"She will love on, one of the few, the immortal names not born to die. Her spirit will endure as long as man can read and stories can be told of woman who showed the world there are no boundaries to courage and faith."- Senator Lister Hill Helen Adams Keller was born in Tuscambia, Alabama (USA) on 27 June 1880 in a white frame cottage calles "Ivy Green". Her father, Arthur Keller was the editor of a newspaper, North Alabamian amd was an influential figure in his own community. The illness that struck her when she was only 18 months old left her deaf, blind amd mute. As she grew from infancy into childhood, she was wild, unruly and with little understanding of the world around her.

Helen's real life began on a March day in 1887 when Anne Mansfield Sullivan, a 20 year old graduate of the Perkins School for the Blind, came to Tuscambia to be her teacher through the sympathetic interest of the renowned scientist and investor, Alexander Grahm Bell. How Alen Sullivan succeeded in awakening Helen's marvellous mind is familiar to the world through Helen's autobiography, The Story of My Life. In 1898 she entered the Cambridge School for Young Ladies to prepare for Radcliffe College, which she joined in 190. She received her bachelor of arts degre with distinction in 1904. Though her formal schooling ended with her graduation, but she kept up a life-long interest in scholastic and intellectual pursuits.

In recognition of wide and many scholary achievements, she received honorary doctral degrees from Harvard University, Delhi University, Temple University and from the Universities of Glasgow, Berlin and Witwaterstrand (Johannesburg). Helen Killer's writing career started during her Radcliffe College days and continued unabated for 50 years. She is author of many books. She frequently contributed to magazines and newspapers, writing prolifically on blindness, deafness, social issues and women's rights. During her lifetime she received numerous awards of great distinction including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honour.

In 1965, she was one of 20 elected to the Women's Hall of Fame at the NEw York World's Fair. Earlier in 1954 her birth place, "Ivy Green" in Tuscambia was made permanent shrine. In spite of her wide-ranging interests, Helen Keller never lost sight of needs of her felow blind and deaf-blind and relently strove to help them by appearing before legislatures, giving lectures, writing articles and, above all, by her own example of what a severly handicapped person can accomplish.

Many world figures were known to her and some among them Alexander Grahm Bell, Mark Twain, and William James were her personal friends. During one of her globe-gridling tours in 1955, she visited India and met Jawaharlal Nehru. She died on June 1, 1968 at Arcan Ridge, a few weels short of her 88th Birthday.

The Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department feels privileged to issue a special postage stamp in her honour.

Source : Information Folder issued by Indian Posts & Telegraph Department, Government of India