Isabelle D. Grant

In 1959, two years before she retired from teaching, Dr. Isabelle Grant set off on a yearlong journey around the world with Oscar, her long white cane, in her hand. She had been totally blind for the past twelve years. In Crooked Paths Made Straight, she shares the story of her journey during which she visited twenty-three countries from Great Britain to Fiji. In Karachi, she traveled the streets by rickshaw and struggled to master the Urdu language. In India, she explored the Taj Mahal, and in Burma she slept in a room where lizards raced up and down the walls. At a time when both women and blind people were generally seen as too helpless for solo travel, Grant fearlessly defied conventions. A dedicated teacher with a lifelong commitment to learning, her mission was to learn all she could about education in the countries she visited, in particular the education provided to blind children. Completed in 1965, Crooked Paths Made Straight recounts Grants journey, a story of dreams deferred that did not shrivel but sprang to life again and again.