Disability Stories

Curated by Museum of History and Holocaust Education

These intergenerational stories range from the Civil War to the Iraq War.

Clara Barton

Clara Barton was born in North Oxford, Massachusetts, in 1821. After starting her professional life as a teacher, she became one of the first women to work for the federal government as an employee of the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C.When…

Josefina Guerrero

Botn in Lucban, Quezon province, in the Philippines in 1917, Josefine Guerrero was orphaned at a young age and grew up in the care of Catholic nuns. She married a medical student when she was only 16 years old, and the couple had a daughter when…

Doug Vollmer

Born in Toldo, Ohio, in 1945, Doug Vollmer entered the United States Navy as an officer after graduating from Northwestern University in 1967. He served a tour of duty in Vietnam as a liaison officer with Special Forces for the River Patrol Force. He…

Brian Jarrell

Born in 1983, Brian Jarrell enlisted in the U.S. Marines in December 2001, right after he graduated from high school. Deployed to Haiti and then to Fallujah, Iraq, he served as an ambulance driver. During a second tour of duty in Iraq in 2006, he…