The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1915-03-26
SIGHT SUDDENLY
COMES To GIRL
Blind For TWenty-On0 Years,
She Now Sees Clearly.
PHENOMENON UNEXPLAINED.

While Miss Maude Lincoln Was At
tending to Household Duties Some
thing Snapped In Right Eye and She
Saw-Two Days Later Vision Came
to Other Eye In a Similar Manner.
Marblehead, Mass.-Slowly recover
ing from the nervous shock of sight
after twenty ohe years of blindness,
Maude Emerson Lincoln. daughter OF
William +. Lincoln of this city, is get
ting her bearings in a strange world of
color and motion.
Recently the darkness suddenly lift
ed from her right eye, and then the
left eye cleared also, both unexpected
ly and without rational explanation,
according to specialists who have been
questioned on the case. From condi-
ton in which only night and day could
be differentiated she suddenly awoke
in the sunlit world of which she had
heard SO much.
In an instant one afternoon as she
was about household duties this SEEM
ing 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.
II 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. 1t hurt. 1t
was as heavy as-as a load of bricks.
That's just the way It felt reached
up with the dishes. Then suddenly
something snapped in my right eye.
That is the only way | can describe
lt-like that"
And she snapped her fingers.
"Then," she said. everything seem
ed all light to me and brightness. |
did not know what to make of it.
could not realize what had happened.
| looked around the room. | ran and
looked out the window. And | could
see."
"She went out with me the other
evening, heavily veiled," said Mrs. Lin
coin. I'VE passed boy leading man.
| said nothing, thinking l would not
call her attention to it.
Mother she said. was that boy
leading the MANI
Yes | replied.
"Oh, the man is blindT she asked
again. And l told her he was. She
paused moment, then said. What a
pity"
Miss Lincoln is tall, slender and fair
haired Her eyes are blue, like those
deep red, with little black bows on it,
and she talked entertainingly and al
ways she laughs with joy at her mir
acle."
"Maude was born on April %, 1894"
said Mrs. Lincoln.
"She was Gorn blind. We did not
realize at once that she could not and
might never see. Her eyes had the ap-
pearance of eyes which have cataract.
There seemed to be a thin, white,
Opaque substance over the pupils.
mo 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 Dr. f. l. 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"
Then Mrs. Lincoln told how sight
came to the girl as she went to the
closet to put up the dishes.
81 actually heard something snap'"
said Mrs. Lincoln. "She sort OF
screamed and trembled all over.
"She cried, 4 don't know what ais
me, but isn't everything lightT l
called the family physician at once,
and we have kept her in darkness all
we could so as to be sure and not have
the eyes injured.
"She has always been able to tell
light from darkness and could find her
way around the house, but she has
never actually seem"