Telling Our Story

In the 1940s, two parents in Maumee, Ohio, were informed by a teacher that their children were “mentally retarded”, were not typically developing, and would never be “normal”.  Therefore, the Engler's twin girls would not be permitted to continue attending public school.

The sole care and education of these children was left to the family.

Overwhelmed by the challenges confronting her, Mrs. Engler later wrote in a diary entry about her recollection of feeling so hopeless at one point that she had actually considered ending her own life and the lives of her two daughters. 

"Providing Care for Children with Disabilities in NW Ohio: the Engler Family and the Development of the Sunshine Children’s Home, 1950-1964"  Samuel Di Rocco II , University of Toledo.

For families of children with disabilities, many things have changed for the better in the seventy or so years since that time. Change, however, has often been excruciatingly slow and often hit-and-miss.

Although community support and services for children with disabilities have unquestionably improved over time, many of the same fundamental struggles confront parents and families today. Over the last decade, in fact, the “progress” made by advocates for children with disabilities has often amounted to the loss of two steps for every one step advanced.

For children with disabilities and their families in northwest Ohio, the struggle against disability discrimination is clearly not yet over, as the battle for equal access and opportunity for all children continues today and every day.

In the Patchwork Pages section of this blog, we will begin to tell the individual stories of such families.