Lizzie's Missing Time

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Wed May 19, 2004 10:34 pm

this is a speculative post about lizzie's account of herself during the morning of the murders. i've been immersed in the archives lately -- for info, also i might add, for amusement -- some of them are "masterpieces." anyway, in trying to reason that an axe-murderer who is not lizzie is in the house that morning, i was first trying to imagine a "who" that is connected to the conversation andrew and morse had that night before and conditions at the farms and how lizzie herself might be involved with someone working at one of those farms. it struck a bell with me that andrew had a concern about such a situation and if lizzie was causing him trouble because of something (someone) she had gotten herself involved with -- i ask, what would andrew do? he would not throw lizzie out in the street and call attention to something he felt shameful. he would most probably think of how he could change an arrangement and get rid of certain people -- and thus rid himself of the problem that way. well, i don't really get anywhere trying to identify a culprit --the reports are suggestive but they are dropped.

anyway, i sort of digress. i've always sensed and apparently still believe that lizzie's inquest contains the most telling "clues" while they simultaneously seal the answers.

what if lizzie was not actually inside the house during the murder of abby? and was in fact in the barn rolling in the hay with someone (or somewhere)? and did in fact not know that abby had been murdered?

i've always thought it a major clue though totally mysterious that lizzie tells it that she started her ironing before father left, before that she had been with him in the sitting room, etc. and that he left and came back rather quickly. compare that with bridget's account -- that lizzie got out the ironing board AFTER andrew returned.

lizzie's most agonizing account of where she was in relation to abby covers that period before andrew got home. i'll assume that most are familiar with the kind of Q&A i refer to. notice that between the time andrew left the house and returned (abby was murdered) lizzie is confused about what she can/can't should/should not say. typical interpretation, which i've run in the ground myself, is that she can't because she murdered abby and cannot account for it without giving herself away. but suppose it is honestly because lizzie does not know -- BECAUSE SHE WAS NOT EVEN IN THE HOUSE? how she handles the problem is to try to eliminate this time period by making andrew's absence shorter and making what she did do in the house EARLIER. thus it is that she drags out her time trying to iron and get flats hot and reading magazines, etc. not that she is lying about how mrs. borden was moving through the house, but that she does not know because she wasn't there. lizzie can't honestly account for her time during abby's murder because she was then involved in something too shameful to admit -- and this is what she is covering up -- as opposed to covering up her murder of abby.

when andrew is killed, she hears it (the groan, the scraping sound, the distressing sound, etc.) -- and she puts two and two together pretty quickly and wonders then if abby too was murdered -- in fact has reason to believe it.

as i say, this is speculation, but facts by themselves don't give us the story but function as much as barriers as indicators.

so what i'm wondering is: if we put lizzie outside the house altogether between the time andrew leaves and the time before he returns -- do lizzie's words then fall into place? can this explain the descrepancy, for example, between lizzie and bridget as to when lizzie began her ironing?

i realize i'm leaving it as a total mystery what/with whom lizzie was invovled with outside of the house (barn?) -- but is this the link between lizzie and the farm issue and the fact of butchers at the farms?

i'm using "facts" as points of departure into a fictional realm, but i KNOW i'm doing it.

Audrey · Post by **Audrey** » Wed May 19, 2004 10:44 pm

Very interesting.

If we can accept that Lizzie would have sexual relations prior to marriage, (and we all know it happened even back then!) can we accept that she would "do it" while "having fleas"? (if she was indeed menstruating the day of the murders)

Wasn't Bridget in and out of the barn that morning for water?

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:07 am

in this speculation of mine (i won't yet call it a theory) -- i realize bridget was in and out of the barn -- but exactly where in the barn in relation to where lizzie might have been? and i don't discount that bridget might have been aware of lizzie in the barn and stepped around it, so to speak.

what other flaws can you find in the idea? i am sure there are some i haven't thought of. do you see what i mean by the way lizzie constructed her story?

Audrey · Post by **Audrey** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:13 am

I can see what you are doing and it is very much worth discussing. I think one point you made is very valid.

Bridget would have been in the lower part of the barn only. Banging her pail and getting water, and for all we know-- grumbling to herself about having to do the windows! Someone could have been in the upper loft. Too much conflicting testimony exists for me to accept that there was no way anyone had been in that loft for some time.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:24 am

Did you get a chance to read what was posted at your other topic on the farm workers?

Firstly, I don't think Lizzie would cavort with a farm hand.
I don't see Lizzie cavorting or canoodling with anyone, actually. Maybe that is my blind spot.
She doesn't seem very sensual to me.
If Lizzie had a beau who was not acceptable, she could meet him in a lot of other places than at home or in the bawn.

There is the story that Lizzie did not want to stay away if Andrew was going to be home days for dinner with Abby gone to the farm.
If Lizzie was acting surrepticiously, wouldn't she hope her parents would leave so she could carry on? And bringing out the stories of strange men hanging around outside at night, isn't she giving attention to some man and then people would be more on alert and that would spoil her chances to have private time around the place with a man?

If anything untoward was happening tho you can bet Bridget knew about it!

It actually sounds like a direct exchange of Lizzie missing time because she is murdering Abby and can't explain for Lizzie missing time out in the barn with a man and so is innocent of that crime and can't explain.

Audrey · Post by **Audrey** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:27 am

After re-reading your original post I wanted to reply further...

Everyone assumed that Lizzie's testimony was vague and inconsistent because she was lying and had killed Abby/Andrew.
She could have been doing almost anything-- stealing horses, sneaking into the Churchill's and short sheeting their beds, almost anything. And that anything could have been something worth lying about....

