The Lizzie Borden Society archive

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1. "The Men in Lizzie's Life"
Posted by adminlizzieborden on Jan-8th-02 at 9:08 PM

By dave on Thursday, 12/27/2001 - 05:11 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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I've just been reading the Boston Sunday Herald of June 3, 1905. Fascinating stuff. It talks about the quarrel between Emma and Lizzie and how a few days or weeks earlier, Emma had packed her things and left. Why did she? There are rumors, says the Herald, "but the best founded ones involve the name of Miss Nance O'Neil, the actress, and that of Miss Lizzie's coachman, Joseph Tetrault."

The article goes on to say that there was a rapture in relations between Lizzie and Emma "because of Miss Emma's dislike of some of the doings and position of the coachman." What do u suppose that shocked or angered Emma about the young coachman Tetrault? The article goes on to say that he "was a fine-looking young man and reported to be very popular among the ladies." Was he bringing skanky ho's back to Maplecroft?? Is that why Emma disliked him? Or was there perhaps an affair between he and Lizzie? What were these "doings" that Emma disapproved of?

It reminds me of how Lizzie refused to be visited by her old acquaintance and rumored boyfriend Curtis Pierce while she was in Taunton jail becuase of what Andrew Jennings calls his "former conduct." What did Pierce do to so offend Lizzie? Lizzie simply got her lawyer Jennings to reply to Pierce by saying that he cant see Lizzie and how dare he try after his "former conduct" towards her. What former conduct? What did Pierce do that was so bad?? Ah, another mystery!

 
By kat on Friday, 12/28/2001 - 03:39 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Was Tetrault also the piano-player? Emma may have objected simply to the "help" entering their shared personal living space to play tunes for Lizzie's enjoyment.(We're talking newspaper stories here).
The snob may be Emma, not Lizzie, though I think they shared a distaste for Abby's side of the family...

 
By dave on Friday, 12/28/2001 - 03:51 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Its interesting that u mention piano-playing. The Bordens had a piano in the parlor-room of the Borden house and Lizzie studied the instrument for about a year before giving up about the time that she left school. I dont quite know about Tetrault's musicianship if any, but he sure seems to have "played" women, or maybe he was just a harmless flirt, like me.

I wonder if anyone believes in the story of Mr. Gardner of Swansea having secret trysts with Lizzie. Did he promise Lizzie he would leave his wife and propose to her? Just another tantilizing rumor with something or nothing behind it. Back then and even to this day there are many Gardners living in Swansea, so the newspapers didnt pick his name out of a hat.

 
By kat on Friday, 12/28/2001 - 04:59 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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It was in Rebello--either Ernest Terry or Mr. Tetrault were said to play the piano for Lizzie. Weren't they both her coach-men / chauffeur at different times? (Wait, I'll go look...)
O.K.--here's Hoffman, Y.I.O.F.R. :
-Terry, Ernest (1885-1955)-
"Ernest Terry was Lizzie Borden's chauffeur during the latter part of Miss Borden's life. He must have been an extremely loyal employee for Lizzie Borden remembered him and his family in her will. Terry received $2,000 in cash and a piece of property Lizzie owned that was adjacent to her home in Fall River called
'Maplecroft.' Terry's wife Ellen and their daughter Grace also received the sum of $2,000 each. He was a pallbearer at Lizzie's funeral."

-Tetrault, Joseph H. (1863-?)-
"Joseph Tetrault was the coachman for the Borden sisters when both lived at Maplecroft. Emma developed a strong dislike for him for reasons now forgotten, and fired him, even though Lizzie wanted the coach driver to stay. Tetrault went back to his old profession of barber until later rehired by Lizzie Borden.
It is possible that hard feelings over Tetrault contributed to Emma's decision to leave Maplecroft in 1904. Tetrault left Fall River for the final time in 1908. He moved to Providence, R.I., the city of his birth."

Rebello implies (288) that Tetrault's not married--for a minute there I was beginning to think you were going to start imagining that Lizzie only liked married men (Terry, Gardner, Bowen)--which, gosh darn it, may Be feasible...
They can't take her money, she can have a dalliance, aristocracy does it...just speculating, folks.
(Maybe Dave L. wins Lizzie's hand, after all...but he won't Keep it...)

 
By raystephanson on Friday, 12/28/2001 - 02:19 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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As I understand it, it was declasse' for the upper class to be friendly and familiar with the hired help. E Radin makes the point about the Yankee upper class keeping the others down and out.

What other speculation and gossip is there?

 
By kat on Friday, 12/28/2001 - 09:16 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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You know the Twilight Zone that is Rebello's great work? Past & Present?
Well, last night after my post about the piano-playing coach-man, I TRIED TO re-FIND it, and , of course, it was gone!

