Last Friday, I went to the Emily Dickinson Museum. I did not have that on the radar during my time at Smith as well as the Amherst College Mead Art Museum. Turns out I did not have to feel so bad, it really opened up on 2005 as the way it is right now. (PHEW!).
The museum is comprised of two homes -the Homestead (Federalist style and Emily lived the bulk of her life here) and Evergreen (the home of her beloved older brother). There are varied hours but the day I went it was open 12:30pm til5pm. Since there is a limit on the size of the tour groups to only 12 people, I missed the 1pm cut off. (I was there at the museum before 12:30pm too! There are two tours---one spanning an hour and a half (tour inside of both homes) and a one hour one touring the homes and concentrating on Emily as a poet. There is an audio guided one (outdoor) at your leisure option too. I chose to be on the 2pm (1hr 1/2 tour) and took the audio wand. (Tours of the inside are by guided tour ONLY!)
There were about 18 stops and as you wandered the premises, you hear poems written by Emily. Halfway through, I went to the Wheatberry Bakery and Cafe for lunch (located right across the street) since I had alot of time to kill. At the beginning of my garden audio (outdoor tour) the gardeners were hard at work mowing the lawn. (A tad annoying if you ask me!).
Then I went back and finished the audio tour (the say about 30-45 minutes). Then I saw the special exhibit downstairs behind the cashier in the usual dining room. It is an excellent display giving me a bit of controversial background to the long drawn out path to have Emily's poems printed.
During life, Emily never wanted to print her poems for public consumption. She did write alot though. Contrary to popular belief, when she was younger she was quite social. She did become more reclusive when she got older. She was very close to her brother and sister. She and her younger sister never married. Emily was a very smart young woman and she spent one year at the now Mount Holyoke College tackling a very rigorous academic agenda.
I took a break and then by 2pm our group of 6 people went off on the tour. I loved the enthusiasm of our tour guide. She was very friendly and very informative. She had been conducting the tours for a bit of time and thoroughly enjoyed what she did.
It was nice to learn more about Emily Dickinson and her prominent family within the fabric of Amherst town life and development. Her grandfather helped found Amherst College (which caused to have him fall into heavy debt).
I recommend at least stopping by this museum and most especially if you are a big fan!
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