Morris Frank was a Blind man who helped start the first school that trained seeing eye dogs. His dog Buddy is considered to be the first seeing eye dog in America.
Born to a prominent Jewish family in Nashville, Tennessee in 1908, Morris’ life story demonstrates the adage “truth is stranger than fiction.”
As a child, he was the primary helper for his mother, Jessie Hirsch Frank, who was blind. Jessie had lost an eye in two separate accidents. Incredibly, Morris would also lose an eye in two separate accidents. When he was six, he lost an eye in a horseback riding incident, and when he was sixteen, he lost the other eye while boxing with a friend.
When Morris was 19, his father read him an article by Dorothy Eustis, an American dog trainer, about blinded World War I veterans in Germany who were starting to work with guide dogs. This was the turning point in Morris’ life.
He immediately wrote a letter to Eustis: “Is what you say really true? If so, I want one of those dogs! And I am not alone. Thousands of blind like me abhor being dependent on others. Help me and I will help them. Train me and I will bring back my dog and show people here how a blind man can be absolutely on his own.”
Eustis responded, asking if Morris would come all the way to her dog-training school in Switzerland to work with a dog. He answered, “Mrs. Eustis, to get my independence back, I’d go to hell.”
Morris reached Switzerland in 1928 and was matched with a German Shepherd he named “Buddy.” They became an efficient team and traveled together to New York, where Morris showed fascinated reporters how he could cross the busiest streets with Buddy’s help. He sent a telegram to Eustis with only one word: “Success.”
This post first appeared on A Thousand Monkeys Fighting Over One Typewriter, please read the originial post: here
