From Sally Roberts

Dear Rud and Ann,

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to communicate my sorrow for the death of JT. This semester has already been long and arduous, and I often find myself neglecting those I care about in favor of those who squeal the loudest.

I know you realize the impact JT and your family have had on the field of disability in general, but you must also understand its affect on individuals like me. I am a true “baby boomer,” born in 1948 eight months after my father returned from serving in World War II (a preemie born one month early). It must have been a raucous homecoming, huh! I grew up in the 50s in a small western Kansas town and didn’t know anyone with a disability, or at least, I didn’t know the term. Both inclusion and zero inclusion were alive and well in Dodge City. We had both. I remember children in my classes who didn’t learn as well as I did. Jane had a seizure disorder and we all knew that she would periodically lose consciousness and writhe on the floor. We were all careful to protect her from hurting herself and it was expected that we would help her change clothes afterward. Those were certainly the days of truly heterogeneous classrooms. On the other hand, any child with significant disabilities had, I’m sure, been institutionalized soon after birth and we never knew. I had never seen a child with Down syndrome until I got to college and took a field trip to Winfield State Hospital. My undergraduate degree was in speech/language pathology and all of my clinical training occurred at the Institute of Logopedics, a private residential facility in Wichita. I was hooked! I found that I was really good at working with children and adults with significant cognitive disabilities, cerebral palsy, etc. Remember though, this was a residential facility and we had children from all over the world who had been sent there to live and receive care. Parents rarely came to visit. We were their families. Fast forward to my master’s degree in deaf education resulting in a job at yet another residential facility – the Kansas School for the Deaf. Again, I experienced families sending children with disabilities away from home to be cared for by someone else. Often I taught a class with a child in my lap with a 102-degree fever. I simply was not going to have that child lying sick and alone in a dormitory bed.

Imagine my surprise when I came to KU in 1983 and discovered that the chair of the Department of Special Education not only had a child with significant disabilities, that child lived at home. He was part of the family. His mother or father held him when he had a fever. And he was fun and funny and so special to everyone! The world of possibilities opened up, and again I was hooked.

So you see, Rud and Ann, JT and your family had a profound effect on me, on my future, and on my career. I knew that I would spend the rest of my life make sure that families had all of the knowledge and support I could give them to be able to provide their children with the best quality of life in their own home. Thank you both and thanks to JT, Kate, and Amy for showing me what was possible.

Love,
Sally