What did people on the prairie do for their special needs children? It must have been so hard on families, trying to do the right thing for their children who were deaf, sight-impaired, or with other special needs that, at that time, the world was unequipped to deal with. This is an article about two remarkable women who opened schools for the blind and the deaf with little to no funding for these projects. Take a look at what they accomplished!
The Oklahoma School for the Blind was truly a pioneer institution. In 1897 Miss Lura A. Rowland, a graduate of the Arkansas School for the Blind and “a frail wisp of a girl,” solicited funds and undertook to establish a school for the blind children of Indian Territory at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. She operated the school without any government assistance for ten years, though there are reams of correspondence indicating she implored governors, congressmen, and other public officials to assist her struggling organization. She did present a case sufficient to be permitted the use of the old Barracks Building to house her school. Concurrently, a Territorial School for the Deaf had been established in Guthrie in 1897 under a five-year contract to care for deaf children under boarding school regulations.
Miss Rowland traveled all over Indian Territory, appearing before the various tribal councils, presenting her needs. Since few Native Americans were blind until Europeans brought diseases causing blindness to the tribes, there was not the acceptance that might have been the case otherwise. During the first four years the institution was supported solely by contributions from the people of the Indian Territory and sympathizing states. In 1900 the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations each made appropriations for the education of blind Choctaw and Cherokee children. Repeated but unsuccessful efforts were made to have Congress aid the school through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1907 the school became a state-supported institution. For “reasons variously stated,” it was moved to Wagoner but soon returned to Fort Gibson.
(Learning to make shoes–photo by Lewis Hines–ca. 1917)
Miss Rowland, now Mrs. Lowery, had used her own resources, begged for furniture, and convinced other teachers it was their patriotic duty to help her with her project. In addition, schools from various parts of the United States had helped her from time to time. So frugal was her operation that her financial statement upon her retirement indicated that she had operated the school the first ten years on a total of $15,048.44, besides contributions by various persons, including herself. In those ten years she had held eleven school terms from six weeks to nine months long for a total enrollment of fifty pupils.
Oklahoma’s first legislature appropriated $5,000 on May 29, 1908, for the maintenance of the “Lura A. Lowery School for the Blind,” and provided in the same act that the school be under the control of the State Board of Education. As a state institution the school was supported by legislative appropriations, varying from twenty to thirty thousand dollars yearly. A headline in the Muskogee Times-Democrat March 11, 1911, read: “Perry Miller Saves Blind School.” Miller had authored a bill in the State House of Representatives to move the Oklahoma School for the Blind. Slid Garrett of Fort Gibson had introduced a similar bill in the State Senate. Mr. Miller knew that if the school was not moved to Muskogee, it would be moved to Tulsa. It remained in temporary quarters at Fort Gibson until June, 1913, when the fourth legislature acted to move it to Muskogee, Oklahoma.
Upon moving the school to Muskogee in 1911, first in a couple of temporary locations locally, the state began construction on several beautiful buildings of English architecture with steep roofs. The tornado of 1945 destroyed most of those roofs, demolished the gymnasium, in which three girls were killed, and wounded several others. In the rebuilding, flat roofs replaced the originals.
The school is outstanding in the annals of education, and brave little Lura Lowery deserves a great deal of credit for initiating and carrying on such a program. Helen Keller honored the school with a visit February 17, 1915 and was very complimentary of its administration. Superintendent Mrs. O.W. Stewart was voted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1943 as a result of the outstanding record of the school. When Richard Carter retired as superintendent of the school in June 1979, after being associated with the school since 1939, he had completed the longest tenure of any like position in the nation and was considered an authority in the care and the teaching of the blind.
Following is a list of additional historical highlights:
1897 – 1907 Superintendent Mrs. Lura A . Lowrey
1907 – 1911 Superintendent Mr. G.W. Bruce
1911 – 1925 Superintendent Mr. O.W. Stewart
1913 Oklahoma School for the Blind was moved to its present location in June in accordance with an act of the fourth Legislature. An 80 acre tract of land was donated by Governor C.N. Haskell.
1917 The Oklahoma Commission for the Adult Blind was established. The funds and services of this Commission were quite restricted and the primary thrust of the early program was the provision of limited home teaching services to the blind.
