A remarkable story has been published in the Ladies' Home Journal of March 1, 1911, showing what a girl can do without hands and arms. Through the kindness of The Curtis Publishing Company, we are permitted to insert the article in this book. It was written by the young lady herself.
"I was not born a cripple. Even as a child I did not always have to make hands of my feet. Indeed, till I was nine years old, I not only had arms and hands like other children, but I was also a strong, healthy, normal child like my two brothers, who were older than I, and my sister, who was two years younger. Our family was in poor and humble circumstances as far back as I can remember. My parents were both English, but my father became naturalized as a citizen of this country in 1882—the year in which I was born.
"Since I grew up I have learned that my father and mother were in good circumstances at the time of their marriage, and for some ten or twelve years afterward; that my father was a steady, hard-working, kindly man; and that he and my mother were devoted to one another and were very happy together. But after the birth of my brothers my mother was taken ill and was in poor health for a long time. Then, just as she was at the worst of her illness, my father lost his position, and matters speedily began to go from bad to worse. A tendency to strong drink, which he had kept well curbed for my mother's sake, now began to get the better of him. Her failing health made it impossible for her to look out for him as she had hitherto done. The new work which he succeeded in obtaining was hard and distasteful, and the family grew poorer and poorer until at last there were times when we had not enough of food and clothing, and the charitable societies of Chicago, where we lived, began to look after us.
"In the summer just before my ninth birthday, I was one of a number of children who were sent into the country for a two-weeks' outing by the managers of a fresh air fund. Those were the two pleasantest weeks of my life. The beautiful, green country, the grass, flowers, trees, and birds delighted me. I was well and robust, and I ran and picked flowers and played and enjoyed myself to the utmost. A few weeks after I came home from this wonderful outing my mother died, and I became the housekeeper of the family. I was then just nine years old. I did the work as well as I could, although there was not much to do nor much to do it with, in the bare place which we called 'home,' in the basement of a small city dwelling. Soon after I had lost my mother's companionship I lost my sister's also, for she was adopted by well-to-do people, whose identity I did not know and have never learned.
"On the afternoon of the following Thanksgiving day, while my brothers were playing outdoors and my father and I were alone in the house, I was puttering about when I found a bottle filled with what I afterward knew must have been whisky. Being only a child, and possessed of a child's thoughtless curiosity, I took a long drink from the bottle. The effect was almost instantaneous. I grew weak and stupefied. At that moment my father, who was in an adjoining room, told me to go and put some wood on the kitchen range. I said that I felt sick and could not go, but he insisted and I obeyed. No sooner had I got the lids off the range, however, than the combined effect of the liquor and the heat overpowered me, and I fell forward upon the open fire, unconscious.
"My younger brother, who came in from play and lifted me off, saved me from death. But at the hospital it was found necessary to amputate both my arms. The burns about my neck and chest were severe, but not serious, and two months later I was discharged from the hospital. A state society for the care of children had already arranged with my father to take full control of me. A fund contributed to by generous people far and near was raised for my support and education, and after spending some months in a nursery I became an inmate of the Home for Destitute Crippled Children in Chicago.
"In this home I was given instruction in the common school studies, and I learned to write and sew with my feet. After four years I was transferred by the Illinois Home Society to the care of a private family in Wisconsin, where I lived for eight years, going to the public school and practically completing the high school course. During all this time I continued to learn how to make hands of my feet, and I have kept on perfecting myself in this necessary acquirement ever since. It has, of course, taken a great deal of perseverance and determination, and has required constant effort and practice, coupled with no little physical skill and suppleness. But it must be borne in mind that for nearly twenty years I have been without hands and arms, and that during most of this time I have had to wait on myself. So my feet have been in almost continual training. I have never found a task too hard to undertake nor too tedious to finish, and no one appreciates the truth of the old saying, 'Where there's a will, there's a way,' better than I do.
"As a result, I have learned to dress myself, almost completely. I can take a bath by myself, wash my face, brush my teeth, put on most of my clothes, and comb my hair when it is not too long. I can put on and take off my eyeglasses. I can use the scissors to cut paper, cloth, or any other material with which I am working, and then thread the needle, knot the thread and do the necessary sewing. I can sweep and dust, mop and scrub, and even blacken stoves. I can sketch and draw, although I have never had a lesson in these accomplishments and have acquired the little knowledge and skill I possess in this art solely by practice. In the same way I have also learned to sharpen my own pencils, opening and closing the knife myself. I have even made articles of furniture, such as small bookcases and writing desks, sawing all the lumber, driving the nails, putting on the hinges, and finally varnishing the completed article. In short, I do with my feet almost anything that others do with their hands.
"At the close of my high school course I found myself, at the age of twenty-one, left practically on my own resources. The fund which had been raised for me was exhausted, the obligation of the state society which had taken charge of me had ceased, my father had passed away, my brothers were poor and could not help me, and my sister had gone out of my life. For a while I earned a little money by selling my drawings, name-cards and other work. Then I gave exhibitions, in homes and elsewhere, of my skill with my feet. Eventually I found it possible to attend Taylor University at Upland, Indiana, and while there the hope I had long cherished of some day being able to be of some help to poor, deserving, crippled children took shape and my life work was made plain to me.
"A Home for Disabled Children was planned and eventually started in Maywood, Illinois. I took special studies to qualify me to handle properly and capably the work of financial secretary of the Home. During the year and a half between the starting of the Home and the writing of this article five children have been cared for and a great deal of improvement has been observed in all of them.