Ivy Green

After the last two weeks of listening to Helen Keller talk about her childhood in the "big house" and "little house", I have to admit I was thinking something, well... bigger than the house that greeted us in Tuscumbia. Granted there was a cook house out back that was the same size as my kitchen and dinning areas, but still! The house had four bedrooms, two downstairs and two upstairs, a dinning room and a parlor. The little house was two rooms. The larger was about 15 by 10 and the smaller was about 15 by 6. TINY.

I spent the introduction time with the "hostess" biting my tongue. Having finished Ms Keller's autobiography on the drive up, I was amazed at how much misinformation we were given. That Helen did school for 12 hours a day once Anne came - no they unschooled and had NO lessons of any kind forced until Helen went to prep school at Cambridge. That the incident with her baby sister (throwing her out of the crib) was an accident - Helen said she didn't like that baby and wanted her gone. I guess that is what you get from retired volunteers.


I was disappointed that all the trees and flowers Helen loved so much were gone. Of the 640 original acres, the home now rests on less than ten. There is no cherry tree and I could find no mimosa. The rose garden that was her favorite is long gone as well. Ivy and honeysuckles no longer cover the houses. The trees surrounding the house have been left their original ivy at least and are of such a large size that you can't help wanting to try to wrap your arms around them. One mom and four boys can't by the way.

The pump out back is no longer functioning, but you can pump it and take pictures.



After our tour, the group went to Spring Park. It is an awesome park with a mini-roller coaster, carousel and train. They have the only known man made limestone waterfall. Very pretty. It was a perfect day to do spring portraits so we did that while we were out. I will post more about that later.