1920 The civilian Vocational Rehabilitation Program developed out of the effort to rehabilitate disabled veterans during and after WWI. On June 29, President Woodrow Wilson signed Public Law 66-236, creating the civilian rehabilitation act. This early program was limited in scope with primary services being counseling, guidance, job training and placement.
1920 Fifty acres of land south of the school was donated to the Oklahoma School for the Blind. This land is currently leased by the city of Muskogee and is known as Civitan Park.
1925 The Oklahoma Legislature passed enabling legislation empowering the State Board for Vocational Education to operate with the Federal Board of Vocational Education in the administration of an Act of Congress related to the promotion of vocational rehabilitation of persons disabled in industry or other, and their return to civil employment. However, this program was not funded by state appropriations until 1927.
In our family, my grandfather’s half-brother, Bob, had a tumor behind his left eye as a young man and had to have it removed. This would have been approximately 1910 or so, not long after Oklahoma became a state, when Bob was just a young teenager. Mom had mentioned this to me years ago, and said my great grandfather had taken Bob on the train to Dallas to have the operation done to remove the tumor. But when, after a few months, his other eye became infected with another tumor, Bob made the decision to not have that surgery done. He died before he reached his 18th birthday, and my great grandmother always kept his glasses in a little cedar chest on the mantel along with her other keepsakes. What a heart-wrenching decision that had to be for the entire family.
Source Documents for this article:
“A History of the Oklahoma School for the Blind, 1897 – 1969”, a document by Cleo Bowman Larason in 1953.
“A School History, 1897 – 1937, of the Oklahoma School for the Blind.”
Credit to the unknown photographer for the image of the school used above.
Good morning Cheryl, what an amazing blog. I did not know any of this. Wow, my eyes have opened to the great school and works of these wonderful folks who helped these children.
Thank you for sharing.
Tonya, I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been to try to help these special needs kids back then when so many felt that there was nothing that could be done for them. Times were so hard for everyone anyhow, and with everyone so spread out, it must have been very hard to actually send a child away to a special school like this one. My eyes were opened too. I never thought about it!
What a great post! Thanks. My mother-in-law was blind. She was a big advocate for helping others..
Debra, thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed this. My grandmother’s sister went blind after she was an adult. I’m not sure why, but this was so long ago, and even then it seemed there was not much to be done for her. I remember when I was a little child how she’d ask me to come near and let her feel my face. That was how she knew what we looked like. And she was accurate. She’d always say such lovely things. “I know your brown eyes are just like your daddy’s. They must be beautiful!” She’d run her fingers over my cheeks and say, “Hon, your cheeks are just like a fairy’s wing!” So fanciful, yet always something wonderful.
This is a great article. My brother went to the Arkansas School For The Blind.
Rhonda, isn’t it amazing to think that people like Mrs. Lowery started a school such as this that were the foundations for schools in the future such as your brother attended? Thank goodness for people like her that found their life’s passion in something that most probably seemed impossible at the time, yet she made it happen!
Cheryl thank you so much for such a wonderful blog. I had never realized when and how one women dream had changed our history on blindness and the deaf. I’m sorry for your grandfather’s brother, so young to make such a hard decision. Thank you again for sharing!!
Rose Ann, I’m so glad you stopped by and enjoyed this. Like you, I had not realized how this school was started, or when. Another thing that I thought was so great for these kids is that they could finally have a school to go to that accommodated THEIR needs instead of them having to just try to get by in a world that made no allowances for them or provided any way for them to learn to deal with their blindness or deafness. What a relief it must have been to be with other people who understood those challenges, too, and who shared that commonality.
What a fascinating story! Thank you for sharing about this school, and your great-uncle. What a heart-rending choice that must have been.
Jess, my mom told me so often about when she, being the eldest of 11 kids, would go spend the night with her grandmother and how she was the only one of the kids that her grandmother felt was old enough to share her stories about all the treasures in her keepsake box. My mom said my great grandmother would take the glasses out that had belonged to her son and just hold them in her hand very carefully while she talked about him. When Mom would talk about it to me, I just couldn’t understand why they allowed their son to decide for himself not to get the surgery that would have saved his life, but made him completely blind. Back then, though, times were so different, and at 16, they must have believed he should make his own choice. I don’t think I could have done that. I can only imagine what some of those conversations between parents and child must have been like. Just heart-rending, as you said.
