Did You Know…. It is 100 years since the death of Killusty-native Margaret Maher- the maid who saved Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
After emigrating from the slopes of Slievenamon to Massachusetts, USA, Maher found employment in 1869 as a ‘domestic’ in the Dickinson household. There she forged a close relationship with Emily, despite the marked class difference, and would serve the family for 30 years. According to the Emily Dickinson Museum website, ‘Maggie’ as the family called her, would prove to be ‘an immensely important figure’ to Emily and ‘there is good evidence that the bulk of Dickinson’s poetic manuscripts were stored in Maher’s trunk and the one daguerreotype [early form of photograph] we have of the poet.’ Not only did Margaret’s presence allow Emily the time and space to concentrate on her poetry, Emily viewed Margaret as part of the family and wrote about her in the warmest of terms- “Maggie, with us still, warm, wild and mighty (827).” Author Aífe Murray has suggested that the Margaret’s presence, along with that of the family’s other Irish employees, had a significant impact on the language and rhythm of Dickinson’s work.
Most importantly though, Maher saved Dickenson’s poetry for future generations when it otherwise would have been destroyed. According to author Rosemary Caine-Natenshon, Emily Dickinson was ‘notoriously private’ -only a handful of her poems were published in her lifetime- and she ‘instructed her sister Lavinia and Margaret to burn her poems after her death.’ Although Lavinia burnt the majority of poems in her possession, Margaret ‘valued the poems more than her promise to Emily; she did not burn any that she had in her trunk’. Breaking a promise was not something Maher did lightly and Emily Dickinson’s niece Martha recalled a scene where Maher discussed the issue with other members of the Dickinson family before eventually deciding to hold onto the works for later publication- a decision for which the world is immensely grateful to her.
