Name: Ruth C. Webb
Location: Grinnell, IA

I have cerebral palsy with a severe speech impairment. I am 75 years old and live in a retirement community after working for twenty years as a psychologist in state institutions in Pennsylvania and Iowa. I also worked as a vocational counselor in a Milwaukee workshop. I have a Ph.D. in counseling psychology, and want to use it to continue to help others.

I use a motorized wheelchair to get around. It even takes me downtown, to church, and to shop. I have written a book, Journey into Personhood, published by the University of Iowa Press in 1994. It details my memoirs of the challenges life brought me as a person with cerebral palsy.

My dad was in the Army and I was born in Honolulu. My mother was a teacher and taught my brother and me the first five grammar school grades. Then I went to private school and two institutions for the physically handicapped. At the last one I graduated from High School. After two collages rejected me because I was "too handicapped," I attended Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, and graduated with a B. A. in 1948. I took a M. A. at Syracuse University in Special Ed, and Clinical Psychology. After attending the Institute of Logopedics in Whichita, Kansas for 3 years, I received my Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in counseling and guidance in 1963. I then worked for 25 years in a private workshop and two state institutions for the mentally retarded.

My very supportive parents encouraged me to get my education and to start a career which brought many difficulties as well as triumphs. All through my life I have struggled against adverse attitudes towards the handicapped. This has given me a great interest in doing something to educate people about physically handicapped people. I am now writing short stories. I hope to explain the reasons for our differences and so decrease prejudices about disabled persons through my short stories. 

Jesus Christ as a living person means a lot to me. I feel that he has given me many wonderful people, who came into my life at the right time and in the right way. My struggles to be a person are by no means over, but whenever I reflect on my life, I am very blessed by God.

I have a webpage at http://www.angelfire.com/ia/Webb/ or you can mail me at rcw999@aol.com.


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