Page 15 - Desert Oracle Nov 2018

In actuality, much of their actual hands-on work included facility
management, psychiatric care and occupational therapy.

Blountʼs work with the Gray Ladies brought her in contact with

hundreds of injured soldiers overwhelming veteranʼs hospitals.

“About 14,000 in the army experienced amputation, and survived
amputation,” war and disability historian Audra Jennings tells

Smithsonian.com. With upper limb amputation, many soldiers lost the

ability to write with their hands. So Blount pushed them to learn

another way, just as she had many years before—with their feet and

teeth. Some even learned to read Braille with their feet.

In what little spare time she had, Blount enjoyed working with artists

and photographers, posing for medical sketches and photos.

Through her work with artists, Blount herself learned how to draw.

“This enabled me to design many devices for handicapped persons,”

she recalled in a 1948 interview with the newspaper Afro-American.
“After coming in contact with paralyzed cases known as diplegia and

quadriplegia (blind paralysis), I decided to make this my lifeʼs work.”

The inspiration for a feeding device came when a physician at the

Bronx Hospital told her that the army had been trying to produce a

viable self-feeding device but had been unsuccessful. If she really
wanted to help disabled veterans, the doctor said, she should figure

out a way to help them feed themselves.

Spurred on, Blount worked for five years to create a device that

would do just that. Turning her kitchen into her workshop, she spent
ten months designing a device for those who had either underwent

upper limb amputation or paralysis. Then, she spent four more years

and a total of $3,000 of her own money to build it.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/woman-who-made…edium=email&utm_term=0_f5693aed98-a1a5a8d517-114324049