Martin’s Voice

Originally an unpublished short story, Martin’s Voice became a novel in order to raise money for a wheelchair for Miss Mary Alice Morrissey, an Illinois schoolteacher who has, since embarking with her friend on a train in Bloomington, Illinois, wound students through the intricacies of Latin, English, the Dewey Decimal system, music and stage. Only recently, Miss Morrissey combed her way physically through deserted high-altitude streets of Winter Park, Colorado. A health condition forced her into giving up her home and moving to Moweaqua, Illinois retirement center. There, gradually, her needs grew to include a wheelchair. In recent weeks, however, staff observed her using a walker. Evident that her medical need was not a wheelchair, but rather a trapeze-like device invented years ago by an occupational therapist or a chair which lifts her into a sitting position, it is determined that proceeds of Martin’s Voice go toward such a purchase.