The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-07
EGLADDENS LIVES ~ | OF LITTLE BLIND
 2 2 WITH SUNSHINE
sMrs. Alden Devotes En-
 tire Time To Rearing < Sightless Children

NEW YORK, Sept. 1.-Ruthie, awhat is round at both ends and hlgh sin the middle?' The speaker, silvery
 haired woman, sat on a large yerarda
 surrounded by half dozen boys and g girls. Ruthie repeated the question. her face aglow with interest. She 9made a wild guess at the answer to the
 riddle, then she made another, both of ? which were wrong. fl s,S q can guess it, Mrs. Alden, l hays sssone more chance and I can guess It, ysaid the child. S, T x .Let me help you," said Mrs. Alden. "You learn geography, Ruthie. and It sts in the geography. Now try again. . q The other children sat very still and
 after moments thought Ruthie guessed mountain"
 "Wrong again. said Mrs. Alden. @'sNow I am going to tell you the ian-
 swer. What is round at both ends
 and high in the middle? The answer is 0hio." There was silence. The chile ,dlren had not grasped the answed. s''There is a round o at each end and the two middle letters spell Hi, "hsaid
 Mrs Alden. There was q chorus of
 70, yes," and That's good one," and athe children clapped their hands. 5I The applause attracted some other
 children, who had been sitting on the
 lawn and by twos and threes they came up the steps of the veranda and stood eabout, some with their arms about each
 other. The game of riddles went on
 for some time and then some one asked
 4 III ssit must be short one, for it is near sdinner time,' and as the afternoon sun
 went down in a blaze of glory Mrs.
 about little girl who lived far away
 in the Rocky mountains and whose life was saved from a big black bear by , her little pony.
 Take in Every Word
 The children listened attentively, talk ing in every word. They had never :, seen a sunset or a pony or a bear. ;. These children were blind. The, story
 Mrs. Alden was telling was part of
 the story of her own life, life filled with action from the story of her own g life, life filled with action from the
 time as a tiny baby she was taken west
 by her father to blaze the way for great
 mining operations down to the day when she gave up brilliant literary
 career to blaze the way for new char
 ity, that of caring for the baby blind. Although brought up in rough min seing towns, Mrs. Alden did not lack ed ucation. Her father, Prof. o. S. Vest
 over, WAS a well known mineralogist {. and mining inspector and as we'll as in- sstructing his daughter himself he had sher instructed by the miners in what ever they excelled in, whether it was target practice or speaking a foreign | language. tia At seventeen she had charge of dis
 trict school ten miles from Denver, z sColorado. After graduating from the ssState University of Colorado she came },to New Tory City to continue her mus . ical education, but her ambition was :. not fully filled as a musician.' al- Sthough she sang in several large church V choirs, so she took a civil service exam ' ination and was appointed an inspec-
 tress at the custom house, where her 3shrewdness led to a number of import Sant seizures in the customs service.
 Invents Street Devices
 < Her next appointment was to a po- itition in the New York street cleaning where hundreds of Italians Were employed. She was able to speak their language and became known gamong them as the poor mans friend. sShe invented new form of dump cart, snow in use in many European cities, which won for her a gold medal and she also invented the apparatus known as "dingy" used to gather waste by sstreet cleaners in all countries. On yIT0r fhn al of 1sA Alden took up newspaper work and magazine writing ''t'-f t It was while engaged in newspaper swork that her attention was attracted toward blind babies. T found out that the state did nothing for it's blind babies, said Mrs. Alden. "In families where there were blind babies these fchildren were left in crib, not taught , to walk or to do any of the things which a normal child was taught. with the result that the baby either died or. grew aup mentally deficient. The institutions Sput the lowest age for admission at eightyears. By that time a child, lacking all the visual impressions and un- taught, had commonly ceased to be Ataachable.
 {" "Too many of the adult blind are
 0oSOiuCely uepeHueHC persons, without grace, without poise, without the inner tllte that means so much to. all of us, fthe life of imagination which books and thought develop. Taken in baby hood they might, in most cases, have
 been made selfsupporting
 .s The Information Sunshine Society Shad it's beginning in the newsroom of a large city newspaper. It was composed entirely of newspaper and magazine swriters, but it has grown to have a Membership of nerly half a million,
 with branches in all parts of the world. It was incorporated to carry happiness wand do kind deeds and one. of the first things done was the establishment of a blind babies home in a three-room flat 7 in New York City. That was in 1904 2 -.