dr. Ruth sullivan
Born 1924 (96 years old)
100% of the profits from these prints will be given to the Autism Services Center in Huntington, WV.
When I was a kid, I was completely obsessed with the movie Rain Man. I watched it countless times. Fast forward thirty years or so to me sitting in the Autism Center in Huntington, West Virginia, right behind the “real” Rain Man. I had always heard that the man Dustin Hoffman studied for that role lived in Huntington, but I didn’t cross paths with him until I was commissioned to do a painting of his mother, Ruth.
Ruth Sullivan is unquestionably badass. When she took her concerns about her “unusual” son Joseph to a doctor, she was told he had Autism. She was also told that Autism was the fault of the mother. She didn’t buy it. When she asked for literature on the subject, she was told there was very little, and of that, even less that she would understand. She said in an interview that nothing could have sent her to the library faster than telling her she wouldn’t understand what she read.
The doctors were right about one thing- there was VERY little information on the subject of Autism at the time. Ruth was told there was nothing she could do to help her son, but that it would be a good idea to meet with other mothers of autistic children. A meeting was arranged by a doctor, but no one got the answers they desperately needed, and all the mothers were being blamed for the condition of their children. Ruth took the initiative to gather all the women’s contact information so that they could learn together and support each other. She began gathering information wherever she could find it, and holding meetings without the doctors. She eventually became co-founder (and the first president) of the Autism Society of America. She also founded the Autism Services Center in Huntington, as well as the West Virginia Autism Training Center at Marshall University.
Thank you, Ruth Sullivan.
