1. "Deane's store"
Posted by harry on Aug-8th-03 at 12:16 AM

This one's for you Kat.  This photo is for auction on eBay. It shows the rear of John M. Deane's store on Second St.  The store was located in the Academy building and one side of the store was on South Main St. and the other on Second St.  The seller says the photo appears to be from 1910 to 1914. 

It was from the Second St. side (the side in the photo) that Mr. Deane called out a greeting to Andrew J. Borden as Andrew made his last walk home.

Wow.  What unusual "porthole" windows!

Also a great view of the bricked streets.

Wow, thats cool!  Love those funky fire escapes!  Thanks for sharing, Harry. 

Thanks!  That is very cool!
The 1877 map is confusing as it has a bldg. that seems to end Second Street, tho we know it extended.  It was only lately, with your's and Stef's help that I noted Second did extend across Borden St. as far as the post office.  No wonder Andrew thought he could make Second Street into a mini-Main St., possibly in his lifetime.

A new curiosity:  How is it known Deane greeted Andrew on his walk?

The source for the greeting called out to Andrew is the fine article by Neilson Caplain in the October 1998 LBQ, page 5, titled "The West Side of Second Street in 1892". (Lizbits column)

It was the second of two articles in which Mr. Caplain describes Andrew's last walks to and from down street.

Whether it's poetic license I don't know, but it would certainly be a strong possibility.

Wow, that was fast!
Thanks!

The following exchange of questions and answers comes from Emma Borden's inquest testimony.


Q. Who did the marketing?

A. Father or Mrs. Borden, I don't know.

Q. Who usually?

A. I don't know, one or the other.

Q. Do you know where the marketing was done?

A. No.

Q. Didn't have any particular place?

A. We always had the groceries from Mr. Wade's and John M. Deane's. My sister used to order a great many things from John M. Deane's.

Q. Was that a meat market?

A. No Sir.

Q. Where was the meat usually purchased?

A. I don't know.

Q. Who usually purchased the meat?

A. Father or Mrs. Borden.


Living on Second St. was surely convenient for grocery shopping with favorite stores only a few doors away in either direction! I wonder how Emma managed during the ten months she lived on her own after her parents' deaths and Lizzie's arrest, when she had to handle mundane chores for herself?

Thats a good point, Doug.  It sounds almost as if Lizzie and Emma were kept childlike well into their adulthoods.  To not be able to answer a simple question like where her parents did the marketing?  Emma did eventually hire a housekeeper in Lizzie's absence, I'm sure it was the only way she could manage. 

That is a great observation about Emma.  I, too, suspect both women were very childlike well into adulthood.  They certainly appear to have been rather helpless in their daily operations.  However, for an unmarried woman living with her parents, with no prospects in that area, this probably was not all that unusual at that time.  I recall reading that both Emma and Lizzie were upset because it was virtually impossible to invite their friends as guests to 92 Second Street because there was no privacy.  This is due, in part, to the layout of the house.  I would also guess that Mr. and Mrs. Borden did not make their home a warm and inviting place especially for Lizzie and Emma's friends. 

Did Lizzie ever make any serious attempt to move out of that house?  Was there ever any real possibility that she could have moved out and stood on her own--at least as much as society at that time would permit?  I understand that this would fly in the face of convention at the time, but it was not an impossible venture.  Did she ever seriously try to leave her father's house and emerge as a more independent person?

No way; it was against the conventions of that day, and afterwards; even to the 1960s. Most women and men lived at home until they married, especially from the conservatively religious kind.

Good question, Jim.  I suppose if Lizzie wanted to leave Andrew's house she would have been forced to get a job, I can't see Andrew supporting her elsewhere when she had a home with him.  Couldn't you just hear him saying,"Well, my money shan't pay for it!"?  Not to mention if Lizzie tried to do this in Fall River it probably would have created quite the scandal for the family.

Emma and Lizzie both did the next best thing, I think, they went away alot, visited friends to get out of the house, etc. 

I think the girls created privacy eventually by the way the house was finally split, with designated areas for them and for the elder Bordens.
Notice that when a friend came on a visit (to stay) Abby was not there.
I don't think even Alice saw that much of Abby in the house, so that must have demonstrated some privacy.

It's odd tho because I was just talking astrologically with someone lately about July birthday people and how they can develope what I call *Victim Personalities*.
Not only would Lizzie not have a choice, societally, to leave her father's house, but she could probably have felt a victim of these circumstances and feel very strongly a lack of choice.
To me, that is the hallmark of a victim personality...to vow they had no choice, when really everyone does have a choice, ultimately.
I mean, in any day and age, what choice would a regular person make, even without resources..to murder or to leave?

We have discussed the fact that Lizzie made a point of joining society charitable endeavors and thus she was out more often- but we haven't found that Emma ever went out and her only visit away from home, before this trip to Fairhaven this fateful summer, was her year and a half away at school, probably c. 1865-69, around there.
Emma did not go on the grand tour either, which Lizzie did.
We have a picture of a shy Emma staying home all the time.
I think shy Emma may have done a lot of the fomenting of discontent in that household.  Think of the strain on Abby & Emma being together in the house every day.

