I never knew that he was in Colorado!

"As long as we have deaf people on earth,
we will have signs...the noblest gift God has given to deaf people."

George W. Veditz, 1913


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Twice elected president of NAD, George W. Veditz advocated sign language and was a foe of oralism. During his presidency of the NAD (from 1907 to 1910), he started to raise money to use the new film technology for recording examples of signers - hearing and deaf. The signers included John B. Hotchkiss, Edward Miner Gallaudet, Edward Allen Fay, and Veditz himself.

Veditz was a native of Baltimore, MD, born on August 13, 1861. His parents were German immigrants. He became deaf near the age of 9, when he contracted scarlet fever. When he was 14, he went to Maryland School for the Deaf in Frederick (after several unsatisfactory years of private tutoring). At age 19, he went to Gallaudet College. He taught at Maryland School for the Deaf, and then at Colorado School for the Deaf where he met his future wife, Mary Elizabeth Bigler.

Veditz established three organizations for the deaf. One was the Maryland School for the Deaf Alumni Association in 1892; second was the Gallaudet College Alumni Association in 1889; and third was the Colorado Association for the Deaf in 1904.

His hobbies included raising poultry, pigeons, and prize-winning flowers in Colorado. He died on March 12, 1937.

Wow, I never knew that he was in Colorado and he taught Colorado School for the Deaf. I wonder if it was in Colorado Springs where he taught?