. But the girls were much more carefully supervised and no, they couldn’t do anything really by themselves. So, it was interesting that they really expected the girls to stay home and be dependent on their family.

So. My mom knew some basic cooking skills. She’d get home from school and she’d say, hey, mom, I want to be able to, uh, cook something. She says, stay out of the kitchen. It’s too dangerous for you. You’re blind. You can’t see it. Now, she may have had, you know, back in the 20s and 30s. I’m sure they weren’t the safest, uh, cooking instruments, but still come on.

Mom was very careful and was smart enough to figure out, just give her a chance. And I think sometimes she was a little bit overprotected in that sense. But on the other hand, she always would say, growing up, she would say, Mary, your grandmother on my dad’s side, why she just grandma, all she does is spoil him.

She spoiled him all the time when he was little. And that’s just not good. He needs to learn how to do things for himself. And I’m like, Okay, mom, but my view could do everything for himself. You know, when you’re totally blind, it’s hard to know what to wear because what do you yeah, mom remembered everything.

She remember all of our clothes. She just memorized them and she did all the laundry, even though earlier in her marriage. Her mother in law, my grandmother said, well, you’re blind. You can’t see to do laundry. How can you see the do laundry? And of course, back then it was the old fashioned ringer tub and you had to switch around and bring it through.

And it was a lot of work. My mom just did all that. Um. She sort of just taught herself, but she’s very, very clean. And she’s very, very much aware that no matter what she did, she’s being judged. So she’s out in public with anybody. Oh, there’s Miss Peroni. She’s blind. She’s a blind lady and people would watch her and they would see her clothing and they would make She just didn’t want any controversy.

So every time we went out of the house, even if we’re going to the grocery store, mom took forever, she would have to change your dress. She put on a clean dress and then she’d comb her hair and put on a little makeup and put on her lipstick. And then she’d say, is my lipstick on straight? I’d say, yes, mom.

Well, do I have any spots on this dress? It was a clean dress, but she was worried it had spots. I said, look around. You know, you’re fine. You’re fine. My hair look okay? Yes, mom. But she was so worried about that because she can’t look into a mirror and see, uh, you know, what she looks like so that that was something different.

I mean, I’m sure most kids don’t, um, usually are not asked by their parents. Do I have a spot on my tie? You know, that kind of thing. But that was nothing for us. That’s just the way we grew up. Um, but then as far as, um, Interestingly enough, my, my mother would complain that my dad, Oh, he just doesn’t do anything for himself.

But he did, he had a seeing eye dog. He went everywhere anywhere he wanted. He was an attorney and, uh, had to do traveling for his job. So he would get on a plane and go with his dog someplace or go up to Washington, D. C. or Chicago. He was just. He was amazing. He just knew how to do all that. Um, he had a great memory.

So he knew every single street in Muncie, Indiana, you know, where all the stop signs were and all the stop lights. And we had a tandem bicycle. So when I’m little old enough, nine, 10, he would get in the back and he’d be the main peddler and I’d be the one on the front steering. And I think about it now, it’s like, Would I trust a 10 year old to ride me around on a bicycle?

Oh, and then sometimes you’d say, Mary, wasn’t that a stop sign back there? Weren’t we supposed to stop? I said, oh, yeah, dad, but there’s no cars coming. Well, you should obey the stop sign. Okay, dad, he knew everything like that. He was totally amazing. So, gosh, I’m rambling. So you have any other.

Yeah, I’m enjoying it. Yeah, no, this is good. But there’s, there’s a couple of things. Um, did you have other siblings then with, was it just you?

No, I’m the youngest of four. So my mom, um, had one child when, um, 1943 and then I came along 1953. So 10 years in between. And then there was two other children in between the 10 years. So yeah.

Did they, did, um, did your grandparents support your parents and their marriage?

Well, that’s interesting. Which set of grandparents, paternal or maternal?

I take it it was not the same.

You know, um, because they had much more interaction with my, uh, Italian grandparents, I think it was really hard for my mother because my maternal grandmother, No, paternal grandmother, the Italian grandma was very critical of my mother, and I don’t know why that was.

Mom was doing the very best she could, and she cooked, she cleaned, she did all the laundry, she did everything around the house, and yet she felt like her mother in law was always judging her. And, uh, again, when I was doing the research for this book, I started thinking and I was like, oh, maybe that’s why grandma never came to our house.

