John J. Boyer, Webminister
I was born on a farm in Minnesota in 1936. My family is of German descent on both sides. They are devout Catholics. My parents ultimately had 12 children. My youngest brother has Down Syndrome.
My mother told me later that she knew there was something wrong with my eyes because they were white inside, not black like the other kids'. So she took me to the doctor, and he told her I was blind.
žI was sent to the Minnesota school for the blind at a young age. Neither I nor my parents were enthusiastic about this, but at that time it was the only way for a blind child to receive an education. There I was taught Braille and became a proficient braille reader, a skill that has served me well ever since. However, at the age of seven I got an ear infection that took most of the hearing in my right ear, and a year later the same happened with the left ear, though it left enough hearing to understand people if they were close.
The next few years were spent in and out of school. However, I became an avid reader, especially of books on science. This was true in spite of the fact that good scientific reading in braille was then, and still is, in short supply. I also established a lab in the basement and had dreams of becoming another Edison.
At the age of 13 I was sent to the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind, because they had a deaf-blind department. There I completed high school and graduated as salutatorian of my class. My enthusiasm for science continued. I took the radio course offered by a fabulous blind teacher and thought I would become an electronics engineer.
Next I went to the College (now University) of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. I majored in mathematics and took a lot of psychology courses. The math major was a preparation for a career as a computer programmer. At that time there were no real departments of computer science. I graduated in 1961, second in the class.
There were no suitable jobs immediately available. My hearing had deteriorated to the point where I could no longer understand people unless they spoke directly into a microphone. I learned to live alone in an apartment, to do most of my own shopping, and to ride the city buses to an assembly-line job. In my spare time I designed and built a hearing aid. It was a big box, but it had better features than anything I could afford. During this time I also became an agnostic, primarily because I was unable to marry my high school sweetheart.
In 1964, I went to one of the first courses to train blind computer programmers at the University of Cincinnati. After completing this, I worked as a programmer at various places for a number of years.
In 1972 I took a job at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. At this time I also met Hazel, who became my wife in 1973. We were happy for a few years, but then she was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease. She had a son from a previous marriage who has now also been similarly diagnosed. She died in 1977. (Her son died just recently.)
This brought about a religious reawakening, as recounted in the history of the godtouches Internet Ministry. I left my job at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and moved to Madison to continue my education in computer science. My objective now was to use my knowledge of computers in God's service. In practice this amounts to using it to benefit others. I obtained a masters degree in Computer science, with a minor in electronics engineering and began studying for a Ph.D. My dissertation was to be on a robotic guide dog. (I had trained my own guide dog some years earlier, because at that time the guide dog schools would not accept deaf-blind persons.)
In 1981 I had started the nonprofit company Computers to Help People, Inc. (CHPI). Gradually this organization assumed more importance than completing my Ph.D. I never did finish my dissertation.
About 1983 I had also slid into depression, precipitated apparently by the failure to find another marriage partner. This was a great detriment to my work. However, CHPI did grow slowly. In 1994 we moved to a new building with much more office space and an apartment upstairs for me.
In 1989 I received a cochlear implant. By this time my hearing had deteriorated to the point where I was deaf without a powerful hearing aid. The implant greatly increased my ability to hear environmental sounds, but it did not enable me to understand speech. When it is turned off, I hear almost nothing, but I have come to enjoy the silence. If I am in a noisy place it is nice to be able to turn off my hearing.
This brings up the question of access to computers, which may be of interest to other blind people. I use a Braille Lite 40 as a braille display. My operating system is Linux, which I like much better than Windows. The screenreader is BRLTTY, which has a built-in Grade 2 translator. I have begun the development of a full-fledged braille translation package. It will be free. For more information on it, go to http://www.chpi.org/gnomebrl.html. Now back to the biography.
In 1996 I began to consider becoming a deacon. Over the years I had come to enjoy solitude and contemplation, and I had developed a strong desire to do something more direct for the spreading of the Gospel. I investigated the diaconate quite thoroughly, but in the end it seemed that God's will for me was to keep on doing what I was doing - using computers in his service - just doing it better. What this "better" was became clear a few years later.
In 1996 I also sought counseling for depression. This helped a great deal, though my recovery still continues.
In 1998 I started the Technical Braille Center here at CHPI. I had developed mathematical translation software for the MegaDots Braille translator. This made it more feasible to start such a center to ameliorate the dearth of good scientific books in Braille that I had noticed even as a child.
In 1997 I had enrolled in Sister Maureen Langton's Ministry Formation Program for Catholic Deaf Adults. This gave me a firmer grasp of my faith and experience with other deaf people. It also provided insights into my own personality and training in pastoral counseling. This led to the establishment of the godtouches Internet Ministry later that year.
Throughout all this my faith has grown and deepened. I am more convinced than ever that "These things happened to him that the works of God might be manifest in his life." (John 9:3.)
Send e-mail to
Webminister, john@godtouches.org.
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