Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, July 9, 2002

“A Life of Giving Provides Food for the Soul. Volunteer's chance meeting with someone she had helped forms basis of story of inspiration.”

Volunteering to record for blind and dyslexic people isn’t glamorous duty but the rare moments of recognition can be valuable memories in someone’s life. One such story from a local writer has even found its way into a best-selling book series.

Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic volunteers read textbooks onto audiotape for students who are blind or have other physical disabilities that prevent them from being able to read.

For more than four decades, Rose Betty Kelber was one of those volunteers, making weekly trips from her home in Ontario to the group’s Upland studio. She started in the 1950s, shortly after the organization was founded. She joined because she saw how it helped one of her nieces, who was blind.

The students who benefit from the group’s work range from kindergartners to Ph.D. candidates. Its 91,000 titles include everything from "The Cat In the Hat" by Dr. Seuss to advanced level physics texts. One of the organization’s 102,000 patrons worldwide could check out a book with your recorded voice on it, and you might never find out.

It’s pretty rare for volunteers to meet the people they read for, especially someone who has actually heard their voice, Kelber’s daughter, Diane, said.

But that’s exactly what happened to Rose Kelber. The story of that encounter, written by her daughter, is one of 87 profiles on volunteers in a forthcoming book called, "Chicken Soup for the Volunteer’s Soul."

The best-selling Chicken Soup series profiles stories of inspiration and encouragement. The series ranges from stories for lost teenagers to avid golfers.

Rose Kelber’s story begins when she introduced herself to a young blind man. Diane Kelber remembers the story from when she was growing up and guesses the meeting probably took place in the 1960s.

Upon hearing Rose Kelber’s voice the young man replied, "Oh I know you. You’re the lady with the smiley voice."

The man had studied a textbook—Diane Kelber doesn’t know which one—that her mother had transcribed onto audiotape.

The man’s answer became the title for the short story.

Besides recording, Rose Kelber was active in the area with her time. She was the first woman president of the Ontario-Montclair School District Board, serving in 1975 and 1976. She also learned Braille so she could type tags on the audio textbooks she had recorded, then took her knowledge to form a Braille transcriber’s guild.

"She was so full of passion, that it was really hard for her to sit still," Diane Kelber said in an interview.

The elder Kelber even earned her college degree late in life, at the University of La Verne in 1978.

Rose Kelber continued to volunteer her time recording books, even as she fought a battle with pancreatic cancer in the last year of her life. The staff at the Upland studio even set up a recording station at her home so she could continue her work.

Diane wrote of her mother that in those last few months, what had once been hours of reading had turned to just 15 minutes on the best of days.

"She actually became embarrassed that was all she could give," Diane Kelber wrote in the story. "Finally too weak to record and riddled with pain, she spent her last days proofreading Braille lessons for the blind college students who had come to depend on her."

The woman with the smiley voice—and a lifelong passion for helping others—died in June 1998 at the age of 77.

Her story might inspire more people who never heard of the organization to check it out and perhaps even volunteer.

"Once somebody can see what another average person does and how meaningful that is, it always inspires them to at least pick up the phone," said Morgan Roth, a spokeswoman for Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic.

There are plans to record "Chicken Soup for the Volunteer’s Soul" onto an audio format.

©2002 Los Angeles Times.
Reprinted by permission