Disability Throughout History: Ragnhild Kåta

A running theme I have inadvertently created in this blog is how important equal access to education is, even and especially if accommodations need to be made. Convincing the general public that people with disabilities have a right to an education has taken centuries of work, thanks to many activists like Helen Keller, a deafblind American woman. Thinking about her got me wondering about others like her in countries outside of the United States. In my research for topic ideas, I found today's subject. She is not "Norway's Helen Keller;" she was an inspiration to Helen Keller herself.

Ragnhild and Hofgaard

*Side-note: Thank goodness for Google Translate! Most of the sources I found in were in Norwegian.

Ragnhild Tollefsdatter Kåta (I found about 7 different ways to pronounce her name, but I settled on: RAHN-heeld KAHT-ah) was born on May 23, 1873 on Kåtaeiet farm, Vestre Slidre, Oppland, Norway. She was the oldest of eight children born to her father and mother, Gjertrud Noreng. When she was about three-and-a-half years old, she became severely ill with (what was recorded as) scarlet fever. This was also thought to be the same disease that affected Helen Keller less than a decade later (current theories, however, suspect bacterial meningitis). Ragnhild survived her illness but was left without her sense of hearing, sight, taste, and smell. Not much is known about how Ragnhild and her family coped with this new reality: their little girl now lived in a silent and dark world with no taste or smell. The only phrase she was able to verbalize after her illness was, "It's awful."

Today, much more is known on how to educate those who are deaf-blind, but in rural 1800s Norway, there was very little to help her. She lived at home, completely dependent on remaining in familiar surroundings with her family to help. Her siblings went to school but Ragnhild could not. She learned to do simple handicrafts and rock her younger siblings to sleep.

When she was fourteen years old, in 1887, Ragnhild met the man who would spark a change. Hallvard Bergh, an author and teacher in Vestre Slidre, met her and was immediately driven to act. He wrote a piece about her in an Oslo newspaper, Verdens Gang, begging for help for this girl and her family. It was even republished abroad in Norwegian-American newspapers. Many sent letters and money, raising about 7,000 kroner (roughly $60,000 today). Lars Havstad, a teacher for the deaf (and himself blind in one eye as well as deaf from scarlet fever and meningitis), saw the piece. He was the first deaf person to obtain a teaching accreditation in Norway and was pivotal in starting schooling for deaf, blind, and intellectually disabled children. Havstad wrote to Bergh, encouraging him to contact his brother-in-law, Elias Hofgaard, the administrator of Hamar Døvstummeinstitut, the Hamar Institute for the Deaf.

Hofgaard accepted Ragnhild into his school, paid for by the state. Her first day was January 15, 1888; she was escorted to school by her father. This transition was very difficult for the terrified young teenager. She was very sensitive to being touched and was suspicious of strangers. Her behaviors of biting, clawing, and screaming were her only ways of communicating. Hofgaard did not give up: he helped her feel calm, which made her trust him. She eventually trusted the other students and faculty as well and was able to participate in formal education for the first time.

The method used to teach Ragnhild to communicate was referred to as "the speaking method." This was later known as "the Hofgaard Method," which became "the Tadoma Method" in teaching the deaf-blind (at the time, schools had to choose to teach either signing or speech, not both). Hofgaard had used it with other "very talented" deaf students and taught them to verbally communicate. He was determined to use it with his newest student, much to the surprise of other educators. He claimed that, since she could not see to fingerspell, learning to verbally speak would be the best for her future. Hofgaard first taught her to pronounce letters, then combined two letters to make a syllable, then turned those syllables into words. She was taught as though it were a complex game; once she had reached the word level of pronunciation, she was taught the meaning of what she had said. The words were associated with objects repeatedly over several days until Ragnhild understood that the sounds she had been learning were the names of these things. The first words she learned were: ur (watch), fot (foot), and bord (table). She learned to understand others by placing her hand on their lips while they spoke, feeling for mouth and jaw movements, breathing, and vibrations.

Another teacher, Petra Heiberg, taught Ragnhild to read and write in Braille. She was said to be gifted and quick-to-learn. Plain paper was placed on fluted paper for her to feel the lines while she wrote in pencil. The fluted paper also served as a guide to reading letters Ragnhild had written.

Heiberg and Ragnhild

Not long after Ragnhild began school, during the summer of 1889, she met an older woman who understood her situation. Mary Swift Lamson, by this time almost 70 years old, had taught Laura Bridgman, the first deaf-blind child to be formally educated in the United States. Bridgman had passed away a couple months before Lamson's visit to Norway. Lamson reported that Ragnhild was already speaking in simple sentences. The following year, at the Perkins Institute for the Blind, a ten-year-old Helen Keller was told of this Norwegian deaf-blind student who had learned to verbally speak. This inspired Keller to pursue the same goal. In her autobiography The Story of My Life (1903), Keller wrote, "In 1890 Mrs. Lamson ...who had just returned from a visit to Norway and Sweden, came to see me, and told me of Ragnhild Kaata, a deaf and blind girl in Norway who had actually been taught to speak. Mrs. Lamson had scarcely finished telling me about this girl's success before I was on fire with eagerness. I resolved that I, too, would learn to speak."

Many professionals and influential people came to visit the deaf school in Hamar to see the groundbreaking successes. In 1890, Ragnhild even met the Swedish King Oscar II and Crown Prince Gustaf when they visited the school. A less famous person, but very important in her personal life, who visited often was Bergh, the man who had initially believed in her right to an education. They wrote letters frequently and he managed her annuity fund, collected money, and stayed in contact with her teachers, especially Hofgaard. He would ask Bergh for clothes or money for clothes and let him know of her progress. For example, in an 1894 letter, Hofgaard wrote: "Attached are measurements for Ragnhild's dress. You do not have to send her boots now, as I have acquired her a pair these days. Ragnhild is living well and making good progress."

Letter from Ragnhild to Bergh, 1899

Ragnhild also became very talented in basket-weaving, knitting, and embroidery. In 1891, she sent a few of her pieces to an exhibition in Skien and received an honorable mention. She continued attending until her confirmation in 1897, ending her schooling. She wrote to Bergh that she felt better at home with her mother and did not wish to return to Hamar, though Hofgaard wanted her to. In another letter to Bergh in 1899, she wrote that she "lives well." Without the rigor of the institute, however, Ragnhild felt her development had stagnated. With permission obtained by Hofgaard, she enrolled and lived in the school again for a few more years beginning in 1900. Her linguistic skills advanced even further. When she finally left school for good, she went home once more to live with her mother (her father had died years earlier).

Even after she moved home, Bergh still managed her money, as shown in a 1909 letter where Ragnhild's mother asked for clothes and shoes for her daughter. Ragnhild's crafting skills provided a way for her to make a small bit of money independently. Hofgaard continued to visit her until he was severely injured in a bicycle accident in 1904 and could no longer travel the 100 miles to her home. He died in a railway accident just two years later at the age of 50, devastating Ragnhild. Her former teacher, Heiberg, continued running the school until 1936, when it closed and merged with a school in Holmestrand.

Ragnhild in her later years

After Ragnhild's mother died, she moved in with one of her sisters. Heiberg later founded Døves Vel (Deaf Welfare), a home for deaf and deaf-blind adults. Ragnhild lived there for the last ten years of her life. On February 12, 1947, she died at the age of 73 after being ill with bronchitis. Ragnhild was described as "almost always smiling and good-humored, talkative, and with an unshakable faith in God."

The last known photo of Ragnhild on her 70th birthday, 1943

Most sincerely,

Clem

Disability Throughout History

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Monday, July 19, 2021

Ragnhild Kåta - Living Well