| Notes |
- Richmond Times Dispatch, Virginia, Tuesday, February 14, 1984
R.A. Bass, crusader for deaf, dies
Times-Dispatch state staff
RICE ? Robert Aumon Bass, author, teacher and champion of the deaf, died Sunday at a Farmville hospital after devoting most of his 98 years to helping people overcome the handicap he never allowed to hinder his own life.
Mr. Bass, who became deaf during his early childhood, graduated from the Virginia School for the Deaf in Staunton in 1908, and returned there to teach in 1925. He retired in 1959.
He also taught at the state School for the Deaf in Hampton between 1910 and 1919.
Mr. Bass was an active Baptist. He organized Bible classes for deaf people at churches in Staunton and Farmville and at Western State Hospital. He also taught Bible classes for the deaf in Keysville.
He was a deacon at First Baptist Church in Staunton and an honorary deacon at Sharon Baptist Church in Prince Edward County.
Mr. Bass was born in Rice in Prince Edward County. He had been at a Farmville nursing home since 1979.
He published ?History of Education of the Deaf in Virginia? in 1948 and was compiling a scrapbook on which to base a history of the 222-year-old Sharon Baptist Church.
Even during the last months of his life, Mr. Bass was a crusader for the deaf, firing letters to legislators and lecturing about the needs of the deaf.
During an interview last fall, he said teaching vocations to deaf children is important because self-reliance and independence are critical to the handicapped.
He was a member of many professional and civic organization, including the Virginia Education Association, National Association of the Deaf and Virginia Association of the Deaf.
A funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Shorter Funeral Home with burial at Trinity Memorial Gardens in Prince Edward County.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Bass Endowment Fund at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Staunton.
|
Bassett Family Association Database
1885 - 1984 (98 years)