Emily

Emily was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, MA. At that time only one in eight babies survived childbirth and mothers often died during delivery.

She would spend her whole life in Amherst and during her lifetime Amherst hardly changed as the towns around it grew through industrialization. Not many people knew of Emily outside of her town, until after her death.

When she was five Emily attended primary school, where she learned how to read, write , and do simple arithmetic. However, she did not pay mWhile her father was away on business he would often send the children notes reminding them how lucky they were to be well fed and receive an education when many children at the time could not. He would ask for progress reports and for them to tell him what they had learned while he was away.

At the age of nine her father could afford to send Emily to private school, and she attended Amherst Academy. It was a co-ed school and one term (eleven weeks) cost five dollars for the classical department, with an additional four dollars for the English department. Although now that may not seem like much, at the time many parents could not afford to send there children to private school.

It was while she attended the academy that Emily had her first experiences with death. Reportedly one neighbor said “People are always dying here.” In February of 1844 two of her friend’s mothers died of tuberculosis and a third mother died shortly after that. An even greater loss came when Emily’s friend Sophia came down with typhus, and after Emily stayed by her side she eventually passed away. Emily then wrote to a friend about Sophia, saying “She was too lovely for earth & she was transplanted from earth to heaven.” Here we can already see how thoughts of death invaded Emily’s mind and writing. But she also saw death as a gateway for oneself to journey to heaven, a  better place. To overcome her grief at so many deaths around her she threw herself into her work at the Academy, which might explain her affinity for writing later on; as a coping mechanism for life.

Emily graduated from the academy in August 1847 and continued her education at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary.