Elizabeth Helm Nitchie
{{short description|American educator and expert on lip reading}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Elizabeth Helm Nitchie
| image = ElizabethHelmNitchie1927.png
| alt = A middle-aged white woman wearing glasses and pearls, and a dark dress with white trim around the neckline
| caption = Elizabeth Helm Nitchie, from a 1927 publication
| other_names =
| birth_name = Elizabeth Logan Helm
| birth_date = May 2, 1880
| birth_place = Elizabethtown, Kentucky
| death_date = February 16, 1961
| death_place = New York City
| occupation = Educator
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
| spouse(s) = Edward Bartlett Nitchie
| relatives =
}}
Elizabeth Logan Helm Nitchie (May 2, 1880 – February 16, 1961) was an American educator and expert on lip reading.
Early life and education
Elizabeth Helm was born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, the daughter of William Logan Helm and Florence Murray Helm.{{Cite news |date=1908-06-22 |title=Marriage of Nitchie / Helm |pages=3 |work=Kentucky Advocate |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/kentucky-advocate-marriage-of-nitchie/125069694/ |access-date=2023-05-21}} Her father died when she was a little girl. She was from the same extended family as John L. Helm, governor of Kentucky, and Benjamin Hardin Helm, a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War. (Her grandfather Henry Benjamin Helm was the first cousin of the governor.)[https://exploreuk.uky.edu/fa/findingaid/?id=xt7pnv996z22 Helm and Todd family photographs and papers], University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections.
Career
Nitchie worked as a stenographer as a young woman.{{Cite news |last=Standish |first=Myles |date=1937-10-17 |title=Specialist in the Art of Lip Reading |pages=81 |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/st-louis-post-dispatch-specialist-in-th/125074286/ |access-date=2023-05-21 |via=Newspapers.com}} In 1917, Nitchie succeeded her late husband as principal of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing, later known as the Nitchie School of Lip-Reading,{{Cite news |date=1929-04-11 |title=Lip School Chartered; Scholarships Are Planned in New Institution for Deaf |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/04/11/archives/lip-school-chartered-scholarships-are-planned-in-new-institution.html |access-date=2023-05-21 |issn=0362-4331}} in New York City.Rosenthal, Pauline T. [https://books.google.com/books?id=1so4AAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Elizabeth+Helm+Nitchie%22&pg=PA755 "Elizabeth Helm Nitchie: An Appreciation to Commemorate Her Tenth Anniversary as Head of the Nitchie School"] The Volta Review 29(12)(December 1927): 755.{{Cite news |date=1917-10-05 |title=Edward B. Nitchie Dies |pages=2 |work=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-edward-b-nitch/125070465/ |access-date=2023-05-21 |via=Newspapers.com}} She frequently spoke and wrote about lip-reading in the 1920s and 1930s.{{Cite news |date=1927-10-17 |title=Woman Teaches the Deaf to 'Hear' with their Eyes |pages=6 |work=The Kansas City Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-kansas-city-times-woman-teaches-the/125074166/ |access-date=2023-05-21 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news |date=1927-02-19 |title=Before the 'Mike' |pages=13 |work=Leader-Telegram |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/leader-telegram-before-the-mike/125075174/ |access-date=2023-05-21 |via=Newspapers.com}} "My own greatest handicap in teaching lip reading to the deaf is that I myself have normal hearing," she told a Brooklyn Daily Eagle interviewer in 1927. "All my teachers are either totally or partially deaf, and the general feeling is that only a deaf person can understand the attitude of the deaf and be a successful teacher."{{Cite news |last=Coster |first=Esther A. |date=1927-11-13 |title=Best Speech Critics are Deaf |pages=96 |work=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-best-speech-cri/125073617/ |access-date=2023-05-21 |via=Newspapers.com}} She retired from running the school in 1928.
In her later career Nitchie worked in advertising at The New York Times, and ran a stenographic bureau. She taught lip-reading to children in St. Louis in 1937.
Publications
- Advanced Lessons in Lip-reading (1923){{Cite journal |last=Coleman |first=Grace D. |date=1923 |title=Review of Advanced Lessons in Lip-Reading |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44462110 |journal=American Annals of the Deaf |volume=68 |issue=2 |pages=164 |jstor=44462110 |issn=0002-726X}}{{Cite book |last=Nitchie |first=Mrs Elizabeth Helm |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N1NJAAAAIAAJ&q=Elizabeth+Helm+Nitchie |title=Advanced Lessons in Lip-reading |date=1923 |publisher=Frederick A. Stokes Company |language=en}}
- New Lessons in Lip reading (1950)
- Lip-reading Principles and Practice (1930, new edition, revised with Gertrude Torrey)Gebhart, Helen M. [https://books.google.com/books?id=P-0vAQAAMAAJ&dq=Elizabeth+Helm+Nitchie&pg=RA5-PP3 "Review of Lip-reading Principles and Practice"], Oralism and Auralism 9(1&2)(1930): 55.
Personal life
Elizabeth Logan Helm married {{Interlanguage link|Edward Bartlett Nitchie|lt=Edward Bartlett Nitchie|qid=Q55719985}} in 1908.{{Cite news |date=1908-06-20 |title=Marriage Announcements |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1908/06/20/archives/marriage-announcement-1-no-title.html |access-date=2023-05-21 |issn=0362-4331}} They had a son, Edward Jr.{{Cite web |title=Nitchie, Edward Bartlett (1876-1917) |url=https://digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/1861 |access-date=2023-05-21 |website=Jane Addams Digital Edition}} Her husband, who was deaf, died in 1917, and she died in 1961, at the age of 80, in New York City.{{Cite news |date=1961-02-18 |title=Mrs. Edward Nitchie |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1961/02/18/archives/mrs-edward-nitchie.html |access-date=2023-05-21 |issn=0362-4331}} Her grave is in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
References
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