Spring 2007

Don Donaldson presents President George Jacobson with a copy of his autobiography, What’s in a Name?

Don Donaldson’s involvement with The Lighthouse for the Blind reaches back to the 1930s, when he traveled throughout Washington State selling Lighthouse-made brooms door-to-door.  “We canvassed just about every house in Washington outside of Seattle selling those brooms. So, during the Great Depression the Lighthouse gave me a wonderful opportunity as a blind person to earn my entire way through college” Don says.

Blinded at age seven by a dynamite cap explosion, Don attended the Washington State School for the Blind as a braille student. Upon graduation from high school, Don enrolled in the University of Washington and continued to work for the Lighthouse as a means of paying his way through school.

In 1932, during his junior year at the UW, Don and sales-partner Ben Smith were robbed by their driver while on a door-to-door sales trip in Bellingham. This prompted Don to seek a recommendation from Lighthouse management for an ophthalmologist who could perform cataract surgery. The surgery successfully restored vision in his left eye which he retained until 1992, when he was blinded by glaucoma.

Following college graduation, Don devoted his life to teaching. He began his career teaching Deaf-Blind students at the famed Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts, where he befriended famous activist and author Helen Keller. He later returned to Washington as head of Wenatchee High School’s English department. Following 15 years at Wenatchee High, he returned to the Washington State School for the Blind (WSSB) as principal until his retirement two decades later.

As principal, he continued his life-long advocacy for the education of blind and Deaf-Blind children. In the 1960s, he secured funding for the WSSB to act as the Northwest’s education center for Deaf-Blind children. At that time, an outbreak of rubella (also known as “the German measles”) in the United States caused many children to be born with multiple disabilities, including deaf-blindness. In wake of the outbreak, Congress passed an act establishing funding for Deaf-Blind education. “They invited schools throughout the country to bid on programs to train Deaf-Blind people. This need would be met by seven regional centers,” Don recalls. “Since we were already involved with teaching Deaf-Blind students, I wrote the grant that was awarded to WSSB as one of the central agencies. We served Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska.”

He adds, “I have always been closely involved with the blind and Deaf-Blind [communities]. I am very much impressed with the Lighthouse in how it relates to the Deaf-Blind community today.”

At 96 years old, Don remains active. He has recently written a 400-page autobiography entitled What’s in a Name, which covers his unusual life and includes anecdotes from his days as youthful and enthusiastic broom salesman. Promoting his book keeps him busy, as do his efforts on behalf of the blind and Deaf-Blind communities.

As a passionate advocate for people with visual disabilities, Don continues to support opportunities for blind and Deaf-Blind individuals through regular charitable contributions to the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind Foundation. He is particularly eager to support braille education and increased leadership and training opportunities. “[The Lighthouse] has expanded tremendously since my time there. I’m so happy that more blind people have positions of leadership – I like that,” he says. “It does my heart good to see so many people with disabilities finding a way of making a decent living.”

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