1. "The Ballad of Lizzie Borden"
Posted by Edisto on Jul-18th-02 at 9:28 PM

Miss Lizzie Borden (so they say)
Chopped up her folks one August day.
The experts gave us all the specs:
She lusted after her own sex;
Beheading kittens (two or three)
She regularly did with glee;
She stole the goods she could have bought;
Her music lessons came to naught;
She was a dropout, though 'tis said
She was uncommonly well-read.
She sailed to Europe - that we know
And overspent her budget, so
The girl wired home for extra cash...
Her father wired back, "Balderdash!"
She had to borrow from a friend,
Which set her thinking how to send
Old Andrew up to Heaven's throne
And get his fortune for her own.
Of course, there was one tiny hitch:
His wife - that sly and scheming witch!
He could leave no widowed missus,
For all the money must be Lizzie's.
(She'd share with Sister Emma, who
Was fond of filthy lucre too.)
The plot was hatched, the hatchet ground;
She waited till the time came 'round -
The perfect moment, when the coast
Was clear, and she could make the most
Of Emma's summer interlude,
For poor, dear Emma was a prude,
Who wouldn't sanction shedding blood,
Though Lizzie fancied Emma would
Be all too glad to help her spend
The proceeds of it in the end.
She chose a perfect summer day;
'Twas hellish hot, the stories say.
A houseguest put her plan in doubt,
But handily, he sauntered out
To visit elsewhere in the town.
But then the maid was duty-bound
To wash the windows in and out,
Assuring she would be about
The place and surely interfere
With Lizzie's plan - but never fear -
Our Lizzie was a fearless sort;
She donned her paint-smeared Bedford cord,
Crept noiselessly up the stair,
And slew that "mean old thing" up there;
Rained blows upon her old gray head,
Till she was well and truly dead.
She waited then till Andrew came
From downstreet and gave him the same.
Her trademark frizzy bangs askew,
She chopped and hacked; he got his due.
And then she washed the blood away
And yelled upstairs, "Come down, I say!
For Father's dead; someone came in
And killed him while I looked for tin
To fix my screen - or was it lead
To make some sinkers?"  Then she said,
"Fetch the doctor on the double!
Tell him there has been some trouble."
Soon the neighbors came and then
They all asked Lizzie where she'd been.
Her answers didn't fit the facts,
And in the cellar was an axe
With broken handle, and its head
Was rubbed with ashes, so they said.
Some ten months later, she was tried
With three fine lawyers at her side.
The D. A. failed to prove his case,
And Lizzie, in her best black lace
Was asked to stand and face her peers.
"Not guilty!" rang out loud and clear.
So Hip! Hooray! for Lizbeth B.
The jury loved her; so do we.
She bought a house upon the hill
And lived there all her days, but still-
Who did it, if it wasn't she?
We'll never solve that mystery...
                         Copyright 2002 by Annette Weeks Baker
                         All rights reserved

Happy Birthday Lizbeth!

Oh, my God/dess!
That's fantastic!
Thank You.    kk

That was brilliant!! So did you sit down and write it all at once, or did you craft it over months? If flows so effortlessly I bet it took you a long time to create!

Thank you Edisto!!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you are a very clever woman, Edisto!!!  That was just wonderful!  We have so many creative people in our group, I love it!  Thanks for sharing with us!!! 

What a lovely birthday piece!  Lizzie couldn't have suspected (pun intended) that she'd inspire so much art and literature, and that she'd be bringing people together so long after her death, could she?

Wonderful and sly work, dear Annette!

Best to all on this special day, and a special nod to the late and missed Terrence Duniho, who received a moving obituary in the brand new LBQ,
 
Bob Gutowski

Thanks so much for the kind comments.  Actually, I wrote this last February, after returning from a bracing, three-mile walk.  If I'd had to write it this week, I would have failed.  Makes me wonder how anybody could commit mayhem on a muggy August day!  I'm looking forward to seeing the piece on Terence.  My LBQ hasn't yet arrived.

Very Clever!
But it doesn't change the facts in the case.
Not even "Sat Night Live" would touch it.

Actually, Ray, I didn't mean it to represent the facts in the case.  I meant it to represent a lot of the myths, gossip, old wives' tales and just general misinformation that's in circulation about the Borden case.  I won't mind if SNL doesn't come knocking on my door.

That "Mother Goose" book (?) has this one stanza:

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.

AR Brown points out that everything about this is wrong, except the sequence of death (90 minutes between deaths).

