INSPIRED MY LIFE

George Ferris pun mencoba peruntungannya dengan mengajukan disain komedi putar raksasa rancangannya. Menurut George Ferris, komedi putar raksasa yang akan dibuatnya bakal bisa melebihi Menara Eiffel. Dengan menaiki karyanya itu, para pengunjung akan dapat melihat keseluruhan pameran dari atas, dan itu adalah pemandangan yang sangat menakjubkan serta akan menjadi saat-saat romantis bagi pasangan yang berada di sana.

Awalnya, pihak penyelenggara merasa ragu dengan rancangan yang diajukan olehGeorge Ferris tersebut dengan alasan keamanan. Namun, George Ferris kemudian berhasil memastikan keamanan komedi putar raksasa buatannya itu. Akhirnya, komedi putar raksasa karya George Ferris yang lantas diberi nama Ferris Wheel tersebut berhasil dihadirkan dalam ajang World’s Columbian Exposition yang digelar di Chicago pada tahun 1893.

Ternyata, di masa-masa yang akan datang, banyak kisah romantis yang terjadi dan terkait erat dengan komedi putar raksasa yang pertamakali diciptakan oleh George Ferris itu. Dengan demikian, hari lahir George Ferris, juga komedi putar ciptaannya, ternyata memiliki benang merah dengan perayaan hari kasih sayang yang diperingati setiap tanggal 14 Februari itu. Sayangnya, George Ferris mati muda di usia 37 tahun pada 22 November 1896, di Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Amerika Serikat.

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama on 27th June, 1880. Her father, Arthur H. Keller, was the editor for the North Alabamian, and had fought in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. At 19 months she suffered "an acute congestion of the stomach and brain (probably scarlet fever) which left her deaf and blind.

She later wrote in The Story of My Life: "In the dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new born baby. They called it acute congestion of the stomach and brain. The doctor thought I could not live. Early one morning, however, the fever left me as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. There was great rejoicing in the family that morning, but no one not even the doctor, knew that I should never see or hear again." As a child she was taken to see Alexander G. Bell. He suggested that the family should contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston.

In 1886 the Perkins Institute provided Keller with the teacher Anne Sullivan. She later recalled: "We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten - a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away." The 21 year old Sullivan worked out an alphabet by which she spelled out words on Helen's hand. Gradually Keller was able to connect words with objects. 

In 1929 she published her book Mainstream. It included the following: "I had once believed that we are all masters of our fate - that we could mould our lives into any form we pleased... I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life's struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about. I forgot that I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment... Now, however, I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone."

Keller's childhood education was depicted in The Miracle Worker, a play by William Gibson, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1960. An Oscar-winning feature film in 1962, starring Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, appeared two years later.

Helen Keller died in Westport, Connecticut, on 1st June, 1968.