HANDICAPS OVERCOME.

Shannon News, 11 April 1928, Page 3

HANDICAPS OVERCOME.

AUSTRALIA ’ S HELEN KELLER.

Australia has f its Helen Keller in the .; sweet, gracious, and sunny, personality of a young woman, Alice BetteridgC, at the Deaf and Dumb and Blind Institution in Sydney. Her life story, which lias just been revealed, is a lesson for those avlio go through life with a grouch and a mental squint. As an infant, sickness left this young woman with a smile and happy, serene, outlook to-day Avhich irradiate cheerfulness, blind and . deaf, and, as a natural corollary, dumb, and in. a ivorld of grim darkness and silence. The amazing skill of Alice Betteridge to-day, in the face of these teirible handicaps, is a monument to the works and influence of the institution where she has spent all her life since she Avas seven years of age. Her reading, in Braille, ranges from Carlyle to light modern fiction. She has read every one of Dicken’s, books. The most Avonderful thing is her knitting, ; of Avhich thousands of AVomen with: their sense ; of sight would be envious. Last Arbiter, a knitting competition conducted by one of the Sydney newspapers attracted entrants from all oyer Australia and New Zealand. .Asking no faA-ours, and keeping her afflictions , a deep secret, this young woman was represented in the competitiQP. by some , delightful baby’s garniehtS. She won second prize.- She was among those : Avho knitted socks and other articles for the soldiers during the Wa* : . The' - skill and speed with Ayhieh, she can use an ordinary typewriter is another example of the way in which she has turned trials into triumphs and', obliter- / ated the shadows for the sunshine of a bright, happy, useful life.