I don’t remember her ever in our house, maybe once or twice, but not much. And my mother never went next door. Uh, and she could have, she could have said, Mary, I want to go next door. Let’s walk over there. And that would not been any problem, but see, she couldn’t have done it by herself, but she didn’t want to, there’s a lot of history early on in their marriage.

And I think there was some bad blood there. And you add to this. This is where the cultural stuff comes in. My dad always felt like his parents sacrificed and worked so hard for him so that he could have the money to go to college. And then on to law school that he felt he owed them something. And so every night that he didn’t have a meeting to go to, he’s a community leader.

So he’s always busy. But, uh, He would go next door to visit his, his parents and sit down and just chat that drove my mother nuts because she’s been with these kids all day and working around the house and he goes over there and sits and chats and leaves her to get everybody to bed and get homework done.

And that just that, oh, I need to do that. And then I think later on at the end of my dad’s life, he realized what a stress that was. And I think he felt a little guilty about that, that he was always so torn between the gratitude and what he felt he owed his parents. And then His wife, but his wife always came in second, or at least she felt he did.

I can, I could see that, that being a conflict with him because yeah, with, with, with his, his feeling, but also having grown up as a blind child, his parents were probably more vested in his life than maybe his siblings even. So he may have had a different bond with them than he would have had otherwise.

Well, I think part of it is because she took him everywhere to try and save his site. And then they owned a confectionary store in downtown Muncie, Indiana, where they sold homemade candies, ice cream and sodas and that kind of thing. So. That was like a 12 hour day. My grandfather worked really hard. No, my grandmother also did.

Um, and my dad told stories, Oh, when I was young, I figured out the way to get there. And I would walk by myself down to the store and go see my dad. And I’m like, you went down there to get some candy. I didn’t know that. Uh, my dad just had an incredible mind for geography and he knew where all the curbs were the potholes and he would go by himself a lot of times.

So his mom would sometimes let him go and be independent. And other times, I think she smothered him a little bit. So it’s, I think it’s very easy to have conflicting feelings when you have a child with a handicap. On the one hand, you want to encourage independence, but on the other, oh, my God, he’s out there by himself.

He could get run over by a car or whatever. So. I can see it from a parent’s point of view, how hard it has to be to know where do you draw the line? And interestingly enough, my dad’s father was a little bit more liberal. Okay. So, um, my dad had a brother, only two children in this family. So his older brother, Charlie was three years older.

They went on so many adventures together. Uh, they, uh, my dad learned how to, um, swim in a gravel pit, which they got to by taking the train tracks and over the trestle, over the water. And, and my, my dad had lean. Yeah, I had to lean down. I said, Mario, you like lean down and listen on the tracks. Do you hear any train coming?

And my dad would lean over and put his ear to the rail and said, no, no, don’t hear anything coming. I mean, that kind of stuff. Um, and, and then there’s the story I also have in my book about, um, they were building a new YMCA just down the street from where they lived. Um, and so at that time, no fences or anything around, they just left their stuff there.

So, Charlie said, Hey, Mario, let’s go climb that. Let’s go climb up the YMCA. We can see, I’ll show you how tall it is. And dad says, oh, okay. So I start climbing up and literally, this is just a bare steel girders. Oh, wow. Yeah, they get way up to the top, which is, I think, like the 3rd or 4th floor and they’re sitting down and Charles said, just give me your hand Mario.

I’ll show you where to go. And I’m like, I can’t imagine that. It gives me the heebie jeebies just to think about it. And then Charlie says, hey, Mario, you want to know how high up we are? Dad says, oh, yeah. Yeah. So then. He coughs up this big gob of spit, and he spits it down there, and he has, he listens, and he hears it a long time later, splashing down in the basement.

And dad said, oh, we are up pretty high, because you can tell by the sound of that. But, um, you know, it’s that kind of stuff that they did, and they didn’t get into trouble for that. Uh, apparently a neighbor saw them, and Told their father, Anthony, and he said, Antonio, I saw your boys. They were on top of the, the why NCA there is under construction.

He said, Oh, well, how else is Mario going to learn if he doesn’t try some things? So.

Wow.

He never got punished for that. He was like, okay. So, uh, oh yeah. And then when they were older, teenagers. My grandparents took them back to Italy to visit relatives. The kids got bored. So they said, here’s some money get a train pass go around Italy. Have a good time.

