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Two Deaf Women Travellers of the Early 20th Century
By H Dominic W Stiles, on 12 April 2013
This photograph has come from our photo collection, however it was clearly originally in a newspaper and I have found it in an Australian newspaper for February 1925. It has proved impossible, on a brief search of various records, to dig up anything further on Margaret Moir beyond what appears here. Perhaps someone would be able to say, “that is my great aunt” or discover more about her in local papers or some other sources – it would be fascinating to know more. The text reads
Miss Margaret Moir, of Dundee, with the dancing girls of the King of Cambodia. Although over 60, and completely deaf, Miss Moir travels alone in little-known lands, and recently crossed the Nubian desert in the Northern Sudan.
In 1911 after her trip around the world, the American Annabelle Kent wrote a memoir, Around the World in Silence (available on line in an unedited text version probably produced by optical character recognition). Annabelle compiled her travelogue from letters sent home.
A deaf young lady made the remark to me once that it was a waste of time and money for a deaf person to go to Europe, as she could get so little benefit from the trip. I told her that as long as one could see there was a great deal one could absorb and enjoy. Then, when the time and opportunity came for me to take a tour around the world, there happened to be a young man in the party who was totally blind. I was full of sympathy for him, but he, instead of feeling regret, thought the sympathy should be bestowed on me, since I was deaf instead of blind. Cheerfulness is a fine trait, but I could not bear to think of going to India and then not being able to see the glories of the Taj or the pathetic beauty of the Residency, -Lucknow’s memento of the Mutiny. Feeling that I was fully repaid for the months of strenuous life, I have been moved to rewrite and publish the letters I sent home telling of my experiences on the tour as I would like to show others, as well as my deaf brethren and sisters, how much pleasure and profit one can get through travel not only in Europe but the Orient. I am not merely hard of hearing, but entirely deaf. Part of the time I was with friends of long standing, part of the time with almost entire strangers; and even amid the stress of travel they were always kind and patient with me. If they should chance to read these pages, I would like them to know how much I thank them all.
You can read Annabelle Kent’s book in the library in our biographical collection. 
One Response to “Two Deaf Women Travellers of the Early 20th Century”
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My grandfather was also a passenger on this voyage. He is the small boy named “Buddy” in the story. Sadly he was too young to remember very much of it. Somewhere at my mother’s house we have a copy of the book.