Remembering a "tireless champion and advocate for the Deaf community"

Harlan Lane
PHOTO: Mary Knox Merrill/Northeastern University

Harlan Lane died a year ago today (July 13, 2019) at the age of 82 from Parkinson’s disease. A psychologist and linguist, Lane helped to found the ASL program at Northeastern University. But he will mostly be remembered as a "tireless champion and advocate for the Deaf community." Among the books he authored was The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry. He argued in the book that deafness is not a disability but a unique community. Lane became interested in Deaf culture and ASL in the 1970s while teaching at the University of California, San Diego. He happened upon students who were signing to each other and wanted to learn more. He explained in an interview with the Northeastern in 2011 here. The interim co-director of the ASL Program at Northeastern, Angela Herbert, said:

Professionally speaking, he was decades before his time in terms of understanding the value of Deaf people and the Deaf community. There are so many books on ASL, Deaf culture, and the Deaf community now, but when Harlan was starting out, that just wasn’t the case.

People at Gallaudet University remember Lane as a professor in the 1980s who was an outspoken member of the “Deaf President Now” movement. Read more about Lane here.

Longtime Gally Prof dies at the age of 98

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Donald Padden, a leader in the deaf community, has died at the age of 98 in Frederick, Maryland. He taught physical education classes at Gallaudet University for 42 years and led a popular summer camp in northern Minnesota. His daughter, Carol Padden, is dean of social sciences at the University of California at San Diego. Read more here.
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On this date: Long-time Gally prof killed

A former Gallaudet professor was killed on this day (Dec. 18) in 2013 when she was hit by a car leaving a parking garage where she lived in Washington, DC. Peggie Parsons was 90 years old and had spent her life setting up schools around the world that would teach sign and voice and wrote several books. She taught art history and retired from Gallaudet in 1988.

Kitty O'Neil Dies

Professional stuntwoman Kitty O'Neil has died at the age of 72. Among other things, the deaf daredevil set a record for land speed by a female driver in 1976. It was in Oregon's Alvord Desert that Kitty hit 512 miles per hour.

Childhood diseases left her deaf and nearly killed her. She became a champion diver at a young age. Her work later as a Hollywood stuntwoman was featured in TV shows like Quincy, Baretta and The Bionic Woman along with movies like Smokey and the Bandit, The Blues Brothers and Airport '77. 

She set a record for the highest stunt fall by a woman (105 feet).  She has held as many as 22 speed records on land and water.

A movie was made about her life in 1979 titled Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neil Story.  She died Nov. 2, 2018 from pneumonia. Read more about her amazing life in a Washington Post article here.

Below is a video report on Kitty from the Midco Sports Network put together in 2015.

World-renowned Deaf Actor Dies

He paved the way for deaf theater performers and became a founder of the National Theater of the Deaf in Connecticut. Bernard Bragg died Los Angeles this past Monday at the age of 90. Bragg was also a visiting professor Gallaudet University where he attended school. Read more at The New York Times here. A Los Angeles Times obituary called Bragg "the first professional deaf actor in the United States." Below is a tweet from Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin about her longtime friend and a video of Bragg from his 80th birthday.

5 years ago today: Gally Prof dies in fire

Image from Gallaudet University

It was on this day (Jan. 23) in 2013 that Gallaudet lost one of its professors. Laura Snyder-Gardner and her teenage daughter, Marry Ann, died in a fire in the northern Virginia town of Falls Church. They had moved from Florida to the DC suburb just a couple of years before. Neighbors say the neighborhood was rocked by a loud noise before the fire broke out. Gardner was 48 years old and had worked at Gallaudet since 2009. She served as an assistant coach of the girls' soccer team at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf last year.

Deaf woman killed when her car breaks down on Highway

The family of a Seattle-area woman is grieving her loss. Her car broke down and killed when a semi-truck hit her car from behind. KING-TV has a video report (no captions but you can read the story here).

Popular NTID Grad student found Dead

Image from NTID website

It's unclear why Timothy Holmes was found dead Wednesday night in a Rochester suburb. The Monroe County Sheriff's Office says the death was not suspicious, according to the Democrat & Chronicle. Read more about the well-known student who appeared in many plays at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf hereand here. A "story of success" about Holmes from the university's Focus magazine was still online here as of Friday afternoon.