 
By kat on Friday, 12/28/2001 - 09:47 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Ray, that's why I'm wondering if it's Emma thats the big snob. One of them is.
But Lizzie took a tour of Europe, meeting all kinds of people; she taught a Chinese man in Bible class; she seemed to be friends with Dr.Bowen; friends with Alice who worked for a living; friend to her staff at Maplecroft; friend to an actress. This is all documented--not gossip.
But Emma, of whom we know so little, may have had so few friends because she was a snob. She was friends with Brownells; the Rev. Buck daughters; probably Mrs. Holmes from church;lawyer Jennings.
Emma repudiated Alice Russell as "intimate friend" on the stand at the trial; there are rumors that she detested the fraternization of Lizzie with "an actress"; and that Lizzie was too close or "gave preferntial treatment" to certain members of the staff at Maplecroft(meaning Tetrault--THAT is in Rebello).
But then, Emma being so much older, would have seemed almost a generation in difference to Lizzie, because of the unique times in which they both grew up. Emma endured, as a teen, the Civil War and that would not have affected "baby Lizzie" so much. AFTER the war, times probably changed fast, leaving Emma caught in the last generation--while Lizzie would have belonged to the newer world which had been created.
(Wow, I just surprised myself with my insights..)

 
By augusta on Saturday, 12/29/2001 - 01:38 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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In older times, sometimes people got a piano that the prior tenants left behind - they couldn't move it or where they were going didn't have room for it. Wasn't a piano a sign of social prominence of sort?

I'm surprised that Emma and Lizzie lived together as long as they did. Emma was such an introvert. Lizzie was the opposite. Lizzie LIVED! Emma existed. Of course to the prim and proper and homebodies of earlier times, 'show people' were almost the bottom rung. Whether Emma actually saw anything take place or not, she would have highly disapproved of them.

The firing Emma may have been done over some inconsequential thing. But when Lizzie re-hired him, that might have been the last straw for Emma. The house was half hers; she probably would have gotten her nose out of joint about it. The reason for it probably no longer can be found because there wasn't a huge reason for the firing. Just Emma and her 'proper' ways.

I think Emma was still continuing to care for Baby Lizzie in the Maplecroft years. I think she took that deathbed oath to her own grave. So when we think of Emma and the happenings at Maplecroft, I think we need to remember that. After a time Emma probably found it impossible to keep Lizzie as straight and clean as Emma thought she should be. She did wash her hands of Lizzie after she moved out - they never spoke again. Emma probably reconciled this in her own mind with, "Well, mother, I have tried all I could. There is nothing I can do." To continue to have something to do with Lizzie would have meant that Emma would have to continue to watch out for her. And if Lizzie couldn't be told to live as Emma did, Emma would not be able to stay there.

 
By raystephanson on Saturday, 12/29/2001 - 03:01 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Andy was the father to both girls, but Lizzie never knew her mother. Maybe Abby was the friendly sort, and passed on the example to Lizzie? They both went to church together.
Abby was certainly generous to her family, with the gift of the house. Abby B W Potter says she was to have been over there that day, when her Mom was at the clambake. (How many of the upper class attended that day?)

 
By dave on Saturday, 12/29/2001 - 06:20 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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There appear to be two good possible reasons why Emma disliked the coachman so much: 1) he was committing forrrrrrrnication with her sister, a big Victorian no-no, or 2) he was being treated like an equal when really he was just a servant who should have known his place (get on yr knees, slave! ) LOL j/k. In the Victorian age, servants were supposed to know their place and being overly familiar with one's employer or his/her family was socially unacceptable. Plus Emma was very much a social snob. Her snobbery usually rubbed off on Lizzie and Lizzie treated shopkeepers and relatives who she viewed as socially beneath her by ignoring them completely. This is documented. But in the coachman's case, perhaps love overruled social position/propriety. I believe I have gathered very strong evidence for Lizzie's lesbianism or bisexuality, even one new piece of evidence which is perhaps the most compelling, involving author Sarah Orne Jewett. This does not surprise me in the least, for Lizzie was known as an avid reader and she had prominent writer friends, like Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Mary Livermore.

 
By kat on Saturday, 12/29/2001 - 11:33 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Yea, I can see Lizzie "reverting" to her Snobbery when the occassion demanded-like that too friendly letter from Piece and her "lawyer's" reply. She was raised both ways. I think she took on her "imperious" mein when it suited her: while she was being questioned at the Inquest by Knowlton, for example. It didn't make her a hypocrite, she just didn't know any better-- Raised by EMMA, Lizzie probably reverted to "hauteur" in uncomfortable situations.

 
By raystephanson on Sunday, 12/30/2001 - 05:24 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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I wasn't around then "Lady Chatterly's Lover" was about the morals (?) of the upper classes then, or now. You are very naive if you think they acted like saints. What do we know now about the rich and famous?

Wasn't the scandal about this book caused by its parallel with "Mrs Brown" in 1880s England?