What physical handicap afflicted Juliette Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of America?

Juliette Gordon Low suffered from permanent ear damage and eventual deafness, according to Biography.com. She incurred the physical ailment from a bizarre accident that happened at her wedding to William Mackay Low in 1886.

As tradition dictated, wedding attendees threw rice at the married couple after the ceremony, and a grain of rice lodged in Low's ear. The rice became impacted and Low had the grain removed, but she suffered regular ear infections afterward until she lost hearing in both ears. Low died of breast cancer in 1927, 15 years after she registered her first American troop of Girl Scouts, originally called Girl Guides.