Susan Pettiss

Dr. Susan Pettiss, who passed away in February 2006, worked tirelessly to help others through her involvement with several international social service agencies, including Helen Keller International. As HKI's Director of Blindness Prevention from 1972-1982, she helped raise awareness about nutritional blindness and the role of vitamin A in combating it, and helped pioneer the distribution of vitamin A capsules in numerous countries. From 1986-2002, Dr. Pettiss served as HKI's senior advisor providing valuable guidance to the organization as it refined and expanded its vision. Dr. Pettiss received the Spirit of Helen Keller award in 1989. HKI's President Kathy Spahn reflects on her life.

I had the pleasure of meeting Susan Pettiss just once, for a breakfast in December of last year. From all I’d heard about her, I’d expected to encounter someone "international looking"– decked out in exotic Asian jewelry or African clothes. Instead she was rather staid and "conservatively" dressed. I told her of my confusion and she smiled serenely, with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, and said, "My dear, those wild days are behind me now."

Perhaps they were – externally. But it was clear from the spark in her eyes that she was as spirited as ever.

When I learned that Susan had passed away, I wanted to make sure that HKI gave her a proper tribute. And though I knew a great deal about her pivotal role in many of HKI’s most remarkable accomplishments, I did not know the whole story of her life and career. So I did some looking around.

It seemed that there were many Susan Pettisses. There was the Susan Pettiss who graduated from the University of Alabama in the middle of the Depression; who preferred to be a well-educated defender of children’s rights rather than a pampered debutante.

There was the Susan Pettiss who traveled to Berlin in the days after the Germans surrendered in World War II; who helped concentration camp survivors find lost relatives or start new lives; helped displaced children reunite with their parents; and prepared Jewish orphans for risky journeys to Palestine.

There was the Susan Pettiss who returned to the U.S. to help refugees from Latvia, Poland and Lithuania find sponsors and places to live; went back to a conflict zone where she helped White Russian and Jewish refugees flee Shanghai when China fell to Communism; and later worked in Vietnam on behalf of children fathered by U.S. servicemen.

No, I thought. I’m looking for the Susan Pettiss who pioneered vitamin A as a remedy for child blindness.

It turns out they were one and the same.

The story of Susan Pettiss – so full of momentous twists and turns, risks and sacrifices, adventures and achievements – nonetheless, however, seemed destined to carry her to Helen Keller International.

HKI’s roots are in another European conflict – World War I. The founder of the organization that would become Helen Keller International, George Kessler, was a survivor of the Lusitania sinking. As he clung to wreckage praying for rescue, he vowed to devote his life to people in need. During his recovery in London, he encountered soldiers who had been blinded in the trenches. Caring for them became his mission.

The war-scarred would also become Susan Pettiss’s mission. The welfare and rehabilitation of the handicapped – including the blind – was a cause that touched her deeply. After her work in Vietnam and earning her doctorate at Brandeis University, she learned that HKI was embarking on a new challenge – to prevent blindness as well as support those afflicted by it.

That was in 1972, when she became director of one of the most important initiatives that HKI has ever undertaken: the effort to combat pediatric blindness in the developing world through the twice-yearly distribution of vitamin A.

Research into the link between vitamin A deficiency and pediatric blindness, and then vitamin A and child mortality, led to some of the most important and consequential public health successes ever achieved. And Susan Pettiss is at the center of it.

The better known legend in this story is Dr. Alfred Sommer of Johns Hopkins University, who conducted the research throughout the 1970s, under HKI’s sponsorship, in Indonesia and Central America. But when Dr. Sommer is asked what brought him to vitamin A research and the blinding disease known as xerophthalmia, he’s quick to answer, “Susan Pettiss."

"Chance favors the prepared mind," Dr. Sommer likes to say, quoting Louis Pasteur. And his many years of training and scientific curiosity prepared him, to the good fortune of millions, to meet and work with Susan Pettiss during her decade of service to Helen Keller International.

It was Susan Pettiss’ uncanny vision and unending compassion and determination to make a difference in the lives of vulnerable infants and children that drove her to transform Helen Keller International into the innovative and successful blindness prevention organization it is today.

Susan Pettiss retired from HKI in 1982. But in truth, she never really retired at all. She returned as a senior advisor to my predecessor, John Palmer, who led HKI for two decades and who relied on Susan Pettiss for guidance, insight, perspective, and wisdom.

I know that as I go forward to continue HKI’s important work around the world, I will have two great women to turn to for inspiration: Helen Keller, who said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

And Susan Pettiss, who once reflected, “A human being has a resiliency that ought not be underestimated.” As we look back on the life and accomplishments of Susan Pettiss, it’s clear that truer words were rarely spoken.

For more information about HKI's Vitamin A programs, please click here.