St. Charles Woman Honored For Raising Awareness of Hearing Loss

Mary Stodden was diagnosed with hearing loss at age 9 and was profoundly deaf by the time she turned 52.

It was as a young adult, out of college with a young child, that she really started to advocate for herself and other people with hearing loss.

On Thursday, she will be recognized as a Woman of Worth by the Gateway Voice of Mid-life and Older Women (OWL) for her advocacy efforts on behalf of people with hearing loss.

"I want to be able to understand and hear just like everyone else," she said.

The organization is honoring 12 women from across the St. Louis metro area. OWL is a national grassroots membership organization that focuses on improving life for midlife and older women, a press release states.

Stodden grew up in St. Charles, the middle child of three. Her mom was a high school teacher, her dad worked for an insurance company.

It wasn't until Stodden's second-grade teacher noticed Stodden having trouble hearing that her parents took her to the doctor. Stodden was smart enough to pick up on visual cues, so she knew when she was supposed to raise her hand, faking out the audiologist.

When she was 9, a different doctor put her in a soundproof booth and finally diagnosed her as deaf in her right ear. At age 12, she woke up and one morning and learned she'd lost 40 percent of her hearing in her left ear. 

Stodden was quiet and introverted in high school. She attended through her sophomore year in 1968, then her parents moved to Boston where she completed her high school education.

It wasn't until she was out of college and divorced that she realized the only person she could rely on was herself.

An incident during a master's class pushed Stodden to speak up about her hearing loss.

"I flunked a test in my master's class and I said, 'Well, my answers are correct, why did I flunk the test?'" Stodden said.

Her teacher told her she hadn't written in complete sentences—the teacher had orally given directions that Stodden hadn't heard.

"She said, 'Well, you'll know better next time,'" Stodden said. "That was my impetus to start advocating for myself. I couldn't stay quiet any longer and suffer in silence."

Stodden became more vocal about her hearing loss, telling teachers ahead of time that she might not catch everything she needs to hear.

When she took post-graduate school coursework, she asked for captioning in her classes or an oral interpreter.

She got involved in organizations locally and nationally, serving as the chapter president for the Hearing Loss Association of Greater St. Louis and state chapter coordinator for the Hearing Loss Association of America. Today, Stodden volunteers to distribute assisted-listening devices at The Muny and the Fox Theater.

She also sits on the Captioning Committee of Round Table of Representatives on Deafness. "We discuss how we can improve captioning," she said. "That’s the best way for the deaf and the hard of hearing to be able to understand and hear."

Being a part of these groups has given Stodden the confidence to lead a meeting and to advocate on behalf of people with hearing loss. If there's a problem with captioning on television or at the movie theater, Stodden stands up and asks why it isn't working.

"I think there's always more work to do, obviously," she said. "I don't think a lot of people understand how hard it is for the deaf and hard of hearing to understand music. They need to have the ability to have an interpreter for going to the theater."

Part of her work is to raise money for scholarships for students with hearing loss.

"That's our way of trying to get these kids to know that they have to advocate for themselves," she said.