A Time To Speak

A True Story of Perseverance Spanning Much of the Twentieth Century Despite Poverty and Disabilities They Never Lost Their Appetite for Knowledge Born with congenital cataracts that left him nearly blind, Fred Holly was sent away to the Florida School for the Blind in 1933. There, he faced even more challenges because of a speech impediment so severe that other children called him Dago. Ava Lee, also born legally blind, grew up in rural Alabama. A tenant farmer's daughter, she survived severe deprivation during the Great Depression. Her family saw no purpose in a blind girl going to school. Yet Ava Lee possessed an insatiable hunger for knowledge, and the determination to get educated.