Bye boys. We’re going to stay here and visit 17 and 14 or 15, maybe 18 and 15. it’s like, would you do that today? No, but they had quite the adventure going around Italy and surrounding areas. So. Lots of things that they did together was, um, fun and, and some of it, I don’t know if his parents knew about or if they didn’t.

I mean, my uncle at age 15, it was no driver’s licenses back then. So he hadn’t earned enough money picking up glass bottles from the side of the road out in the country where people would get drunk on moonshine. And then throw that down. This was during prohibition, obviously. So my uncle would pick them up and clean them out and sell them to some shady characters down by the ice cream shop.

And, uh, so he earns enough money to be able to buy this old jalopy. And he and my dad would go out for rides in it. Uh, and then he said, well, Mario, you want to learn how to drive? And he said, well, sure. So he taught my dad to drive. And that’s a pretty funny story with that too. So, uh, yeah. Dad was adventuresome.

He was up for just about anything.

So you were talking about the mobility training between your mom and your dad as far as how they were different. Did both of your parents learn to use a cane or did they use a cane?

Nope, never saw a cane with my mother. My dad, the only time I saw him with a cane was late in his life when his last seeing eye dog died.

And that afternoon, he asked me to take him to this, um, facility for the blind in Houston that sold, uh, canes. Canes. So that’s when he had a cane. He said, the only reason I want a cane is because at that time he was living in assisted living and there are all these older people around that may not hear him coming and he might not hear them and he didn’t want to run into them.

So he had it just to let people know that he’s there.

So did he use echolocation when he, okay, that’s, that’s what I was thinking is as adventurous as he was, he had to have a cane. The skill to be able to use that if he wasn’t using a cane.

He did that with, um, and we come in a building and I can still remember, you know, you’re a kid.

Sometimes you get a little embarrassed, but my dad would go in and it would be maybe a tall church, for example, and go, I can’t do it. Click with his tongue. And then he said, Oh, this is a tall ceiling, isn’t it? I said, yeah, it’s really up there, but he would always make clicking sounds.

Okay. Okay. So, and I, I haven’t met many people who are adept at that, but I know, I know there are still people today who prefer to, to just use the sounds and the cane to them.

Isn’t, isn’t that relevant, but, but you did say that he did use a seeing eye dog as well. So I’m thinking he’s traveling, what did you say to DC and to, he’s going into cities where he may not know the terrain.

Right. And I said, well, dad, what did you do when you were in unfamiliar cities? He said, Oh, well, I would just ask for directions down at the hotel desk clerk.

And they would tell me how to get where I wanted to go. And then he memorized. I don’t know how he knew so much of the maps. He knew every street in downtown Chicago, whenever he needed to go, he would memorize. So he just knew. And that’s for Google and, you know, and Google Maps, which I use all the time. I can’t imagine.

Today they can put it on voice and, and have it direct them going. So it’s, it’s, he, he, he probably wouldn’t have had the patience for it though.

Well, he liked gizmos. I can remember when tape recorders came out, you know, those little cassette little things. He loved those. And he, he joined a tape club that they would.

Uh, tell jokes and read things there or tell stories and then they’d pass it on to the next person in the group. And then that person would add to it. So they had fun doing that. He loved gizmos. My mom, not so much, uh, microwaves came out. What do I need a microwave for? I’m like, well, it’s faster to heat things up.

Well, I don’t need to be fast. I can just put it on the stove. Go for it, mom.

I love hearing the story here. I could, I could, could listen forever. So we’re going to have to have to get, get, get your book so I can read all of it. But, um, but for you, you children, so your dad’s out working, he’s traveling some, he’s in and out, he’s at the grandparents house, your mom’s there.

At home most of the time, it sounds like you, you did talk about her always wanting to, to, to look right whenever she left the house, did, um, did she have any criticism beyond how she looked, but in how she was raising children or whether she should have had children or not?

Oh, yeah, but, you know, I don’t think a lot of people told her face to face.

Um, uh, my sister told me once the story of when she was young. I wasn’t even born yet that she and my other my brother, who was like, 3 years younger than her, but they were riding a bus. How do you get anywhere when you’re blind? Well, you take the bus, uh, or walk. Sometimes people would offer a ride, but very rarely would my parents call up somebody and say, hey, can you take me somewhere?

