February 23, 2005: San Antonio Express-News : When Marilyn Brandt inquired about joining the Peace Corps in the early 1960's, Andres Hernandez was skeptical
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February 23, 2005: San Antonio Express-News : When Marilyn Brandt inquired about joining the Peace Corps in the early 1960's, Andres Hernandez was skeptical
When Marilyn Brandt inquired about joining the Peace Corps in the early 1960's, Andres Hernandez was skeptical because she was blind. But once she got to the Dominican Republic and began working at the government school for the blind, he witnessed her immediate impact on the students as she exposed them to new experiences. With amazement, Hernandez watched as Brandt taught these children that their horizons didn't have to be limited by their lack of sight.
When Marilyn Brandt inquired about joining the Peace Corps in the early 1960's, Andres Hernandez was skeptical because she was blind. But once she got to the Dominican Republic and began working at the government school for the blind, he witnessed her immediate impact on the students as she exposed them to new experiences. With amazement, Hernandez watched as Brandt taught these children that their horizons didn't have to be limited by their lack of sight.
Peace Corps vet seeks blind American who made a difference
By Cary Clack
February 23, 2005
Caption: The photo above is for illustrative purposes only and is *not* from the School for the Blind in the Dominican Republic.
He saw sardine juice dripping from a young Fidel Castro's beard in the hills of Guatemala, took over an office that Che Guevara used to work out of, knew the Kennedys and gently scolded a little girl named Maria Shriver.
But of all the famous figures who populate the stories of Andres Hernandez, it's a blind woman from South Texas who's on his mind most these days.
A woman he hasn't seen for more than 40 years, for whom he has no contact information, but who made the kind of difference in the lives of blind children in the Dominican Republic that JFK envisioned when he gave his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, the charge to organize the Peace Corps.
"Marilyn Brandt," said the 92-year-old Hernandez, who passed through San Antonio last week. "B-R-A-N-D-T."
Launched in 1961, the Peace Corps was arguably the embodiment of the idealism that defined Kennedy's Inaugural Address.
Hernandez, a New Mexico native, became the first director of the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. After serving in the Army in World War II, where he was hurt in the Battle of the Bulge, he went to work for the Veteran's Administration and the Agency for International Development.
Before then, while working for a development agency during the 1950s, he was stationed in Guatemala and met Fidel Castro. He remembers the revolutionary, "Eating sardines, with juice dripping down his beard."
He wasn't impressed.
"He was a dummy," he says.
Hernandez was interviewed for the Peace Corps job at Shriver's house in December 1961. While sitting near a table filled with Christmas cards, he saw two of the Shriver children, including Maria, come in and mess up the cards. "Don't do that!" he told them.
When Marilyn Brandt, a graduate of Southwest Texas State, inquired about joining the Peace Corps, Hernandez was skeptical because she was blind. But once she got to the Dominican Republic and began working at the government school for the blind, he witnessed her immediate impact on the students as she exposed them to new experiences.
"First thing in the morning, she'd turn the radio on to the news, have them do exercises and then, over meals, ask them about what was in the news," Hernandez remembers.
For the first time, the children did things like go swimming.
With amazement, Hernandez watched as Brandt taught these children that their horizons didn't have to be limited by their lack of sight.
At the end of 1963, Hernandez was moved to Guatemala to run that country's Peace Corps.
"I never got a chance to say goodbye to her (Brandt)," he says.
Today, the Dominican Republic's National School for the Blind, now known as the Educational Resource Center, is an award-winning facility.
A few years ago, Hernandez tracked down an address for Brandt but got a response saying she'd married and moved. He's had no luck tracking her down.
To Hernandez, Brandt is symbolic of the Peace Corps, and America, at its best.
"How nice it would be for her to go back," says Hernandez who, every Thursday, in Santa Rosa, N.M., teaches schoolchildren the origins of their Spanish names. "She needs to know that her efforts have blossomed terrifically."
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Story Source: San Antonio Express-News
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Dominican Republic; Disabilities; Blindness; Country Directors - Guatemala; Country Directors - Dominican Republic
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