Good morning. Loved this blog. I can’t imagine anyone having a special needs child way back then.
I can’t either. That had to be so hard, especially as a mother, trying to figure out what to do for your child. There was so much to learn, so much completely unknown back then. I imagine someday, they’ll be saying the same about us in our time! That just had to be so very hard.
There is a school for the deaf about five miles from. My father was blind in one eye and he had a tumor behind his good eye back in the late 70’s and had it removed.
It’s just amazing how much we have learned about medicine in the last century, isn’t it? And fascinating to think about how many more discoveries lie ahead! I’m so glad your dad was able to have the tumor removed successfully! Thank you for stopping by today, Quilt Lady! Always good to see you here!
Cheryl, God bless Miss Lura Rowland. She was a special lady. It would’ve been very difficult to find the money to operate back then but she persisted when many would’ve given up. How sad about your relative Bob who died so young. My uncle’s brother was born deaf and the family had to learn sign language. I was probably seven or eight but I remember how sad it was to never hear a bird sing or a mother’s laugh. Resources were few back then.
Hi Linda! Oh, I heartily agree! God bless that woman for her passion and caring and her determination! The attitudes of people toward those with issues like blindness and deafness and so on back then were frighteningly uncaring in some instances. So to manage to persist as she did and open her school on such a very tight budget and make it successful is just a tribute to her fierce determination to make a success of it. Yes, that would be so sad to not be able to hear the things we take for granted, and of course, back then, there was not anything much to be done. With modern medicine, those cochlear devices they use in some patients are a true miracle! I’m so glad to see your smiling face! Love you, filly sis. We need to catch up!!!!
Good morning, I enjoyed reading your post and I learned alot, thank you so much for sharing about this. Have a great week and stay safe.
Hi Alicia! I’m so glad you stopped by today and enjoyed this post. I learned a lot too, when I was putting it together. Lura was just an amazing woman to have done so much with so little. What an inspiration.
Hope you are well!
Welcome today. Thank you for sharing this wonderful piece of history
Glad you enjoyed this, Lori. I really admire Miss Lura. She was a very dedicated human being and followed through on her dreams to make them a reality!
I admire women like Lura so much!! What a heart full of compassion she had, and I’m certain she has a special place in heaven for her devotion to the blind.
I’m a pretty motivated person most times, but her drive and dedication to overcome so many obstacles leaves me in her dust. Where would the world be without special women like her?
Thanks for sharing, Cheryl. Great piece of history!
Oh, Pam, I agree! And when I’m dedicated, it’s usually to something that hits very close to home–my family or my writing, etc., but I just think how hard it must have been to have been so determined to change the world for a group of people with these disabilities at that time, when she just had NOTHING to work with. Yet, she made it happen! I truly do admire her for her drive and devotion.
It must have been very hard to get these schools started and maintained. Thanks to all the truly dedicated people that helped all the special needs children and grownups during this time.
I agree, Connie. I don’t know how a person could even get something like that off the ground in those days when everyone was so poor unless there were some wealthier people who were willing to help fund it, and yet, her shoestring budget says she must have done it all herself, for the most part. That had to be so hard!
What a gift to read this blog today. Thank you for all your research and sharing your family’s situation. Such an honor to read about people who sojourn the extra mile on behalf of others. Thank you.
Kathy, thank you so much! What kind words! I’m always so thrilled to read about truly good people who really asked for nothing in return but for the modest success of their project on behalf of OTHERS. She was amazing! I would love to have met her and talked to her about how she managed to do this–there have to be a million and one stores behind her efforts! Thanks so much for stopping by. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Wonderful blog, Cheryl. Sometimes, especially when we complain, we need to think about how hard things were on folks in the not-too-distant past.
Yes, I agree! A hundred years, or even 125 years ago, is just the blink of an eye–little more than one lifetime for some lucky people. To think of all that has been accomplished in that length of time is truly mind-boggling. And this reminds us that no matter what time period we live in, there is something we can do to help someone or make the world a better place. I’m so glad you stopped by!