E Radin's book notes that a person who actually knew Lizzie said there were about a dozen more verses to that jingle. All lost because they could not be printed (libel laws). That means that the others must have reference the other important names, IMO.

Has anyone ever tried to find the other stanzas? Or recreate this jingle?

We know that there is often a long forgotten meaning to many of the other "Mother Goose" jingles. I once read of a book that did this.

In the "Proceedings" of the 1892 conference on the Borden case, one of the speakers mentions that she learned another version of the familiar stanza.  Instead of "When she saw what she had done..." that line can read: "When the job was nicely done..."  I think there are other versions too.  I seem to recall a stanza that calls on Lizzie to atone for her sins, but I can't recall where I read that.

I have seen this version of the rhyme,

Lizzie Borden took an axe
Gave her mother forty whacks,
Then she stood behind the door
And gave her father forty more!

[EDIT here:  Excuse me Doug.  I was working on my post and didn't see your's until now.  (I stopped to eat--Gotta EaT!).  Was there a particular region of the country that you lived in that was more familiar with what these authors termed "Some believed to be the ORIGINAL?"--the verse You quoted]


RADIN, pg. 99

"Although no one can pinpoint with any accuracy the exact date, it was while these wild stories and rumors were making their rounds that the four-line verse concerning Lizzie Borden and the ax made its first appearance. The author has never been identified. Kirby said that there were at least a dozen other stanzas that the children of Fall River used at that time in playing games, but since he was a firm believer in her innocence, he had not learned them and they seem to have been lost to posterity. Although the original verse was not published in American newspapers of the day, it spread rapidly by word of mouth throughout the country and soon was being published abroad."

--I had never heard that there were more stanza's to this rhyme, other than variations of the quatrain.  Has anyone?  Besides this Kirby fellow?

In the July, 2002 LBQ pg. 3, there is an interesting collection of different Version's:  (from subscriber Fleming, snippet of "American Murder Ballads And Their Stories, Burt, Oxford Univ. Press, 1958):

The one Ray quoted....That we're used to hearing...

Then there is one"Some believe to be the ORIGINAL":
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks
Then she stood behind the door
And gave her father forty more

"Another popular version..."
Andrew Borden, he is dead;
Lizzie hit him on the head.
Lizzie killed her mother, too
What a horrid thing for Liz to do!

"...Counting-out rhyme" 1923, Pa...."
Lizzie Borden bend your head;
Don't you wish that you were dead?
Lizzie Borden, bend your knee;
One, two, three -out goes she!
Jump rope song I remember...

Then there is the BIXBY poem, from 1907...
(excerpt:)
There's no evidence of guilt, Lizzie Borden,
That should make your spirit wilt, Lizzie Borden.
Many do not think that you
Chopped your father's head in two,
It's so hard a thing to do,
Lizzie Borden."
--This very well may be the multiple stanza-ed verse that Radin and his character Kirby are referring to..
--This poem is reproduced for download at LizzieAndrewBorden Library Online...
Click on "RESOURCES", "Case Related Essay's", poem: "To Lizzie".







(Message last edited Jul-20th-02  10:05 PM.)

The jingle with the lines "stood behind the door" was created by Robert Sullivan in his 1973 work. It is an attempt to explain missing bloodstains and incriminate the "guiltless Lizzie Borden".

I don't believe it. What does the trial transcript say about the pattern of blood spots? From the swinging hatchet?

Herb MacDonnell is the expert on bloodstains; has he ever looked into this? At about 70, he may not have much time left. Refer to Dr. Michael Baden's "Unnatural Death"? for details.

I don't recall where I became aware of the version of the nursery rhyme that includes "Then she stood behind the door..." though it might well have been in Robert Sullivan's book Goodbye Lizzie Borden which I first read when it came out in the 1970s. Sullivan quotes the "door" version of the rhyme on page 183 of his book, calling it, "A little-known version of the world-famous quatrain,..." Sullivan also quotes the "And when she saw what she had done,..." version on page 2 of Goodbye Lizzie Borden.

Kat, I was born, raised, schooled, and have always lived in New England. I am still surprised by the people who have told me over the years that they never heard of Lizzie Borden! When I was about fourteen I asked my grandmother if she remembered the Borden case. My grandmother was born and raised in Massachusetts and was 12-13 years old at the time of the murders and trial. She recalled the case and principals involved vividly. One of my aunts (who knew of Lizzie Borden but was not old enough to remember the murders and trial) heard at least part of this conversation and was shocked that I would even bring the subject up!

