My parents were promised three things if they signed away their parental rights, making my brother a ward of the state of Ohio. They would thereby agree to have their youngest child sent to live under the State’s care, within an institution for people with mental retardation, as it was called back then. First, he…

I write, speak, and sing a great deal about my late brother Mark. Not only was the arc of his life a bellwether for the terrible times in which he lived, but he became a great teacher for me as he lived in the community as a middle-aged adult. Mark’s life could have been the…

In 1989 when the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was being formulated, many people were involved. The main architect of the law’s drafting was Senator Tom Harken of Iowa, one of the Senate’s great lions of disability rights. Senator Harken’s brother was deaf, and he had a great sensitivity to those concerns. Mary Jane Owen,…

I was five years old when my little brother was born. He was early and immediately the doctor knew there were problems. My mother was told in the language of the 1950’s that while he did not look like a mongoloid, he had the reflexes of an infant with severe mental retardation. The doctor said…

Junior High offered exposure to the organized arts including theatre and musical groups. In seventh grade, I had my first experience with Student Theater. The whole school attended performances of plays produced by actors from the eighth and ninth grades. I loved the plays and admired the older students on stage. They memorized their lines…