Pauline Nevins

I was intrigued. A casual conversation with Diane, a former co-worker, at a retiree’s luncheon, included mention that her mother-in-law, Peggy, was a braillist — a person who transcribes sighted material into braille.

As a child, I remember the postman delivering stacks of massive braille books to my half-brother, Malcolm. But I knew nothing about the braille process. Malcolm was my mother's ninth child. His eyes, like those of all newborns, didn’t focus the first few weeks of his life. Weeks turned into months. The baby’s eyes continued to roll from side to side. Mother fitted him with glasses when he was 4 months old. He’d sit in his pram, propped up with pillows, a pair of thick spectacles resting on his tiny nose.

Mother would not, could not, accept that her child couldn’t see.

Malcolm was 6 months old when my mother finally faced the reality she had tried so hard to deny. Her youngest son would never “... see the sun rise over Shannon, nor watch the sun go down in Galway Bay” — scenes from the Irish song she’d croon to him.

Due to guilt or compassion, my mother never disciplined Malcolm. The rest of us got our ears boxed for misbehaving. Malcolm had the occasional “fit,” as us kids would call it. He’d grab anything he could reach — ashtrays and ornaments — and lob these missiles around the living room. We all learned to duck.
Doctors urged Mother to place Malcolm in the Sunshine Home for the Blind — a boarding school and former estate in the next county. He would learn braille, Mother was told, and be around other blind children. Sid, Malcolm’s father, persuaded her to take a tour of the home. None of us thought Mother would agree to part with her then 5-year-old son.

Mother’s evaluation of the Sunshine Home surprised us.

“Staff at the school is lovely to the children,” she told us when she returned. She marveled at how much the children could do despite their disability. “They can dress themselves, and tie their own shoes,” she’d reported, amazed.

Mother had refused to let Malcolm do anything for himself.

Much to everyone’s surprise, and quite frankly, relief, at age 5, Malcolm went away to the boarding school. He learned braille, later attended college and eventually worked at a bank in a neighboring town.

Decades later in a spacious workshop built next to a house on manicured acreage in Auburn, I’m learning from Diane’s mother-in-law, Peggy, about those braille books that opened a world to my brother, and millions of others.

Peggy, I was surprised to learn, began her career selling Avon and eventually became a district manager, retiring after 20 years. When she started it was door-to-door sales in the days of "Ding, dong, Avon calling."
“To stay busy, and do something worthwhile after retirement, I trained to become a volunteer braillist. Later, I realized I could supplement my retirement income. I’ve been doing this work for the last 30 years,” said the petite 87-year-old.

“What does a braillist do, exactly?” I asked.

Peggy walked me over to a large whiteboard on the wall of her workroom. Thirty projects were listed along with the braille subcontractors assigned to these jobs. And, surprise. More than half of the subcontractors are former Folsom Prison inmates, trained by Peggy when they were incarcerated. As certified braillists, former prisoners are able to work from home and immediately earn an income, increasing their chances of a successful transition. The national recidivism rate for prisoners within three years of release is 67 percent; within five years it’s 76 percent.

“For braillists,” said Peggy proudly, “the rate is less than 1 percent.”

Back to my question about the braille process. Peggy picked up a standard textbook.

"I mail books like these to the braillist. They translate the book into braille on a computer. The completed braille transcription is transmitted to my computer for printing. I followed Peggy into a back room where several oversized printers were installed. She lifted a cover to reveal the embossing pins that convert the braille documents into raised dots on heavy paper that can be read by the blind.

Thank you, I thought, to Frenchmen Charles Barbier and Louis Braille. Barbier was a soldier in Napoleon’s army. He invented “night writing” — a way for soldiers to safely communicate in the dark. Louis Braille, a young boy who lost his sight due to an accident, refined that process into today’s braille.

Before I left, Peggy said, with a smile, that a former inmate told her that becoming a certified braillist was a turning point in her life.

“She realized she was now doing something to help someone. Each time she translated a sighted book to braille, she was conscious of enabling a blind child to read.”

The same could be said about Peggy.