Ray, if YOU want blood evidence there is transcribed and edited Dr. Dolan's testimony in the Preliminary Hearing at the LizzieAndrewBorden library.
See :
http://www.lizzieandrewborden.com
Click on Crime Library
Evidence
Blood Evidence

--When you come back I'd like someone to explain the lack of blood.

OH, Doug, I think you must be very patient to have to reiterate to me about every few months your New England Heritage!  Sometimes I can be dense!  Ask Stef!  Sorry.  Didn't you once inform me of the original New England States?
My next-door neighbor, 86, is SHocked when I bring up the Borden case even now.  She grew up in the Maryland and Washington, D.C. areas...the ritzy sections.  It is so frustrating knowing I had another friend/neighbor who was born in Mass. who was 86 in 1997, but she passed away before we became re-involved with the case.  She did give me memories of the dough-boys going off to war from the train station in Newton...

--Did you get any interesting info/memories from elderly family members?  Even just *background*?

(Message last edited Jul-22nd-02  12:31 AM.)

Kat, I don't recall you and I discussing New England, perhaps you are thinking of someone else from the forum or even a different connection! In any case my older relatives know/knew about Lizzie but the only one I talked to who actually remembered when the murders and trial happened was my grandmother. As we know from reading old newspaper accounts those events were very well and widely publicized even if erroneous information was part of the reporting. My grandmother confirmed that the Borden case was "big news" and that many people of the day had firm opinions one way or another about what really happened and Lizzie's guilt or innocence.

Are there that many New Englanders here?  That is cool.
I DO remember that we sailed together on the Old Fall River Line!
With Susan in her sailor suit...that was FUN! 

I was 20 and full of it when I lived in Boston.  We used to hitch-hike out to the country, but silly me never made it to Fall River in all those 3 years!

Many people today have opinions deeply felt about:
OJ Simpson's Guilt
Lee Harvey Oswald's Guilt
Sirhan Sirhan's Guilt
etc.

Sometimes the less people know about a case, the stronger their opinions. But that's just my opinion, and I do feel strongly about it.

Sheesh, Kat.  I lived in Bah-stan in the '80s and it was a hoot then.  Many of my friends out there STILL talk about what is was like in the '70s.  Whooo-wheee!  I bet you did more than hitch-hike to Walden Pond.

Thanks for the dancing.
I was a nanny on Beacon Hill (the Hill).  I also worked at a haunted movie theatre called Sack-57.  It was just abutting the Common, out it's rear exit doors was Back Bay.
It was built on the site of the old Cocoanut Grove nightclub, which burned down during a celebratory party after the Harvard-Yale game (1942?), with many people burned to death because the escape routes were blocked (Locked?).

I lived in Cambridge in the early 1960's. Long straight hair with a flip up at the ends.  Big hoop earings.  Bell bottom pants. Ahhh, those were the days.  The Boston Strangler was doing his thing.  I was newly married and working in the library at MIT.  We did a drive by of the Borden house with the Radin book in hand. Little did I dream that years later I would sleep in that very house.

I noticed in Rebello, p. 282, the "Butterworth" house, Fall River,  was supposedly considered by Lizzie & Emma for purchase, but that the family refused to sell ..(to them?).
In the early 70's I was babysitter for Butterworth's of Boston.

Kat, is there a picture of the Butterworth house?  Is it as odd looking of a house as Maplecroft?  Are the Butterworths the heirs to the Mrs. Butterworth's maple syrup fortune?  Inquiring minds want to know! 

Nope, no picture.
Also may not be true...newspapers, you know.
As for the syrup, ????It never occurred to me.

WOO-HOO
I just signed out and turned on the local news and there is a huge traffic backup on our Central Florida Interstate due to the wreck of a tanker truck full of S Y R U P !!

(Message last edited Aug-2nd-02  5:07 AM.)

But was it Mrs. Butterworth's syrup?  Sheesh...what a mess that would make!

It turns out to be a "Karo" type syrup, on it's way to the local Cocoa~Cola bottling plant.
On Friday morning barely Pre-rush hour.  Totally STOPPED traffic...as in *parking lot*.
They piled dirt all over it...it was near a construction zone.
Jeesh!  Now we'll have ANTS!

We had the same thing happen out here in California a few months ago, but, I believe it was maple syrup, what a mess!  And it wasn't on a major freeway, some small interstate highway I believe.