Helen Keller was born on June 27th, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her parents were Kate Adams Keller and Colonel Arthur Keller. Two years after her birth she was stricken by an illness, perhaps rubella or scarlet fever, that left her blind and deaf. Her parents asked for the help of a teacher from the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston and soon, her life changed forever. On March 3rd, 1887, Anne Mansfield Sullivan came to Tuscumbia to be her teacher.