Force for Deaf Education Passes

Rober Parara
Photo from NTID website

Deaf educator Robert Panara has died at the age of 94. He passed away of natural causes this past weekend in Rochester, New York. Panara taught at both Gallaudet University in Washington, DC and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, which he helped to found in Rochester. He also started Connecticut's National Theater of the Deaf.  Parana's full story is told in the book Teaching from Heart and Soul: The Robert F. Panara Story, starting with his loss of hearing at the age of 10 because of spinal meningitis.  NTID President Gerry Buckley says, "Bob's legacy is indeed vast. Thousands of students and graduates have been influenced by his genuine love of teaching and his generous sharing of his beliefs, values and knowledge." NTID plans a memorial for Panara in September. Read more at the NTID website here.

Deaf Actress Dies at 70

The woman honored for her role in the Broadway version of Children of a Lesser God died yesterday. Phyllis Frelich won the 1980 Tony award for Best Actress in a Play for her work as Sarah Norman--a part that playright Mark Medoff wrote especially for Frelich. Marlee Matlin got an Oscar for playing the same part in the film version of Children of a Lesser God. The Hollywood Reporter says Frelich died at the age of 70. Both her parents and siblings were deaf. she performed with the National Theater of the Deaf, the Broadway edition of Big River and signed the national anthem at the 1998 Super Bowl.

Doug Bahl Passes

The deaf community has lost one of its well-known voices of advocacy. Doug Bahl has died from cancer at the age of 63. He was president of the Minnesota Association of Deaf Citizens for a decade and taught ASL at St. Paul College. You can read here about his lawsuit against Police in St. Paul. He was pulled over in 2006 and beaten during the traffic stop for failing to obey the commands of officers--commands he could not hear. Officers now receive training from the city about how to relate to deaf citizens.

Deaf Student Dies

An eighth grade student at The Learning Center for the Deaf in Framingham, Massachusetts as killed a week ago. Patrick Fischetti was 15 years old. Fischetti lived with his parents, Thomas and Elizabeth Fischetti in Shrewsbury. He fell ill at home.  You'll find information about funeral services here.

Update: An earlier version of the story said he was killed after bering struck by a car but that early report was incorrect. Also, the location of the school and parents has been corrected. 

Deaf Leader Dies

The founder California's Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center is dead at the age of 50. Richard Roehm suffered a heart attack and died at a local hospital earlier this month. A Cal State Fullerton grad, he worked for Disneyland until he helped to start the Santa Ana-based center in 1998. Roehm was hard of hearing until he became deaf at the age of 11. Below is a video of Roehm at working at a information booth last year to get the word out about his group.

Service for Gally Prof

A memorial service will take place Sunday in honor of the Gallaudet University math professor who died in a fire with her daughter. Laura Snyder-Gardner and her daughter, Mary Ann, were both hard of hearing. The fire that engulfed their home in Falls Church, Virginia took their lives--along with ten family pets. Authorities are investigating the cause. Mary Ann was a junior at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf where Snyder-Gardner helped coach the girls soccer team.

Friends reflect on death of a Gallaudet teacher

Gallaudet University is mourning the loss of Laura Snyder-Gardner and her daugther Mary Ann, who died in a house fire in Falls Church this past week. Snyder-Gardner taught at Gallaudet

Gally Prof Dies

A Gallaudet math professor died in a fire along with her daughter in the northern Virginia town of Falls Church. Laura Gardner and her teenage daughter, Marry Ann, had moved from Florida to the DC suburb about two years ago. Neighbors say the neighborhood was rocked by a loud noise before the fire broke out. WUSA-TV has this video report (no captions). Gardner was 48 years old and had worked at Gallaudet since 2009. She served as an assistant coach of the girls' soccer team at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf last year.

Advocate Dies

A long time sign language interpreter in Wisconsin has passed. Doris Nyquist is remembered for playing a prominent role as an advocate for the deaf community from the 1950s onward. Read about her bridging two words here.

Retired Gallaudet Professor Dies

Carol Garretson had died at the age of 86 at her home in Summerfield, Florida from complications related to diabetes. She was an assistant professor of communications for two decades until 1987. Her family never understood why she became deaf as a child. She attended Utah State University and then Gallaudet College.

Deaf Quadriplegic Dies After Inspiring Battle

Read the story about how David Rose became a Twitter Sensation here. Among his Tweets, “I do not even consider myself deaf, I am just "visually oriented," lol. I see everything I need to instead of hear it.”

Deaf Pastor Killed

A Wisconsin pastor has died from injuries he sustained in an auto accident last week. A driver failed to stop at an Outagamie County intersection, hitting the car in which David Hoffman was riding. Three other people in the car were injured, but all were released from the hospital. Hoffman had moved to the Green Bay area recently from Sioux Falls, South Dakota in order to start a church for the deaf.