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

< previous page
page_131
next page >
Page Chapter 7
The first time I was aware of the Gallaudet response to Bill was when the school was considering closing his lab. I was
dumbfounded imagine closing Jonas Salk's lab after he had discovered his vaccine I wrote the most persuasive letter of
which I was capable, but arguments were beside the point politics were to the point.
HARLAN LANE
< previous page
page_131
next page >
If you like this book, buy it!

< previous page
page_132
next page >
Page Although Bill Stokoe was able to put the English Department episode behind him, and although he was "satisfied and stimulated" in his role as director of the Gallaudet Linguistics Research Lab, the early s were very difficult years for him.
In 1970 Helen Stokoe Phillips gave birth to a daughter, Jennifer, and although Bill and Ruth Stokoe were thrilled to be grandparents, they knew that their daughter was struggling to make her marriage work. In 1971 Bill's eighty-three-year-old father, Clarence, lost sight in one eye during cataract surgery. When Stokoe visited him in the hospital, he "could see that the shock of surgery and its sequel had left him weakened" By the end of 1972, Stokoe's aging aunts were no longer able to care for his father, so Bill and Ruth brought him to their home and gave him their daughter's old room. It was a difficult time for everyone. "Dad hated to be dependent Ruth and I often disagreed about what was to be done, both in the long term and over little, immediate problems Bill soon found a suitable senior citizen residence less than two miles away where his father could have a private kitchenette, with the option of using the common dining room. His father quickly made friends there, and Stokoe stopped in everyday on his way to or from Gallaudet.
For a short while, Bill Stokoe believed that "Dad was himself again, in charge."3
Stokoe was so confident of his father's recovery that he and Ruth took a previously scheduled trip to Israel, where Bill had been invited to present a paper. However, almost immediately after they returned, Clarence Stokoe suffered another stroke and died on April 28, 1973 It was a terrific blow for Stokoe. He had idolized his father, and he began to wonder whether he had done enough to help him during his mother's final long illness he wondered how his parents had been able to bear the death of their twenty-two-year-old son Jim in 1942. He recalled his father's devotion "Nothing made him happier than good things happening tome and the children."4
More than ever, Stokoe devoted himself to the lab he spent endless hours there. The esprit de corps of the lab helped him to deal with his father's death, an event that he described as "the greatest loss I ever endured The people in the lab were friends as well as colleagues. Stokoe viewed their successes in

Download 2.48 Mb.

Share with your friends: