As a young hearing impaired girl, Kate knew she was fortunate and had a dream to, one day, be a voice and inspiration for kids just like her. (She didn’t then know she would be unfortunate to also be vision impaired and going blind.)

Adopted from birth, Kate was diagnosed as being severely deaf as a two year old, and her father immediately took to research and letter writing being 1973, this was long before the ease and immediacy of the internet. Fortunately, a friend had just returned from working as a teacher for the deaf in the United States and told him about the John Tracy Clinic, named after the son of famous Oscar winning Hollywood actor Spencer Tracy and his wife Louise, who in turn directed him to The Shepherd Centre, newly established by Bruce and Annette Shepherd in Australia.

And so the world of sound and speech opened to Kate. With correspondence lessons sent from Annette, her mother began teaching Kate to speak, involving her two sons—a baby and four year old—and all the neighbourhood with the ‘word of the week’.

“Surely you remember some of those daily sessions, blowing out candles in front of the mirror to get the ‘P’ sound or desperately trying to master ‘Z’,” Kate’s mother asked her. “‘K’ was one of the hardest sounds and your name was Katie—a bad choice—why didn’t we call you Nancy, or even better, Elizabeth?”

Kate’s father, then Secretary of the local Deaf Association, continued his research and letter-writing. Kate wore body aids with cords connected to ear moulds and they were only receiving ten dollars a week for expenses when her father began a campaign, writing letters to politicians, government organisations and newspapers demanding post-auricular hearing aids (behind the ear) for deaf Australians just like those in the United States at the time, and more funding for education and early intervention.

As a nearly four year old, Kate was finally fitted with the new aids, but only one. Her mother remembers meeting with Annette Shepherd the next day. “Where is her other aid?” she says Annette asked, to which she timidly replied that they only gave her one. “The child has two ears, so go back to the audiologist today and demand two hearing aids!”

Kate’s father had also succeeded in lobbying for more funding on behalf of other local deaf children, which was a bittersweet win. In the process, Kate was deemed not to be struggling enough, not dumb enough, and too smart, so lost what little funding she had been receiving. All those hours spent working hard on her speech, blowing out candles in front of the mirror, all the neighbourhoods’ involvement in ‘word of the week’, proving what the Traceys’ and the Shepherds’ believed could be achieved, was not recognised.

“My father said to me, “We are so proud of you Kate, in the way you overcome this major problem (the hearing impairment, not the adopted parents!). Remember you were part of some important history and part of its making.”

But I know I was very fortunate. Yes, I did the work but without my parents, the Tracys’, the Shepherds’, and all of the neighbourhood, it seems, I would not have thrived in the way I did. It really does take a village!