Helen Keller was born in Tusculum, Alabama on June 27, 1880. When she was only 19 months old, she experienced severe childhood illness. Which, it had left her blind and deaf. The only way she was able to communicate with her family was with rudimentary signs, she was also considered very badly behaved - eating off of other people 's plates with using her fingers. In 1886, she had went to a eye, nose, and ear doctor in Baltimore. That is where they were in contact with Alexander Graham Bell. She was paired up with Anne Sullivan, which they became really close and they maintained a long relationship for 49 years. She helped Helen to communicate. One of the ways that Sullivan began to help and help her start to understand, is that she used the