Cover next page > title: Seeing Language in Sign : The Work of William C. Stokoe author

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Page In neither case did deafness preclude a full, satisfying, productive life of involvement in the larger society. For Detmold and
Stokoe, knowing these men suggested a rather different view from the one usually inculcated into hearing teachers and transmitted through the education process to many deaf people that deafness leads to "an inability to . .. know the world directly. . . and that deaf people are condemned to a life lacking the depth of meaning that sound makes available to hearing people."
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After Cornell, George Detmold enlisted in the armyit was 1942. His military service was not typical, however he was sent to
Yale to learn Chinese and then served in the X Force of the Chinese Training and Combat Command.
Bill Stokoe hoped to enlist as well, and he enrolled in Cornell's ROTC program. His grades had always been excellent, but he had to work hard to win a Boldt Scholarship to supplement other scholarships he had won. His family owned a farm, but his parents "felt the strain of tuition"they were once forced to sell a prize heifer to keep him in college. Stokoe's studies, along with his job scrubbing pots to earn free meals and his commitment to the fencing team, exhausted him. In the summer of 1940, while training at ROTC camp in Plattsburgh, Stokoe had a nervous breakdown. He spent several days in the camp hospital,
"incoherent most of the time" but aware of "the madness of the place" He was sent home and saw a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him as manic-depressive and prescribed medication. He didn't want to leave the house or see anyone but family for several weeks. He was classified F as a result of his illness and "took a whole year off to get back inside myself' When he returned to
Cornell in the fall of 194 , he made Phi Beta Kappa, again received the Boldt Scholarship, and was elected co-captain of the fencing team. His illness was relatively brief and never recurred, but even today, forty years later, Stokoe finds it painful to explain "how I sat out the war."20
Soon after recovering, Bill Stokoe met Ruth Palmeter, a fellow student at Cornell. He remembers the circumstances of their first meeting, their first conversation, their first date, what she wore, where they went. She was the perfect antidote to the breakdown he had suffered. He proposed marriage on their

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