Girl, Blind for Twenty-one Years, Sees Wonders of Big City.
Miss Maud Emerson Lincoln, of Marblehead, Mass., whose sight recently came to her in a sudden manner after she had been almost totally blind from her birth, recently saw Boston for the first time.
She came from her home in the old Judge Nathan Bowen place on Market Square, Marblehead, to the city with her mother, Mrs. William F. Lincoln, and her eyes were to be given a thorough examination by Doctor Henry Hawkins at his office, 397 Marlboro Street. Doctor Hawkins has never seen the young woman, but he has records of her case which he received from Doctor Francis I. Proctor. The records are not complete, and Doctor Hawkins said he did not wish to express a medical opinion on the case until he had seen the young woman.
Doctor Hawkins is assistant ophthalmologist at the Perkins Institute, but Miss Lincoln has not been a student there for the past six years.
At the time Doctor Proctor was ophthalmological surgeon at the institute, he got some of the records of the case, which he handed over to Doctor Hawkins.
Miss Lincoln said that she was feeling fine, and as the nervous condition which followed the coming of sight has practically passed away, she is eager to begin life anew. She wants to do so many things, she does not know where to begin, but most of all, her parents say, she wants to learn, and if Doctor Hawkins thinks it advisable, she will probably take up studies at once.
Heavily veiled, she attended Sunday school yesterday at the First Baptist Church, in Marblehead, where she is a member of Mrs. Gertrude Dennis’ class. She spent the rest of the day at home and retired early, to be ready for her trip to Boston to-day.
“I rather dread to go,” said Miss Lincoln. “There will be so many people, and so many things to look at, I think I shall be afraid. But if I can get rid of that feeling of fear, I know I shall enjoy it.”
Miss Lincoln saw her own picture for the first time in the papers to-day, and was delighted with it.
Practically blind from her birth, twenty-one years she now sees clearly. In an instant one afternoon, as she was about household duties, this seeming miracle came. With a snap the covering was rent from the right eye as she was putting dishes in the china closet.
Two days later, in the evening, as she sat with her parents, the other eye was uncovered, and sight was given to it.
“I went to the closet to put up some dishes,” she said. “Of course, there was no light in the closet and it all looked dark to me. The top of my head did not feel good. It hurt. It was as heavy as—as a load of bricks. That’s just the way it felt. I reached up with the dishes. Then suddenly something snapped in my right eye. That is the only way I can describe it—like that.”
And she snapped her fingers.
“Then,” she said, “everything seemed all light to me and brightness. I did not know what to make of it. I could not realize what had happened. I looked around the room. I ran and looked out the window. And I could see.”
“She went out with me the other evening, heavily veiled,” said Mrs. Lincoln. “We passed a boy leading a man. I said nothing, thinking I would not call her attention to it.
“‘Mother,’ she said, ‘was that boy leading the man?’
“‘Yes,’ I replied.
“‘Oh, the man is blind?’ she asked again. And I told her he was. She paused a moment, then said: ‘What a pity.’”
Miss Lincoln is tall, slender, and fair-haired. Her eyes are blue, like those of her parents. She had on a gown of deep red, with little black bows on it, and she talked entertainingly and always she laughs with joy at her “miracle.”
“Maud was born on April twenty-second, eighteen-ninety-four,” said Mrs. Lincoln.
“She was twenty-one this month. She was born blind. We did not realize at once that she could not and might never see. Her eyes had the appearance of eyes which have cataract. There seemed to be a thin, white, opaque substance over the pupils.
“No one seemed to know what the matter was. But she grew up blind. When she was nine years old we sent her to the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and she was there nine years and received an education. Then we took her home, and she has lived here since, helping me as she could. When she was examined by Doctor P. I. Perkins at the Perkins Institute, six years ago, he told her never to have anything done to her eyes, never to put anything in them, that some day she would see—and he was right.”