By: Sam Blomquist (01/11/17)

May 24th, 1950 in a small Ohio town, a happy healthy baby girl was born to a loving devoted family. Sue lost her hearing at 18 months of age. Like all deaf persons, she was facing a long hard road. Not only with herself and learning how to communicate; but also with people who didn’t understand what it meant to be deaf. Her parents were strongly encouraged to put her away in an institution. Instead, they worked. Hard. Sue and her parents did everything they could to give sue the ability to talk.

Throughout her early childhood, she worked with speech therapists, spent hours in front of the mirror -trying to make her mouth form the same shapes her mother’s mouth was- trying to learn to speak.

When Sue reached school age, she was determind to attend public school like every other child. She did not want to be any more different than she already was. She knee being the first deaf person in the history of her public schools entier district, was going to be more than difficult (but she made it this far, right?)! Her teachers and peers did not know what to do. Their solution? Put her in the “dummy” classroom and forget about her. Now she thought, “Theres nothing I can do about this but I can make the most out of what I got.” Sue was not going to let anybody decide her fats. Everyday she sat in the front of the class and watched the teacher’s lips. This didn’t do much at first. She said “I always got the questions but hardly ever got the answers.”.

After years, of struggles, heartache, torment and tears… she had taught herself (with the help of her very supportive and dedicated parents and speech therapists) how to read lips and learned how to speak.

Not only did she compete grade school, she also graduated from Springfield College in Massachusetts with degrees in International Affairs and Political Science. THEN she went for postgraduate studies at Case Western Reserve University!

Now, she thought she would try putting that education to good use and set out on her job hunt. After months of searching and she heard the F.B.I. is looking for deaf persons. She was initially hired for fingerprint analysis, but soon she used her lip reading skills to understand conversations recorded on videotape without sound. This skill promoted her from an assistant to an agent. Eventually, she retired due to health problems and she continued her education.

Thomas’ story was so unique they even made a TV show about her and her hearing companion; known as F.B.Eye. During an interview Sue said she only had two requests “The dog be called Levi. Levi was my first hearing dog and I wanted to honor him. Second, to play me; I want a nice, tall, thin blond (to make me look good).” She was granted both requests and the show was a success aired 54 episodes.

Today, when Sue Thomas isn’t traveling the world giving her famous motivational speeches, she is at her home in Vermont with her dog Katie. Her next big adventure? She hopes to open a dog training center called “The Levi Foundation.”

by Anonymous

David at Sun Valley – 1980

David Michalowski, profoundly deaf since birth, grew up in Chicago, IL. He competed at the United States Figure Skating National Championships from 1978 until 1982, including the 1980 Winter Olympic Trials, and at four international competitions from 1980 until 1982, including the Winter World University Games twice. David became the FIRST deaf figure skater ever to compete nationally and internationally. His skating performances were shown on the ABC Wide World of Sports twice (1978 and 1980). He also was the first deaf skater ever to pass the Gold (senior level) Test. This test allowed him to be eligible to compete for Olympic Trails and World Championships. His profile was shown on Lou Ann Walker’s book, “Hand, Heart, & Mind. The Story of the Education of America’s Deaf People.” David had collected 4 gold, 8 silver and 5 bronze medals and numerous trophies. He performed an exhibition at the 1975 Deaf Olympics at Lake Placid, NY.

by Anonymous

Braam Jordaan

Braam Jordaan was born profoundly Deaf to Deaf parents in Benoni, Johannesburg. He has achieved outstanding art recognition both locally and internationally. After graduating from TAS, he worked for several high-end film and animation companies on high-end projects for BMW, Coronation, Nampak, Mitsubishi, Yardley, Musica, World Wildlife Fund, Rabea Tea, American Eagle and Graça.

He is perhaps best known for his enchanting one-minute animation entitled “The Rubbish Monster,” which garnered no less than 12 awards, including Multichoice Vuka!, 11th Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival (SICAF), 5th KAFI and Animation Exchange Best of the Best. “The Rubbish Monster” was featured in The Filmmakers’ Guide to South Africa: 10th Anniversary Edition as “The Review of the Decade”. It led to Cambridge University Press publishing his children’s book adaptation by the same name in 2009.

He developed and animated a rabbit character for the first online animated Sign Language Dictionary internationally for the Deaf Culture Centre in Toronto, Canada, and Sipho the Lion, the official mascot of the XVI World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD).

He specializes in film production and transfiguring creative concept into high-end and award-winning animation, visual effects and media. He continues tirelessly to promote Sign Language and the Human Rights of Deaf people worldwide through his colourful spectrum of work.

