Emily Dickinson Homestead Lives Out My Historic House Nightmare

On Sunday, October 25th, a chunk of the ceiling collapsed inside the Emily Dickinson Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts.  This is my worst nightmare.

The New York Times devoted one paragraph to the news, and I gasped no less than two times while reading it.

While it’s true I’m a big baby and easily scared, this is like a timely, direct line to what frightens me.  Happy Halloween!  (Perhaps I’ll go as a piece of front parlor plaster this year and pretend to fall on unsuspecting “guests of the museum.”  Topical costumes are always crowd pleasers.)

But for real, this hits a tad too close to home.  As part of our tour of the Wren’s Nest, we point out the huge gap in the floor between the “new” (1884) addition to the house and the original structure.  We chuckle!  It’s breezy in winter!  Brrr!  Haha, structural inadequacies!

And let’s not forget this doozie.

That is a piece of wood, holding up our hallway.  Now it’s an enforced piece of wood, which is only slightly more comforting.

Remember that time part of the foundation was missing?  Me too!  It was terrifying!

In short, as much as I empathize with the Emily Dickinson House and wish them the best, most of my thoughts can be summed up here — thank goodness our restoration took care of 97% of our issues, because otherwise I would have just peed myself.

Emily Dicksinon Homestead Photo: Nealy-J