Rarely. I don’t remember really any time anyway. So, they were on the bus going downtown to the doctor’s office and my mother overheard a couple of ladies and back talking about her and say. How does she do it? She’s got two children and she can’t see. And I just don’t know how she blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they were not being particularly nice about it. And oh, my mom was apparently getting madder and madder and, and, and could see that and uh, luckily the bus came to their stop pretty soon and they were able to get off. It just pissed my mom off and I can understand that. People doubting you, judging you all the time and really what’s underlying a lot of that, um, especially how We were expected to behave and how we were dressed and how we had to be clean and really well behaved was she was very, very worried that someday somebody would report her to the Children’s Protective Services and they would take us away.

So And that is not an unrealistic fear. Um, there is a couple, I read a while ago, but it was within the past five years or so that this couple, the woman had, were blind and she had her baby, having a little difficulty time with breastfeeding. What new mother doesn’t have trouble breastfeeding? I mean, You gotta learn how to do that.

A nurse came in and saw this problem and she reports her to CPS, I take the baby away. I took this brand new baby away for like 6 to 8 months before they could finally prove that yes, they can take care of this child. Horrible! And this is in like 2017 or 18. And this is, so my mom was right on, she, she knew that there was, um, a possible leave that they could come and take us away.

And I’m like, okay, I’ll be good. I’ll be good.

Well and you wonder too, how much did she worry about her mother in law feeling that way too?

Yes. Things like, uh, my mother in law, or I mean, my grandmother said to my mom, well, you should still be ironing Mario’s shirts. That’s what a good wife does. My mom says, but this is a new permanent press.

It doesn’t need to be ironed. Well, a good wife will iron it. I’m like, oh my god, really? You know, my, and so, and then sometimes she would criticize my mom’s hair. So there was, you know, she wasn’t her favorite person.

Right, right. So while you’re While you’re growing up, and now you were the fourth, so she had some practice before you came along, but, but your, your memory is, is, is, is what you have to work with here.

How did your parents strike a balance between protecting you? From some of those comments and all, but still fostering independence for you as you were growing up.

I think they just realized that there was only so much they could do. You can’t protect your child from everything. So you have to, you know, if they have, I don’t remember people teasing me about my parents, not at all, pretty much just the opposite.

If I would be out with my dad, walk in and somebody came up and knew who he was and chatted with him. Um, there’s, oh, you’re so lucky to have such a wonderful man for a father and they would be effusive. So it wasn’t ever anything terribly negative about being the child. The only negative that I felt was being on display and people would stare at us.

Sometimes I was walking with my mom and my dad, the 3 of us going alongside on the sidewalk because. Say, my mom would be holding my left arm and then dad would be holding her left arm and may even have his dog with him. It was like a parade. And so I always felt like self conscious. Oh, people are staring.

I really hate that. Um, when I first wrote, um, started writing, I started off with my memoir and I titled it, um, Stop Staring, because I just hated people staring at me. And maybe that was just me, but it was that feeling that, what are you looking at? I mean, come on. Children I understand. Now, my dad did have, and it was understandable because he was scary looking.

He had one very big eye, very large eye. And the other one was just, Empty socket with a lid over it. So it was very strange. And that’s in the book of how it got that way, which is pretty awful, but he, he never would, excuse me, he never would get. Artificial eyes, like my mother did my mother was very aware of appearances and as soon as my sister came home from nursery school and said, somebody was teaching me about your eyes mom.

She said, that’s it. I’m going to go get my eyes done. So she, her eyes removed and was fitted for, um, artificial eyes. Interesting. Interesting. But my dad absolutely refused to have that surgery. So, so he did look unusual and a lot of people couldn’t tell that my mom was blind. You go to a restaurant and they’d hand two, two, uh, menus and one for me and my mom wouldn’t move and wouldn’t take the menu. So I said, Oh, we only need one.

So you were from a young, young age, you were working as a sighted guide already. You were, you were reading menus. You were doing things like that. Did, um, how did those types of experience shape who you became?

Well, I have a master’s in social work. I sort of feel like I’m a helper kind of person.

Right. Did you, did your siblings, did all, did all four of you embrace that part of life as just being a normal part of life?

Yeah, because what are the alternatives? I mean, we didn’t have any. That’s the way life was. Um, when you mean embrace, uh.

Well, did, did anyone, um, resent having to do that or?

Oh, yeah, of course.

Okay.

Sometimes as we got a little bit older, if we were, if we were We were getting ready to go somewhere and there may be three or four of us kids around and, um, we would point fingers at each other. If I didn’t want to walk with mom or dad, I’d point to my sibling and say, you do it and then they would do the same thing back to me.