(source: braamjordaan.com)

by Kristyn Murray

(Houston, TX)

Joseph Henry Sharp was one of the founding members of the Taos Society of Artists, a group that produced some of the most significant artwork in American history. Born in 1859, he became Deaf after an incident where he almost drowned in a river at the age of 12. By age 14 his hearing had completely deteriorated and he left school to work and pursue his true passions of drawing and painting. He studied in Cincinnati and eventually also in Europe for many years and in 1883, at age 24, he traveled West to see first-hand the Native American cultures that had fascinated him throughout his life. He traveled through New Mexico and up the West Coast into what was then Washington Territory, sketching portraits of the tribe members he met. But it wasn’t until 1893 when Sharp first visited Taos, New Mexico on a commissioned job that he truly fell in love with the yet unspoiled quality of the area and its people.

Sharp returned to Paris to further his art studies and there he met the other artists that would one day join him to establish the society in Taos. When he returned to the U.S. he moved to Montana, camping on the battlefield of Little Big Horn, to paint portraits of the local Plains Indians. His notable work from that time garnered national attention and in 1900 the Smithsonian Institution purchased 11 of his portraits. President Roosevelt took interest and had a cabin built for him through the Indian Commission to aid his historically relevant undertaking. Finally, in 1912, Sharp became financially independent from the sales of his successful and prolific body of work and he moved to Taos permanently. That year the Taos Society of Artists was established and Sharp worked alongside Burt Phillips, Ernest Blumenschein, and others who would help shape the history of American art forever.

By Anonymous

Author of What’s that Pig Outdoors? and other novels based on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan locales. Deaf all his life, blogger, professional editor and writer for Chicago newspaper, humorist.

Webmaster Comments:

Thank you so much for adding Henry Kisor to this list! I thought I might add a little bit more information about Kisor to this page 🙂

Henry Kisor was born in 1940 and became deaf at the age of three after a bout with meningitis. He was educated at Trinity College for his B.A. and at Northwestern University for his M.S.J.

Henry Kisor was the book editor for the Chicago Sun-Times and is now retired. He is also the author of three mystery novels (Season’s Revenge, A Venture into Murder, and Cache of Corpses) and three nonfiction books (What’s That Pig Outdoors?: A Memoir of Deafness, Zephyr: Tracking a Dream Across America, and Flight of the Gin Fizz: Midlife at 4,500 Feet), is the co-author of one children’s book, and writes two blogs (The Reluctant Blogger and The Whodunit Photographer).

Kisor’s reviews and articles have appeared in publications such as the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and MSNBC.com. Kisor was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1981. The Friends of Literature awarded him the first James Friend Memorial Critic Award in 1988 and the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award for Nonfiction in 1991. Kisor was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2001.

You can read more about Henry Kisor on his website: https://www.henrykisor.com/

Kisor has accomplished so much in the writing world that I definitely think he deserves to be on the famous deaf people list. Thanks again for adding him. 🙂

by Joseph Heenan

(Frankston, Australia)

The 48 year old Australian named Robert Hoskin is a well-known deaf filmmaker who has won several film awards from his short films shot in 35mm film format intended for festival screening some years ago. He has expertised in 35mm film making activities for nearly 20 years out of his 35+ year film making career in his native country Australia and Japan.

Robert is married to Japanese deaf film actress Yasuko Tsuchiya, who appeared in the newly all-deaf feature movie titled “TWO IS TOO MANY”, in her leading role as ‘Yumi’, a lone deaf female traveler.

Robert shot all his shorts and feature films in 35mm film format, never captured it on video format except only for documentary genre which he also produced a 23 minute video documentary called “The Making of ‘TWO IS TOO MANY'”. His film is currently in post-production process in Australia intended for nationwide release due after the middle of 2011.

Robert has spent his childhood life in the various aspects of films on 8mm, 16mm and finally 35mm since he was 11 years old. After he established his all-deaf independent film production, first in Japan after being married to Yasuko, moving to Tokyo in 1988, buying an Arriflex 35mm motion picture camera, and making his first-ever 35mm short film titled “BLUE GUSH” with his own funds of $4,300.

Next, his second 35mm short is “PATCHED-UP!”, a 1994 deaf comedy about a guy with his eyes and mouth being all patched up, cost over $10,000 to produce along with bilingual subtitles from their original Japanese sign language under Robert Hoskin’s direction.

Due to lack of medium presentation from his first two 35mm films, as to widen his media horizon, he also made one more 35mm film titled “MOTION OF CONFUSION”, a classic third 1996 hit which only featured one deaf actor and hearing actress in the 10 minute vehicle that captured his audiences everywhere in Japan as well as in the States that capped him a special film award for ‘Best Outstanding Performance’ by CIMI founder Mr J.Flanders in Chicago, Illinois, on March 2003.

Currently Robert is working on editing his new 35mm movie “TWO IS TOO MANY”, and wrote several film screenplays including the greatest movie classic, yet to be filmed, “MY IMPORTED WIFE”.

For more information, please visit the Silencebound website.