J. Robert Atkinson

Born sighted in Galt, Missouri, he dropped out of school and at age 16, went to Montana, where he worked as a cowboy[1] until a gun accident wounded him in the face and eyes.

I wanted the death, which it seemed to me had been denied me only to force me into a life of never-ending hopelessness and misery..."[1] Two weeks out of the hospital, he attempted suicide, though his mother and brothers had moved to Los Angeles to help him.

Sitting in the Christian Science church service, he heard the soloist sing words written by Mary Baker Eddy and said he was so inspired, he was permanently lifted out of depression.

[3][4] He received permission from the Christian Science Publishing Society to transcribe books by Mary Baker Eddy into Braille for his own personal use.

She provided funds to establish a Braille printing press and for Atkinson to produce the King James Version of the Bible.

[4] Fifty-one years after the gunshot accident, he and a friend, screenwriter Edwin J. Westrate, wrote a book about his life, Beacon in the Night.