She was a young girl who had lost her hearing and the ability to speak because of a childhood illness. Her name was Mabel Hubbard, and four years later they got married. Although many people taught that invent a human voice transmitter was a waste of time, Alexander refused to give up his dream. He continued his experiments with sound vibrations. He even copied the design of the human ear using iron rods and electrical wires to produce the same effect.
In order to survive financially Bell had to work on the musical telegraph, but he also continued working on his mechanical voice transmitter. On that summer afternoon in 1875, when Alexander heard the first sound transmitted over his machine, he realized that he had finally achieved his goal. Almost a year later, in March 1876, the first words were heard coming through the phone.
On his 29th birthday Alexander Graham Bell registered his invention with the patent office and, because they had never seen anything like it before, they registered his invention ‘an improvement in telegraphy’. The name ‘telephone’ came later.