Bringing sound to a quiet world

Joyce Hermann (left) sings and signs “Happy Birthday” to her friend, Pearl Courter of Sheffield. Courter, who turned 90 on Saturday has been deaf since she was 3 years old. An open house to celebrate Courter’s birthday was held Sunday at the Sheffield Community Center. (BCR photo/Barb Kromphardt)

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SHEFFIELD — This is a simple story.

There are no crooked politicians, no marauding pirates, and no conniving entrepreneurs.

It’s just a simple story of will triumphing over adversity, and a friendship that overcame all boundaries.

Pearl Courter was born in Iowa in 1919. Apparently her earliest years were uneventful, but at the age of 3, little Pearl went deaf. Despite undergoing five operations in an attempt to regain her hearing, the door to the world of sound was permanently closed in the little girl’s face.

And so, at the age of 7, Pearl was sent off to school, to the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs. Pearl liked the school a lot. Caring teachers taught her to sign and to cope with her deafness in addition to all the other things children need to know, like reading, writing and arithmetic.

Pearl’s life soon got rough again. Her mother left when Pearl was 11, leaving her husband with their four children. In addition, Pearl’s father was a farmhand, so the family moved around quite a bit, up to South Dakota for three years, and then to Tiskilwa.

While in Illinois, Pearl completed her education at the Illinois School for the Deaf in Jacksonville.

When Pearl was finished with her education, she came to live with the Henry Hochstatter family in Wyanet. Pearl’s father was a farmhand there, and the Hochstatters had two deaf children, Roger and Angeline. Pearl knew the children from the school in Jacksonville, so she was able to talk with them while also working as a housekeeper for the Hochstatters. Pearl cleaned house and scrubbed floors for $20 a month.

She also found love.

Henry Hochstatter’s father, Russell, had a farmhand named Jay Courter, and the young couple hit it off. Pearl taught Jay sign language, and they married in 1946 at the Baptist church in Manlius, the year after Pearl’s father died.

The Courters, who never had any children, were married for 50 years, until Jay died in 1996. They lived north of Manlius for many years, with Jay working as a farmhand, and Pearl taking care of everything around the house.

The couple moved to Sheffield in 1990 when Jay retired.

Pearl related the story of her life recently in the cozy kitchen of her home. She is able to read lips fairly well and is able to make herself understood by attempting to speak and by writing some things down. She has one other asset, as well.

“I’m her friend,” said Joyce Hermann.

The friendship began when Pearl began coming into the business where Joyce worked.

“She was a customer,” Joyce said. “She would come in, and I guess it was just a matter of I just tried to understand what she was trying to say.”

At the time the women lived only a few houses apart.

“She’d come over or I’d stop by, and we got to be friends,” Joyce said.

Joyce has pieced together Pearl’s life story over the years, and she’s amazed at what her friend has overcome.

“I think nowadays, if people were deaf, they wouldn’t be faced with quite the tasks or the problems that she would have had back in the early '40s and '30s,” Joyce said. “Nowadays it’s so much different when there is a — I’m not going to call it a handicap because I don’t think it ever handicapped her — but when you have something less than perfect as far as your abilities.”

Joyce said Pearl’s always been self-sufficient. Now 90 years old, Pearl still does her own house cleaning and cooking. She also sews, makes all her curtains, and she likes to cook.

“She’s got a green thumb,” Joyce said. “She likes her flowers, and she likes to do the gardening.”

Pearl also enjoys visiting with her friend. The two women love to talk, working hard to make themselves understood. Joyce has learned a little bit of sign language and is able to understand some of Pearl’s speech, and the pencil and paper sit close by when the right words just won’t come.

But the conversations go on. After all, Pearl and Joyce are friends, and that’s what friends are for.