Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1915-03-25

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-one years of blindness,
Maude Emerson Lincoln, daughter of
William F. Lincoln of this city, is get
ting her bearings in q 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 a 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 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 ard 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
I'D with the dishes. Then suddenly
something snapped in my right eye.
That is the only way | can describe
it-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.
I 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. 1--WE passed boy leading man.
1 said nothing, thinking | would not
call her attention to it,
Mother she said. was that boy
leading the man"
eyes replied.
"'Oh, the man is blind?' she asked
81 ha hn
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,
ways she laughs with joy at her mir
acle.'
''Maude was born ON April %, 1884,
said Mrs. Lincoln.
'|She was born 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.
"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 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.
II actually heard something snap, y
said Mrs. Lincoln. "She sort of
screamed and trembled all over.
"She cried, I don't know what ais
me, but isn't everything light?
called the family physician at once,
and we have kept her In darkness all
we could 80 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"