What I know:
- Helen Keller was born in 1880 in Tuscumbia Alabama (here's a Google map of the present day city).
- Most of The Miracle Worker, and the scenes that I'm in take place when Helen is 6 1/2, putting the timeline at about January 1887. (Helen's biography puts Annie arrival at her home in March 1887, so the weather should be fairly temperate.)
- Tuscumbia is 2 1/2 hours by car directly south from my house in Waverly, Tenn. and it gets hot, hot, hot in the summer time
- My Southern accent is close to the Alabama accent, but I think I need to try clipping words a bit; it doesn't seem to be as drawly.
- "Evaline" has the bedroom next to Arthur and Kate's in the floor plan of the house where Helen was born.
- Legal Name : Evalina H. Keller, 1826-1904, Find a Grave entry
- "Evaline" Keller wrote to Alexander Graham Bell April 1887 thanking him for his hospitality towards the three of them (Annie, Helen and herself?)
- Link to Library of Congress site with digital scans of Ev's letter to Bell, April 20, 1887.
- Link to site for Ivy Green, showing Evaline's bedroom next to Keller's on the main floor
Aunt Ev is described by Gibson as "a benign visitor" who serves as a catalyst for the Kellers's first contact with the Perkins Institute. Aunt Ev is a talkative woman who often tries to be helpful, but who can be a bit intrusive. She sometimes oversteps her place as a visitor in the Keller household and at one point even threatens to take matters into her own hands.
