Temple Grandin: Voice for the Voiceless

61 Pages·2016·0.44 MB·English

by  Annette Wood

Copyright © 2016 by Annette Wood All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Rain Saukas
Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-0660-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-51070662-0
Printed in the United States of America
To Robert and Evelyn Nunemaker, my parents
CONTENTS
Part 1: Temple
1 Temple’s Beginnings
2 Middle School and High School
3 Franklin Pierce College
4 Temple in the Seventies
5 Temple in the Eighties
6 Temple in the Nineties
7 Professor at Colorado State University
Part II: Autism
8 Autism Advocate
9 Eustacia Cutler
10 Norm Ledgin
11 Connie Erbert
12 Steve Jobs and Three Remarkable Autistics
13 Two Severe Autistics
Part III: Animals for Food
14 Creekstone Farms: The Model Slaughterhouse
15 Improving Animal Welfare
16 More About Animal Welfare
Part IV: Autism and Animals
17 Do Animals Think?
18 Rabbits and Autism
19 Cats and Dogs and Autism
20 Horses and Autism
Part V: Temple Now
21 HBO Movie
22 Autism Is a Family Disorder
23 Autism Is in Your Brain
24 Temple Grandin’s Legacy
Endnotes
Acknowledgments
PART I
TEMPLE
CHAPTER 1
TEMPLE’S BEGINNINGS
Temple Grandin flies all over the world—to countries as diverse as Germany,
China, and Uruguay. Her awkward stride, Western outfits, and unforgettable
voice make her easily recognizable. She’s renowned worldwide as a speaker, has
written many books—two on the New York Times best-seller list—and has
educated a new generation. This woman, who had to be taught how to talk, has
given voice to two formerly voiceless groups: animals and people with autism.
For those with autism who can talk, Temple has added greatly to our
understanding of the condition. She’s also contributed a great deal to our
understanding of animals. Her insights into animal awareness are fascinating and
groundbreaking.
Born with a disability severe enough that, had she been born into different
circumstances, it would have required her to be institutionalized, Temple
Grandin turned her disability into an asset. Her story is one of profound courage
and determination.
Temple Grandin came from remarkable stock on both sides of her family.
Her paternal great-grandfather, John Livingston Grandin, made a fortune in
oil, wheat, and the lumber business. His son, Temple’s paternal grandfather, was
also named John Livingston Grandin. He married Isabel McCurdy and moved to
Boston where they had three children: Isabella in 1908, Richard McCurdy in
1914, and John Livingston in 1918. The middle child, Richard (Dick) Grandin,
was Temple’s father.
On her mother’s side, Temple’s grandfather, John Coleman Purves, married
Mary Temple Bradley. Their child and Temple’s mother, Anna Eustacia Purves,
was born in September 1926. She was named after her maternal grandmother,
yet was always called “Eustacia.”
Temple’s grandmother Mary always focused on being social while her
husband John was a busy engineer and aviation expert. Though they loved each
other, in many ways they were hopelessly mismatched.
During the 1930s, John and three other men invented an electrical coil that
could sense direction through the earth’s magnetic north. The four men named it
the “flux valve.” Later, the Army Air Corps called it “the automatic pilot” and
flew their World War II planes by it. “After World War II, it took us all the way
to the moon,” Eustacia later said. Documents concerning the invention are in the
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Smithsonian.
Both Grandfather Grandin and Grandfather Purves, though extremely
intelligent, had social deficits. Little did they know how the genes of the four
grandparents would collide in their granddaughter Temple.
In June 1944, Eustacia met Dick Grandin at the Boston Cotillion. It was Dick
Grandin’s thirtieth birthday and Eustacia was seventeen, only twenty-four hours
out of a girls’ boarding school. Isabella Grandin arranged for her brother Dick,
an officer in the tank corps, to accompany Eustacia. Her father had refused to
escort his daughter. Dick and Eustacia made an enchanting couple. The next
morning their photo graced the society page.
Dick had graduated from Harvard, where he lived outside the dorms in a
separate rented house with a manservant. One of his fellow clubmen was Johnny
Roosevelt. Johnny invited them all to Sunday night supper at the White House
where, Eustacia recalled, Mrs. Roosevelt scrambled eggs for them in a silver
chafing dish brought in by the maid and lighted ceremoniously. After supper,
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Gershwin played them “Rhapsody in Blue.”
After Dick and Eustacia met came three days of telephone calls, flowers, and
“girlfriend envy.” Dick then departed for duty overseas, where he announced by
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mail that he planned to marry Eustacia.
Dick fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a brutal, bloody battle. On December
16, 1944, in northern France the Germans, who by that time were losing the war,
launched a desperate counterattack. Dick was a first lieutenant attached to a
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reconnaissance group. War calls for courage, resourcefulness, and total
obedience. Dick had an abundance of the first two, but lacked the third.
The battle lasted three weeks. Of the 610,000 Americans involved in the
battle, 89,000 were casualties, including 19,000 killed. It was the bloodiest battle
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fought by the United States in World War II. Dick had lived a privileged life
until now. He was appalled at the death and destruction. He was convinced that
the colonel above him was causing many of the casualties with his orders.
Dick chose to report the colonel to those in command, going over his
commander’s head to do so. The higher-ups warned him that if he made an
official charge, the colonel’s record would be kept “under wraps” and Dick