John Tracy Clinic

John Tracy Clinic. . , Hearing The Call And Filling A Need , Any time that Hollywood's stars devote themselves to raising money for a charity or a cause, they're following an example established when the wife of an Oscar-winning actor opened the hearts and the ears of the world to hear the plight of deaf children and their families. , Her name was Louise Treadwell Tracy, and her husband was Spencer Tracy. Their son, John, was born deaf, and in 1942, Louise Tracy founded John Tracy Clinic. , From the day it opened until the day she died in 1983, Louise Tracy made the clinic her life's work, turning it into a free non-profit institution and a world-renowned educational center, teaching parents how to work with their young deaf or hard-of-hearing children. , The clinic had the support of the likes of Walt Disney and Helen Keller, but it was one determined mother who made it happen. Louise Treadwell was an actress in a New York stock company in 1923 when she met a fellow struggling actor on a train. His name was Spencer Tracy, and they were married a few weeks later - between the matinee and evening performances. , She abandoned the stage and the screen to become a wife, and then mother of two. Spencer Tracy's break came in 1930, after director John Ford saw him on Broadway and brought him to Hollywood. , In 1937 and 1938, Spencer Tracy set a film precedent, earning back-to-back Oscars for his roles in "Captains Courageous" and the next year, in "Boys Town". , A Discovery And A New Mission , Yet the Tracys' private life had already been devastated by a discovery Louise Tracy made one morning in 1925, when John was ten months old. , "I went to our son's crib,” she recalled. "It was time to waken him. ‘Johnny, Johnny! It's time to wake up,’ I said. He didn't move...I stood motionless beside his crib. I called his name again , and then I shouted it. He slept on. And so I discovered our baby was deaf.", Doctor after doctor advised her to "wait - in a few years he'll be old enough for a state school" for the deaf. At last a specialist encouraged the couple to "keep talking to the boy," and it turned out that was just the right thing to do. Both parents read to him, sang to him, told him nursery rhymes. In time, and in spite of contracting polio, John Tracy learned to speak, and to read lips. He graduated from junior college and the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. , A Legend Visits And A Clinic Grows , By 1942 other mothers of deaf children had sought out Louise Tracy, and so, in a borrowed bungalow on the University of Southern California campus, she began her clinic. Spencer Tracy gave the first $1,000, one of Gloria Swanson's ex-husbands left a windfall and Walt Disney served on the first board of directors. Generous individuals, volunteer groups and foundations have rallied to support the clinic ever since. , The clinic would soon draw youngsters with hearing loss from around the globe. In 1946, when Helen Keller visited, she met with a group of parents. "Being deaf is a greater handicap than blindness," she said. "Encourage your child's desire to speak , nothing worthwhile was ever easy at first, but the joy in watching their happy, healthy growth will more than repay you for the trouble and difficulty you encounter." , By 1950 the clinic had outgrown its campus site, and moved to West Adams Boulevard. The new, quarter-million-dollar clinic replaced the home of pioneer clubwoman Caroline Severance, who was instrumental in getting California women the vote in 1910, and who opened Los Angeles' first kindergarten. , Today, on the clinic grounds, there is the vast Moreton Bay fig tree standing in the garden that Severance planted in the 19th century, along with a plaque paying tribute to her, just as the newly expanded clinic itself pays tribute to the work of Louise Tracy by continuing to carry out her vision.