Because after a while, you just want to be free. You just want to walk on your own and skip or do something and not have to have the pressure or the responsibility. Of having your parent, you know, along and, you know, we were taught from a very early age, 3, 4, 5, you always stop at a curb. You have to be aware of branches hanging down because you’d be in trouble.

If your mom got her head hit by branches or your dad. Um, so we had to be, uh, you know, always aware. And looking around, um, and stopping at curbs and watching out for, um, big curbs or short curbs or water around and said, Oh, mom, take a big step. Cause there’s water right here. So, you know, that’s different.

Most kids don’t experience that, but that’s just part of our life. And that’s what you do.

That’s interesting. Well, looking back, what advice would you give parents who are raising a child who’s visually impaired, like to, as far as helping, helping them to kind of know how to plan for the future and how to help their children?

I guess 1 of the 1st things is to be encouraging instead of saying, well, you can’t do this. You can’t do that emphasize what you can do, you know, of course, there may be something they can do. But I think that was what was so good about the school for the blind. They taught Braille because nowadays, I think there’s a lot of people that are blind that don’t know how to read Braille.

And braille was a very, very important tool. My dad had a bra, braille typewriter that he would take notes on in law school and also when he was working and through the I, I have it actually. He used it all his life. And my mother was also taught, and both of ’em were taught print typewriter, just the regular typewriters on how to touch type.

She would type letters so beautifully, maybe one or two errors in there. And that’s about it. And of course when I type, there’s about 500 errors. And I can see it’s just, hey, let’s work on what the child can do and be encouraging man. Because even though my mom was told so many times, oh, you can’t do something because you can’t see.

She just said, yes, I can. She taught herself basically how to cook when she finally got their own apartment and they were married. She found braille recipe books and read those cover to cover and taught herself basically how to cook that way. And she taught herself everything. And I’m just thinking, when I had my own children, mom, how did you change so many diapers?

And they were all cloth diapers back then and you washed them all. Oh, she got her fingers dirty.

Yeah. And, and it wasn’t an electric washing machine that she was. Pushing a button on.

Right. Although by the time I came along, yes, she had a good washing machine, I think, and a dryer by then. But yeah, it was not easy.

There were not paper diapers. That’s for sure. So, yeah, but she just was motivated. They both loved each other. They both wanted to have the American dream and they wanted us to. Live the American dream they wanted us to learn. It was very important to them to have pictures on the wall. We had a piano and on the piano where all our school pictures and, you know, the little boulders and sitting up so she wanted us to be normal.

She wanted always to make sure that the lights were on when it got dark. All those blind people, they don’t know it’s dark outside. So she knew about what time it was going to get dark. So she made sure the lights were on and then dabbed to be responsible for turning them off. Um, but you know, if you have a strong enough belief in yourself, which is nurtured by people around you, then you can do a lot.

Well, I’m, I’m just, I’m, I’m impressed with what. Especially your mom, your dad had those freedoms to get out and explore and to do things, but your mom, I mean, especially the time that we’re talking about when you children were growing up, it was, it was, there were a lot of expectations on, on mothers that were home and for her to learn how to care for the house, to keep it clean and safe for you.

And, and with that fear all along. That at any given day, someone may show up at her door and say, you’re unworthy. I can’t even imagine feeling that type of judgment that, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it, it’s hard enough for any mom today, even looking back then, you know, we don’t, we don’t have to get up and put on our heels and our dress and our makeup and all.

What if we wake up with our baby? You know.

Yeah, but oh no, back then she wore, even to her dying day practically, she wore pantyhose. She wanted, she used to wear girdles, and she just thought that was very important. And like, okay mom, uh, and then when pantyhose came out, she was very happy to switch to those.

But, you know, she was always properly dressed, even in the house. It was very important to her. Um, yeah, she was active in the community, but not as active as my dad. She was, um, there’s a club there in Muncie called the optimist, optimist and optimist club and the men were the optimist and my dad was president of that and then she was president of her chapter a few times and active and I found I was doing research on newspapers.

com, which is my all time favorite place to go because you can spend hours reading old newspapers, which are Fascinating. Uh, there’s a picture I found, my mom was hosting a tea, and there were all these women dressed beautifully with their little pillbox hats, and there’s a big tea, I mean a punch bowl there, and, and I know half, at least half of those women, maybe all of them, wanted to come to our house to see what it looked like on the inside.

