Alexandria Graham Bell

Grandfather
Alexandria Bell
Dramatic Shakespeare Reader on Stage

Mother
Eliza Grace Symonds
Portrait Painter and Accomplished Musician
Became Progressively Deaf for Scarlet Fever at age twelve.

Father
Alexandria Melville Bell
Teacher and Author of Visible Speech Textbooks

Alexandria Graham Bell
Born March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh. Scotland
Educated in Music by August Benoit Bertini
Student-Teacher of Music at Weston House for Boys in Edinburgh
Student-Teacher of Music at University of Edinburgh
Teacher of Visible Speech to deaf students at University of London

Younger Brother Edward James
Died of  Tuberculosis

Older Brother Melville James
Later Died of Tuberculosis

NOTES
Family Moved to Brantford Ontario in 1870 fearing Alexandria Graham Bell of getting Tuberculosis.

Alexandria Graham Bell. age 26,  moved from Ontario to Boston in 1873 to teach a deaf teenager named Mabel. age 15,  by request of a wealthy family.

Alexandra Graham Bell age 30, Married Mabel Gradiner Hubbard age 19 by then. one year after the invention of the telephone,.   Mabel, deaf from scarlet fever at age five, was a student of  Bell who showed great progress under Bell before his invention of the telephone.  She was a great influence and motivator to Bell leading to the develop a hearing device for the deaf but in fact did not help her hearing disability,

Alexandria Graham Bell learned of a book written in German "Sensations of Tone" about the ability to electrify tuning forks and produce vowel sounds but could not read German. However such an idea stuck with him.

A turning point for Bell in his experiments with Watson was when Bell switched from using an inductive transmitting device to a resistive device to get a louder sound output.  The resistive device proved to be successful and also improved the quality of sound as well.

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