Petersen, Eugene W.

Born in southern Utah; deafened at 8 from illness; attended and graduated West High School (a regular hearing school) in Salt Lake City, UT, in 1938 (except for 1 year at the Utah School for the Deaf). Became a printer, then in 1967 a rehabilitation counselor in Indianapolis. He became interested in documenting the stories of regular, ordinary deaf people-not just the "superstars" and the "problem individuals". A stint in the Powrie V. Doctor Chair of Deaf Studies at Gallaudet College allowed him to travel around the country and interview several such deaf persons on videotape, transcribe and edit the results into book form. An attempt to get the book published resulted in the publisher's request to trim the size of the book and edit the text further; before he could do that, he and his second wife Inez were killed in a car accident. The book was finally published online in 1999 at www.rit.edu/~glk9638/history/.