Can you imagine a deaf woman writing stories about a war? Well, Laura Redden Searing did this. Moreover, she went to foreign countries to write stories. She wrote stories in Europe. She wrote poems, too. Her poems were published in many magazines. She wrote enough poems to fill three _____1_____. Laura was born in Maryland. Her family moved to Missouri when she was very young. She was very _____2_____ when she was 11 years old. Because of this, she lost her hearing. She went to the Missouri School for the Deaf. Laura was 19 years old when she went to work for a newspaper. She wrote about people, places, and art. In 1859, most women were wives and mothers. They did not work outside the _____3_____; otherwise, their husbands would be angry. Due to this feeling, Laura used a man's name when she wrote her stories. She called herself Howard Glyndon. She thought that unless she used a man's name, people would be hostile since they did not think that women should write for newspapers. However, she would have no trouble provided that people did not _____4______ she was a woman. Over 100 years ago, some Southern states had decided to secede from the United States. They _____5_____ to leave the Union. This caused a war called the Civil War. When the Civil War broke out, Missouri remained in the Union. Laura began to write about the Union. One of her poems, "Belle Missouri," became a _____6_____ for the Union soldiers in Missouri. Finally, Laura went to Washington, D.C. to write about the war. About 1871, Laura went back to ____7______. She studied lipreading for two years in Mystic, Connecticut. At Mystic, Laura met and married Edward W. Searing. He was a lawyer. They moved to Santa Cruz, California, in 1886. Mrs. Searing wrote nothing after 1908. In her last years, she was in bad health. She lived with her daughter in San Mateo, California. She died on August 10, 1923.