In Amber

I get the deal, the interest, the importance of preserving a life—like a bug in amber—BUT I’d just rather read about the person whose home and furnishings have been frozen in time.

Here in Quincy, Massachusetts (home of the Valhalla Four), we’ve got a pair of president’s homes. Yes indeedy, Quincy , Massachusetts was home to the first and significantly better of the two father/son commander in chiefdoms, John and John Quincy Adams.

By the way, in a US News and World Report survey which ranks our presidents from best to worst.

George W. Bush manages to avoid the distinction of WORST EVAH though he is down there in the bottom five, sandwiched between Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce.

Back to the Adams though, there are a few house museums here. I often pass two of them. There’s the relatively small house where they were both born. It’s located a block up from our insurance agent’s office. There’s the mammoth main house, which is just one block out of Quincy Center. I drive by it almost daily.

John Adams was the very first VP and the second prez.

Adams' two terms as Vice President (under Washington) were frustrating experiences for a man of his vigor, intellect, and vanity. He complained to his wife Abigail, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”

Click on the linky to read more about the, clearly and I had no idea, fascinating Mister Adams.

John Quincy Adams, Abigail and John’s son was the sixth prez and, later, a member of the House of Representatives.

Above all, he fought against circumscription of civil liberties.

In 1836 southern Congressmen passed a "gag rule" providing that the House automatically table petitions against slavery. Adams tirelessly fought the rule for eight years until finally he obtained its repeal.

More about JQA at the link.

In the, now, 13 years we’ve lived here, have any of us been inside either? Nope. Why not? Eh, I’m not so much into house museums.

Far outside this moneyed club (of big, BIG art museums) lies the humbler community of small historic house museums. Located in former private homes, and often run by local historical societies and volunteers, the museums share a traditional template featuring a guided tour, antique furniture behind velvet ropes, and a small gift shop. Sometimes the original residents of these houses-turned-museums are still nationally or regionally famous—presidents, great artists, or titans of industry. ~~snip~~
The National Trust for Historic Preservation roughly estimates that there are more than 15,000 across the country—that’s more than the number of McDonald’s restaurants in America

McDonalds has more daily visitors though. Maybe the house museums should start selling grease soaked, diabetes and heart attack inducing grub? Ya know, just to drive up attendance.

Kokoschka, Bride of the Wind

I’d like to explore the Adams’ joints once they reopen in spring. Formal, guided tours are the only way in. I’ll need to see if they’ve got ASL ‘terping available.

Other House Museums I’ve been to?
 The Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna. This was almost 20 years ago while I was on my Austrian Expressionists and Auschwitz Tour (yup, I know how to do the angst heavy vaca tour!). I'm glad I saw the birthplace of shrinkage but don’t need to go again.

The Shelburne Museum in upstate Vermont has preserved wealthy antiques collector, Katharine Prentis Murphy’s home. Jen and I were at The Shelbourne last year during our big Vermont vaca. Unless you’re an antique freak, the house can be missed in favor of seeing the rest of the vast, brill Shelburne Museum.

The only other house museum that I’m inspired to visit is the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. One of these days anyway. Yes, I’ve lived in Massachusetts for 35 years and been to Amherst a whole bunch of times and have never been to the place. OK, maybe I’d rather just read one of her poems.