  If Lizzie left home for a "better life" it would be a difficult venture.  Perhaps she wasn't living in the lap of luxury, but it is doubtful that getting a job would provide more favorable living conditions.
  With no experience she was poorly equipped for coping with the wiles of the world.  The best she could hope for would be employment in a business that would probably pay her no more than the allowance she was getting from Dad ($4 weekly), without the room and board.
Above all, the possibility that she would have been cut off from her inheritance by an angry father would have been reason enough to discourage her from adopting this foolish plan.

I think you are right that they "escaped" by travelling, visiting friends and the like.  That is a good observation  Their lives had to be a mournful existence, in many ways, for both women.  While there were a few joys in their lives their future was bleak and they had to have realized this fact.  They were not women who chose to be single and career oriented.  They were women who WERE single, had minimal educations, no marriage prospects (none that I have read about) and they were well on their way to spinsterhood--a form of social ostracism.  It was certainly and unfair situation and it had to be very hard for both women as they looked toward their respective futures.

A previous post indicated that women were basically bound to their families until the 1960's if they remained unmarried.  In fact, women began to step out on their own as early as the 1920's.  Also, the post stated that for very religious families it was not common for women to live on their own.  Were the Borden's particularly religious?  I understand that they were members of a church and that Lizzie taught as Sunday School class.  However, I have never read that they were deeply devoted to their faith.  I have always figured the Bordens were socially active in church but not profoundly religious.  Therefore, that issue would not have been an obstacle to Lizzie emerging as an independent being.  Furthermore, if Lizzie was deeply religious, in any capacity, and found moving out on her own as somehow morally wrong, she certainly had no moral problem when publically expressing her hatred for Abby.  And very likely, she had no moral trouble swinging that weapon when she became angry enough to do so. 

(Message last edited Sep-3rd-03  5:58 PM.)

I have also been wondering "how religious WAS Lizzie" did
she maybe take up with some new ideas?  I have been
reading lately about some strange religions formed back
in the 1800's.  Where a "message from God" told you to
perform a deed and it was perfectly justified in the name
of God.  I would be interested to know what Lizzie's
religious beliefs were at that time. 

Well, Lizzie had 2,500.00 which is how much today?
And my reasoning is thst a *normal* person would leave, not necessarily for a better life, but for a different life.  Rather than kill.  It would take a moral imbecile to kill the father who created her, rather than make a choice that she could not live under his rules.
Besides moving may have been socially unacceptable but much worse is a damsel tried for murder.
That's exactly what I meant about choices and a *victim personology*.  If Lizzie is the killer, I'm sure somehow she persuaded herself she *had no choice*.
There's a choice.  One of them is not to kill.
.....
Also it's been implied that Emma traveled or went away or got out of the house and I'd like to know the source for that?

I think the watchword here is "inheritance," an amount greatly in excess of her meager bank account.

I don't thing Lizzie was normal, but I do think she was shrewd enough to realize that moving out was not in her best interest financially..

(Message last edited Sep-4th-03  9:55 AM.)

IMO, Lizzie and Emma, by moving out, would have feared Abby then having complete control or influence over Andrew.

Lizzie's savings of roughly $2,900 would equate to approx. $55,000 today. That at best would have been 1-2 years of living expenses unless Andrew was willing to subsidize.  That would be completely against Andrew's way of thinking.

Without a maid she would have to assume all those household duties she was not accustomed to.  Running a household takes a lot more than ironing a few hankies and throwing a stick of wood on the fire. I think she was too far spoiled to be able to function on her own.

As bad as she may have thought her situation was, the alternative of supporting herself must have been even more frightening.

Could Emma have suffered from "depression"?

"If Lizzie is the killer ...."!!!
So reading Arnold R Brown's book has had some effect?
Read them in order of publishing, and compare all of them against reality as you know it.

I've already mentioned why Brown's book works: it explains the mysteries of the case. Is it perfect? Not if anyone can publish a better explanation.
Yes, the end of his book seems to hint towards a planned killing for the inheritance, but I think he was trying to cover all bases.

But isn't that true of today's heiresses? The former publisher of the Washington Post told about her experiences in college on a TV show. Clothes no longer got washed and put away in her room!

Actually I agree with you guys.
And it's hard to put across the idea of Lizzie feeling she was a victim, when she was not in want, nor in need.
So she is considered *not normal*?
If so then her thoughts on the subject of home and family might be beyond something we can understand.
Susan and others have proposed that Lizzie was a sociopath.
Would you all go that far?
It seems we would have to take the whole package which goes with the term sociopath.
That Lizzie lied, stole and tortured cats etc. that are warning signs of this diagnosis.

*If Lizzie was the killer* is something I have been saying for years.
It has nothing to do with Brown, it has to do with my not committing to a decided killer yet after all this time.

Would Lizzie's personality differ that much from other young women in her position? Nouveau Riche? What is your experience, if any?
I never knew anyone really rich; not in college, or workplace. If they were rich, they didn't work with me.