How did a blind woman keep her house? Now, we had a lot of rules because she knew that sometimes Becton people would just drop in. Absolutely you do not ever eat anywhere but the kitchen at the table. You don’t take food out in the living room. Oh, no, no, no. Because there could be crumbs there. She wouldn’t know it.

She couldn’t clean it. And somebody might drop in and see that. Well, that’s embarrassing. Uh, we had to be careful, uh, leaving nothing on the floor. We could play on the floor, but do not leave your toys on the floor. Um, I’d be playing over the side and mom will come in the room and I say, hey, mom, I’m over here.

Talking was very important saying I’m here or I’m leaving now, because if you, it’s embarrassing. It happens to me now with my partner. I’ll be thinking I’m talking to him and he’s not anywhere around. Like, where’d he go? Because I thought he was there. And in the same way for my parents, they’re talking to an empty room because they don’t know that we’re gone.

So, um. You know, it’s a lot more verbal. And if you’re more of a quieter person, you have to remember to talk and speak up. So, yeah, I would say, mom, I’m here playing on the floor and she’s okay. And she would walk around me because she knew I was there. But if she didn’t know I was there, she could trip on us.

She was very afraid of falling when my dad had seen my dogs, of course. Almost all the time growing up, I remember she absolutely would not let that dog run the house that when he was done for the day and been fed and taken out and done his business and did all that stuff that my dad would take him upstairs to the bedroom and tie him to, um, like one of those hook things and dog was perfectly happy lying down there and sleeping.

That was not a problem, but mom just didn’t want him around the house wandering because she was afraid she’d trip on him. Yeah, it’s a legitimate concern. It is. And I think the other part was a dog shed. If you have a dog wandering around the house, you have a lot more dog hair around. So it kept the house cleaner.

So, you know, that kind of stuff. Um, everything was in organized in certain spots, because if you think about it, if you put, if I were to go and put, you know, A pair of scissors or something, a can of whatever, and put it in the wrong place. And she wanted that. How would she find it? She’d have to go opening all the cabinets, all the drawers until she found it.

So it’s very annoying. So yes, we had to keep things right in their place.

Well, I’m going to transition now. This season I’ve been, um, finishing our interviews with us, a series of, um, open statements where you’re able to pass on some advice to our listeners. And so I normally just have a few, but I gave you five of them.

Are you, are you up, up, up for five of them?

I’ll, I’ll see what I can do.

All right. So I’m going to read it and then have you repeat it and finish the statement. There’s not a right or wrong answer here. It’s whatever you feel is appropriate at the time. So the first one, growing up with blind parents taught me the importance of…

Okay. Growing up with blind parents taught me the importance of. Listening, um, that’s probably the 1st thing comes to my mind. Um, they were really good about listening to us and they taught us how to listen, listening to everything from other people to birdsong. Um, most people don’t. Take the time or pay attention to their environment.

And I went on bird watching with a friend and she was just watching him. I said, oh, and talk, talk, talk, talk. Listen, there’s a bird out there. I want to hear that bird. Why? Because I want to hear the damn bird, you know, and people don’t understand that if they have their site, they don’t think about listening.

So they taught me importance. I think of listening and they were good listeners. To other people, people will call them and ask for advice. My mother had a friend who was also blind Mom, it’s Carrie again. And Carrie would mom sit down and just listen and chat with her a little bit. So people want to be heard.

And I think that’s one thing that I’ve learned from my parents.

Nice. All right. So the second one, I wish more people knew that parents raising blind children, I wish

more parents knew that parents raising blind children are stressed and feel alone and need companions. And the cool thing that I’ve noticed is that lately there’s Facebook groups for blind parents.

Um, And I think that’s awesome that they can use the computer to connect with other blind people. And someone says, well, how do you get a kid to take medicine or whatever? And that’s wonderful because my mom was just on her own. She had to figure it out or she would read about it. Uh, she read all the women’s ladies home journal and stuff, but still, uh, she was pretty isolated.

It wasn’t easy for her to get out and make friends.

The one thing that surprised me most about having blind parents was…

I was surprised that, um, people gave them so much attention when we were out, that people knew who we were, that, like, really, what, we’re, we’re just people, but. People thought that we were special.

In fact, oh, my goodness. When I did my research on my newspapers. com, I just typed in my dad’s name and there were over a 1000 mentions of my dad in the newspapers over the years, especially because he was a judge and anything he said in the courtroom judge sentence. So and so to jail for 8 days for.

