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Nowana Schroeder joined the staff of the Developmental Training Center (D.T.C.) in 1975. (The D.T.C., at Indiana University in Bloomington, is now known as the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community.) Then Nowana Nicholson, she had a…

“You don’t have the right to deny them the opportunity to try this.” Mary Lou Melloy's daughter, Cindy, was born in 1958. Doctors told the family they should put Cindy in a residential facility. Mary Lou and her husband, Don, had other plans for…

“I believed that the barrier of Alexander Graham Bell that he used the word, he can "fix" Deaf people by using speaking language in a speaking world.” Indianapolis artist Warren Miller explains his painting "Barrier" represents Alexander Graham…

"She shouldn't have to be put on a bus and spend 45 minutes on a bus one way to go to school," explains Pat Howey of her daughter's experience at six years old being sent to a school for children with physical disabilities. Pat discusses her…

“No children were really served in a community setting, in a public school, especially children with moderate to severe disabilities,” explains Pat Barber. Pat received her special education degree in the early 1970s from Indiana University. She…

“It was wonderful because he felt like he was going to school.” When Bonnie Smith’s family moved to Bloomington, Indiana in the 1960s, a minister from the First United Methodist Church knocked on her door one day informing Bonnie he had found a…

“Well, they stayed at home, okay, the individuals stayed home.” Mrs. Leona Receveur wished her daughter, who had a disability, could attend school. When Mrs. Receveur tried to find a school for her daughter, she was told to start her own school. Mrs.…

John Dickerson, retired Executive Director of The Arc of Indiana, explains that after World War II, parents across the country began to think differently about the future of their children with disabilities. In 1951, there was a national meeting of…

“I lost my vision at-- I was 26 months old. I was struck by lightning.” When it was time to go to school, Pauline Ulrey’s ophthalmologist did not want her to go to the Indiana School for the Blind. “I don’t know his line of reasoning, but that was…

The Indiana School for the Deaf in Indianapolis was founded in 1843 and was originally called the Willard School. This black and white photograph shows the school's basketball team and their coach in 1941. The team appears to be getting ready to take…