This page from a Wonder Woman comic book tells the story of Anne Sullivan Macy and Helen Keller, circa 1945. The eight frames on this page illustrate the difficulties that Anne had in controlling Helen as a young child and her efforts to teach Helen the manual alphabet.
Anne was cremated, and her ashes were laid to rest in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. She was the first woman to be given this honor on her own merits. The momentous nature and irony of this would not have been lost on her. The daughter of poor Irish immigrants, whose life involved so much hardship and who fought to be heard and to have others listen to her as an advocate for the blind, was ultimately honored in such a celebrated way.
Moreover, Anne saw her role as secondary to Helen's and remained skeptical about her own legacy. However, she became very much a part of American popular culture. The image seen here appeared in a 1945 Wonder Woman comic book and her life continues to provide material for plays and films such as The Miracle Worker, which are performed and shown around the globe. It is Anne Sullivan Macy and not Helen Keller who was the focus of The Miracle Worker, the most well-known adaptation of the story of Helen's young life.
Anne addressed the subject of fame in sayings that she wrote entitled "Foolish Remarks of a Foolish Woman":
I have met a number of famous men uneventfully, but I have learned something about them. They are Human like the rest of us, they are not gods or even sacred cows as their biographers would have us believe. This is most comforting to those of us who are not famous. If scientists become masters of the world, as they are in a fair way to do, life will still go on; for men will still be jealous, quarrelsome and absurd.