Running, you know, whatever. So he was always in the paper and they would write, uh, articles about how wonderful he was. And I think, um, people might be more surprised to know that it wasn’t all rosy growing up with Lyme parents. It wasn’t easy. It was, um, frustrating at times. They couldn’t take his places.

I got to school and realized, oh, other people are going to go on summer vacations. They’re going in a car and I’m sitting here, you know, so I would compare myself. I didn’t know what really normal was until I started working. Watching television, like Father Knows Best or some of those stupid comedies on TV.

Uh, because I really didn’t know what was actually normal and what wasn’t.

Yeah, I think, I think you, you actually have answered that it with, with some, some good examples there. I was thinking back of part of your story too, um, with, because really the way it’s worded was a little bit unfair because why would you be surprised?

This was your life. You had nothing to compare it with where it happened, but, but looking back on it, you can, you can see the comparisons there. All right, let’s start. This is, this is the longest one. So let’s see if I can get it all out. And if you, if you reword it, that’s, that’s fine as well. If I could go back in time and tell my younger self, one thing about growing up with blind parents, it would be…

If I could go back in time and tell myself, uh, one thing about growing up with blind parents, it would be,

Be grateful because you’re going to learn a lot of lessons. You’re going to learn about empathy. You’re going to learn about, um, the world through someone else’s. Eyes and I say that meaning. Yes. I mean, we don’t My parents would say I see or watch out or something like that. And I didn’t think anything about it. I mean, that’s just they use the words for vision very commonly, but, um, the gifts that.

I would grow up to get, um, by having them and learning so much from them. And, um, in my later life, learning about patience I was pretty impatient for most of my life. And then when they were older and I was helping to care, give them, um, I’d like taking them to a doctor’s appointment. So my goodness, it would take forever.

For my mom to get ready for her, she couldn’t walk because she had terrible arthritis. And so finally she would get in the wheelchair and then I’d push her down. And then it would just take a long time to all the different steps just to get out. So I learned a lot of patience in that. And, you know, and I think, um, I try to, um, see the world through other people’s eyes and try to understand it from their point of view.

Um, because then when you can connect with someone on that level, They feel heard and they can relax a little bit.

Okay. Last one. My hope for the future of families with blind or visually impaired children is…

Ooh. My hope for the future for families with blind or visually impaired children is more research, more support, more, um, I was going to say Anyone with any kind of disability ends up staying home a lot.

And it’s hard because it’s hard to get out. Uh, my dad was real visible because he’d be walking to and from work or, you know, he was out and about and all that. But, um, there’s a lot of people that stay home almost all the time. They don’t get out. And parents, it is harder when you’ve got a little 1, that’s can’t see.

And it takes a while to, you know, Any kid anyway, get clothes on him and shoes and all that stuff. So it’s not easy, but I think having more support and more being more open, come on people. There’s nothing shameful in having an eye problem. And I think disability across the whole spectrum. There’s underneath it all sort of a shame.

I’m not normal. I’m not like everybody else. I’m not good enough. And I just hope that the world realizes that’s not true. And parents especially can say, hey, look, you did this. Good for you.

That’s the goal, I think, of a lot of us and a lot of our listeners will have as well because they’re, they’re, they’re living that many of them at a younger age right now with these young children, maybe during their child’s lifetime, we can see those changes happening.

There’s much more talk of inclusion right now, and advocacy is one thing, but inclusion is more important, and it’s not just being included, it’s being part of it. Being a valued member of that, that group.

And inviting them to parties, inviting them to doing different things. People don’t realize that kids, blind kids are, people need social lives too.

It’s just hard for them because you can’t. have a visual connection with that person. When you see that person, you’re not looking at them and within their eyes, for example, there’s ways around it. You just gotta be verbal.

And I love the example of your dad. He was well respected. Oh yeah. You know, he was in a voice of authority, but He was also in these groups and he did the same thing as my dad did, you know, and you know, maybe, maybe people talked about it a little bit because of visually how he looked different.

It doesn’t sound like that affected the level of respect and his acceptance.

No, not at all.

It also sounds like his personality was such that he didn’t really care. Just take him for who he is because this is who he is.

Right, right. And he was really outgoing. He memorized people’s voices and names. So if someone came up to him nine times out of ten, he would say, Hi, John.

