Remember the weekend of the Great Freeze in early February? Any great change in temperature and humidity results in possible problems with plumbing pipes—and for Canterbury Shaker Village’s unparalleled historic collections and structures. The Great Freeze required the Great Inspection of storage spaces, attics, basements, and cellars.
We aimed our flashlights at ceilings and roofs, door and window frames, and pipes. But in the Laundry our flashlights caught words written neatly by hand: Baskets, Corn Poppers, Handles for Mops, Chests, to list but a few. The order we find in the precision-built wood drawers and closets of the Sisters’ Attic in the Dwelling House finds it parallel in the finely written cursive script ordering the attic space of the North Shop.