Lou ann walker biography of abraham

A Loss for Words is Lou Ann Walker's autobiographical account of growing up with deaf parents. She describes generally happy early years, followed by a crisis of identity and emotional turmoil in her twenties, and Walker finally ends in a spirit of reconciliation and understanding.

Gale Walker, Lou Ann's father, becomes deaf at three months after a fever, and Doris Jean, Lou Ann's mother, becomes deaf after a bout with spinal meningitis in infancy.

There is a lot of guilt and misunderstanding in both families about the deafness. At young ages, both parents are shipped off to the Indiana School for the Deaf. The school practices an "oralist" tradition of deaf education, in which vocalization and lipreading is encouraged and sign language discouraged, but the children learn sign language despite this challenge.

Gale and Doris Jean meet in 1950 after being set up on a date by friends.

It is love at first sight