I enjoyed reading your interesting post. My father was diagnosed with a tumor behind his left eye when he was 45 years old and had the tumor and eye removed. Fortunately, the cancer was localized and he didn’t need any extra treatment. He never had any other problems with that.
Diana, I’m so glad to know that your dad made a full recovery! Wonderful! To think, our very lives depend on what time period we were born into, where we lived during that time, and what resources were known and available–something else to ponder! I’m so glad you stopped by today.
What an amazing part of history. We don’t always think of how many of these institutions came into existence to help those with disabilities. Thank you for this highlight.
denise
It just makes you wonder how some of these people–women especially–were able to maintain their drive and determination to “make it happen” until it finally did. I admire anyone who could found such a school under such adverse conditions that she must have faced. So glad you stopped by today!
Thank you so much for sharing. I have had glasses since I was 18 months old. I had four eye surgeries before I was five. I can relate to the issues of dealing with challenges as new procedures became available. When I was a child, my parents were told to be prepared that I would be blind by the time I was 21 years old. I have to say that the doctor was wrong. I do have limited vision in my left eye, but the right eye has compensated for the lack of vision in the left.
Hi Debbie, my goodness, that is a LOT of surgeries for such a little one! And I’m so glad that your blindness didn’t progress as the doctors predicted! Bless your heart! That just had to be so hard as a little one and I’m sure your parents were beside themselves too, but being brave and not showing it. Thank you so much for commenting!
This is a really interesting blog. I had not really thought about the great need for schools like this on the frontier. But I am glad that someone saw that need to help these people.
There is a school in Talladega, Alabama that was established in 1858. It is the Talladega School for the Deaf and Blind. I don’t know the entire history of this school but this blog makes me want to learn more about it.
Thank you for this article.
I have heard of that school, Ruth, now that you mention it–that would be very interesting to research! I’m so glad you mentioned it here! Yes, it DOES make us realize how hard times must have been for those families that needed to have a place for their special needs children to learn, and also how hard it was for people like Miss Lura to follow her dream and make it a reality in those days, especially! Thanks so much for stopping by!
It has taken too long for me to get the time to sit down a carefully read this. I wanted to give it the attention it deserved. One has to wonder what kind of life disabled children, especially the blind, had before there were schools and other organizations available to train and accommodate them. Most families were not equipped to address their needs. I fear many who did not have loving families were neglected, mistreated, or abandoned. Even if left at an orphanage, things would seldom be better since they were not set up to deal with them. Those wonderful people like Miss Rowland/Mrs. Lowery must have worked very hard to overcome indifference and misunderstanding to get these schools set up and sustained to deal with children and adults. Their efforts set in motion what is now available to children with special needs. We as a country owe much to them.
In the last 10 to 20 years much of what was available for special needs children and adults has changed. The move to close large institutions and keep them at home or in small group homes has had a serious impact on programs. Not all large institutions were good, but many served their clients well. We had a good facility not far from here that dealt with serious learning disabilities and mental health issues. One family complained about the facility and it was shut down despite the support of the other 100 or so families that relied upon it. Patients were moved to group homes, sent back to their families, or just released to be on their own. The support system for all these people was pretty much gone in such a short period of time and what replaced it is costing more and serving fewer clients.
Thank you for an interesting post.
Patricia, thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I feel the same way–just wondering how ANYONE coped with having a young child in their family who had so much to overcome and of course, so many parents not being equipped themselves to deal with that along with all the other perils of frontier life. I have thought of this woman and her total devotion to this quest many times. I’ve wondered about her and her life and thought of how satisfied she must have felt to have achieved something so marvelous against all odds!
It seems that our social programs have taken several steps backward in so many ways; not only has there been little to no progress, but much of the progress that was made before has been undone. Because of the few people these serve compared to the general population, they have been put on the back burner and done away with in many cases. This is one of the saddest things I can think of, yet on the other hand, I think every so often there will be someone like this extraordinary woman who will be a mover and shaker and get things done again.
Hugs, my friend! Thanks for stopping by!