Good to see you today. How are you? So he would remember if he heard the voice. But one other thing don’t ever do to a blind person, go up to him and say, I was with my dad when this happened. Hey, Mario, do you know who I am? And my dad, I could see he was getting mad. That big guy got real big. And I’m thinking, you’re in for it now, buddy.

You don’t, you don’t play games with my dad. And he says, no, I’m afraid I don’t. And the guy was a little embarrassed, I guess. But, and it was a short conversation because he said, okay, come on, let’s go. Rightfully so don’t play games with people like that.

You know, I am looking at our time. We’ve been, been talking for a while here and I want our listeners to hear how they can get in touch with you, how they can get their hands on your book.

Tell us, tell us a little, a little bit about the book, um, any other projects you have going on and how they can get in touch with you.

Okay, um, they can get in touch with me at my website. Uh, I have my email addresses. My name, Mary at Mary P. Harper. P is for Peroni. That’s my maiden name dot com. M. A. R. Y. P. H. A. R. P. E. R. dot com. And I’m, I love emails from people. So whether or not you read the book, if you have any questions, happy to answer them. Um, so please feel free to to contact me. Um, my website is www.marypharper.com. Uh, and I’m also on Facebook as a Mary Harper author, I think it is. Um, and the name of the book again is, um, the Sound of Her Voice, my Blind Parents’ Story, and it goes back, of course, to that fourth grade time.

Did I tell that story about how. That’s why it’s called The Sound of Her Voice? Uh, briefly, I’ll tell you fourth grade. My mom is there and, um, has to recite a poem. My dad’s across the aisle from her and she stands up and she recites this poem. While she’s reciting it, my dad memorizes it. He memorizes her voice.

He remembers, remembers every word and he plays it in his head during the hard times of his life, like when they were apart, when he was in law school or whatever. And he remembered that and I do tell it in the book, but suffice it to say, at the very end of his life, at the very, very last doctor appointment, he went to, he had cancer and, um, the doctor said, well, how did you meet your wife?

And so he tells a story and then he recites the poem that he had heard, like, 90, 80 some years before, and it was so, I like, dad, I didn’t know you knew that. So the sound was so important to him. And he remembered every word that she said. From 4th grade. Yeah. So it’s a love story. It’s a great story. And what am I working on now?

I’m just trying to get the word out. I have publicity is a deal for me and I’m a little bit shy. And so it’s real hard to, uh, figure out how to get the word out about the book, but the people who have read it love it. And they said, Oh, it’s so inspirational. And I said, Huh, interesting, because I never set out to write an inspirational book.

I thought if I was, had done that, I’d still be sitting here at the screen looking at blank because I don’t know how to write an inspirational book. How do you do that? But it just came out because their stories are so fantastic.

And where, where can they get the book?

Oh, sorry. Amazon, amazon. com, barnesandnoble. com. If you go to your regular local bookstore and ask them to order it for you, they will, uh, order it.

Okay, good. So we’ll put the links of how to, how to contact you and the Amazon link I can put on the website. So it’ll be, if you’re watching the video, it’ll be in the description. If you’re listening on the audio platforms, you may not be able to see the link on the show notes, but there’ll be a link to the webpage and the webpage has all of that as well.

So, um, so those that are listening, find it, click on it, order it and tell us, tell us what you think of it. We, we, we love, love to hear it. And if you have read the book, I would encourage you to leave a review for her because that’ll help her get the word out more. So I’m going to Amazon or wherever you’re getting it from and, and, and leave, leave your comments to help support it that way too.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story. This, this has been fun. I, um, I have this picture now of this, put it in quotes, happy little family under a lot of stress at times because of your, your mom’s, um, stress of having to fit in. But then just, I’m picturing your dad on the train, heading out to Chicago, heading out to DC.

At a time where that was not very common.

That’s right. Uh, oh, he went to the Democratic National Convention of 1940 up in, um, the, uh, Chicago area. And, and so that’s in the book too. I’ve been writing all these stories, he’s unbelievable of all of the things that he has done. Um, anyway, if you have any questions, please feel free to email me because I would love to, um, answer any questions.

Thank you, Mary, for joining me today.

My pleasure.

Thanks for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed hearing Mary’s stories as much as I did. Be sure to pick up her book and sign up for the Water Prairie newsletter for updates on inclusion and advocacy and discount codes for our Etsy shop. In our next episode, Kathy Gagliardi will join me to talk about giving our neurodivergent children a voice.

I’ll see you next time.