You know I love a house museum, Gentle Readers. So on our recent trip to Jackson, MS, I was eager to tour the home of the celebrated writer and photographer Eudora Welty (1909-2001).
(If you don’t know who Eudora Welty is, allow me to introduce you. Start small with one of her short stories, such as, Why I Live at the P.O, or her New Yorker piece, Where is the Voice Coming From?, which she wrote the night Medgar Evers was killed. It’s from the murderer’s point of view. Wrote it in one night. From the murderer’s perspective. See why she’s important?)
Back to the matter at hand. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the interior of the house does not reflect the…not grandeur of the exterior…perhaps stateliness is better.
Turns out decorating was not high on Ms. Welty’s list of priorities. Lucky for us! Leave the interior design to Elsie De Wolfe and Dorothy Draper and stay in your lane, Eudora, churning out masterpieces.
It doesn’t matter that the inside of the house isn’t particularly interesting. The beautiful thing about Eudora Welty’s home is that it is 100% a reflection of her. There are books everywhere.
She must have cleared off the sofa when she had guests over for drinks, which she did fairly often. After her first Maker’s Mark, she would declare, “A bird can’t fly on one wing,” and fix another. I love that, especially because my grandmother used to say the same thing. Tells you a lot about our family ;)
ANYWAY…
Her favorite reading chair was free of books, at least, reading being as important to a writer as writing. (I actually love that fabric. I couldn’t identify it, though. Lmk if you can.)
This was Ms. Welty’s childhood home, and while her mother also didn’t appear to prioritize interior decorating, she planned the gardens meticulously. She considered the view from every window and designed the landscape accordingly. It’s lovely.
So! My takeaway from my visit to the Eudora Welty House and Garden (I hate the word takeaway. Let’s say “lesson.” Not “learning” as a noun, which I’ve heard in business settings: Our learnings were…. It’s totally absurd and, frankly, obnoxious. We have a word for something you learn. It’s lesson. Wait. That’s not the right word for this paragraph either. Sorry; I digress. I REALLY digress.)
My visit to Eudora Welty’s house reminded me ;) that ultimately, our homes are ours. Your house has to work for you. You should decorate for yourself. Your home is a reflection of you. If the wallpaper you put up makes you happy, it’s a success.
If you need help figuring out how to translate your personality and lifestyle into your home’s function and appearance, I’m here. But my job is to make your home feel like you.
With the rental car engine barely cool, I tooled over to the Mississippi Museum of Art, where I was confronted with the very same lesson. (There it is!)
MMA (a FABULOUS museum, by the way) happened to have an exhibition of the work and home of the folk artist L.V. Hull.
As you can see, “work” and “home” are pretty much the same thing for Ms. Hull :) .
Talk about home as a reflection of you!! In stark contrast to Ms. Welty’s spartan digs, Ms. Hull’s was…well, you can see for yourself.
As did Ms. Welty, Ms. Hull surrounded herself with the objects that sustained her. Things she loved, learned from, and drew upon — literally — to create works of art.
Describing her home, she said, simply:
Indeed. Eudora Welty and L.V. Hull: as different as these two women appear to be, both of their homes embodied who they were and what they loved.
Does yours?
The museums in Jackson, Mississippi are fantastic. In addition to the two I discuss in this post, you MUST visit the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History, which are connected.
Annie Elliott Design is a Washington, D.C based firm, but we also love working in NYC and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. We’re now booking projects for early summer 2026. Please contact us to discuss. You can buy Annie’s book, My Neighbor Saw Me Naked, and Other Reasons You Need Drapes: The Essential Decorating Handbook, online or in really cool independent bookstores.