It doesn't have to be a tryst.

doug65oh · Post by **doug65oh** » Thu May 20, 2004 10:22 am

You're right, Audrey - it doesn't have to be because of a tryst.

There's one very important thing that we have to keep in mind when considering Lizzie's accounts of her doings - particularly things she said on, or just after the 5th of August: That when these accounts were given or statements made, Lizzie was effectively under the influence of morphine sulfate - at least beginning on the 6th of August.

Consider the questioning of Doctor Bowen by defense counsel Adams [Trial, volume 1, beginning page 327]:

Q. I understand you to say on Friday you directed that the bromo caffeine be given?
A. No, sir, Thursday.
Q. Not on Friday. You prescribed a second dose and took over from your office a bottle of it with directions how to be taken. I wish to know if, after that, you had occasion to prescribe for her on account of this mental distress and nervous excitement?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When was it?
A. Friday.
Q. The next day?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was the prescription or medicine the same as the other?
A. It was different.
Q. What was it?
A. Sulphate of morphine.
Q. Well, what is commonly called morphine?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You directed morphine to be taken?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. In what doses?
A. One-eighth of a grain.
Q. When?
A. Friday night, at bed-time.
Q. The next day you changed that?
A. I did not change the medicine, but doubled the dose.
Q. That was on Saturday?
A. On Saturday.
Q. Did you continue the dose on Sunday?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you continue it Monday?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And on Tuesday?
A. Yes, sir.
_______
[Page 328]
Q. I ask you about the morphine that you were giving her and you tell me on Friday you gave one-eighth of a grain, which is the ordinary dose, I understand, mild dose, and on Saturday you doubled it, you gave it, sent it, and she had it on Monday and Tuesday, and how long did she continue to have that?
A. She continued to have that all the time she was in the station house.
Q. After her arrest, was it not?
A. And before.
Q. In other words she had it all the time up to the time of her arrest, the hearing and while in the station house?
A. Yes, sir.
****

From Saturday until Tuesday (and after, if we trust Bowen's account) daily dosing of something up to 1/4 grain of morphine. ("Hopped up pretty good" would be a fair guess on Lizzie, at least by any modern gauge.)

How much weight we give this is really subjective, but I don't think we can fairly discount the impact of the medication on any statements or testimony Lizzie gave around that time. Vague or inconsistent statements (under those conditions) would make perfect sense. I suspect that might be the reason why Lizzie's inquest testimony was not allowed into evidence - a proper ruling, even by modern measure.

FairhavenGuy · Post by **FairhavenGuy** » Thu May 20, 2004 12:16 pm

Doug65oh, somewhere in this questioning regarding the morphine, I seem to recall a question and answer which you seem to have left out, to the effect that this dosage would not impair a person's memory or ability to answer questions. I'll try to find that, if you don't have it. There's really no indication, that I have seen, from anyone connected directly with the case that Lizzie acted or appeared to be "hopped up pretty good."

Robert Harry · Post by **Robert Harry** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:03 pm

Haulover, your thinking out loud is great--teasing us to think along with you. I would just remind you of the police report that it seemed as though no one had been upstairs in the barn when they examined the loft--no footprints or other indications of activity. I personally agree with that ouija board answer, "No barn." (I'm referring to the ouija board purported solution of the crime that was sent to Knowlton shortly after the murders, and which I have read in the archives). Having been to the house, I would say far and away the person with easiest tryst possibilities would be Bridget. That extra room next to hers in the attic.....

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:23 pm

funny we're already leaning OT w/the morphine again -- i don't mind, i'm just glad people are posting to this. i don't know about the morphine affecting her. lizzie has reality problems. she isn't being asked complex questions -- simple things. 2 big ones: her claim of never seeing abby or bridget after father left the house, and the awful barn story for sinkers with pears balanced on her bosom as she ascended the loft steps. and let me add to that that lizzie seems pretty shrewd and really sticks to her guns no matter how ridiculous she gets--it doesn't sound like she has been weakened by anything. (BTW, this tactic reminds me of something i read where someone in the clinton administration said that clinton's tactic was "lie lie lie" and never admit to anything, that so long as you refuse to give info and lie -- then they have nothing concrete on you. this seems to be lizzie's tactic as well.)

anyway, what audrey said is my point -- whether lizzie is in the barn or flirting with the workmen next door,. it's not a proven fact that lizzie is in the house that whole time. so if we open that up, does anything come out?

Audrey · Post by **Audrey** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:32 pm

Robert Harry @ Thu May 20, 2004 1:03 pm wrote:Haulover, your thinking out loud is great--teasing us to think along with you. I would just remind you of the police report that it seemed as though no one had been upstairs in the barn when they examined the loft--no footprints or other indications of activity. I personally agree with that ouija board answer, "No barn." (I'm referring to the ouija board purported solution of the crime that was sent to Knowlton shortly after the murders, and which I have read in the archives). Having been to the house, I would say far and away the person with easiest tryst possibilities would be Bridget. That extra room next to hers in the attic.....

I just last night was looking at those blueprints of the house and realized that JVM would have to pass through Bridget's room to get to that garret bedroom he sometimes used. My thought were that poor Bridget had little space and privacy in that house. She probably didn't get to use the sitting room or parlor to relax in so her room was of course-- all purpose to her. What a ghastly thing to have Uncle John passing through her humble quarters. For some reason I imagine he snored. I do believe a man who travels without his tooth brush and a change of clothes (which we know he did on at least one occasion) wouldn't be too pleasant to look at or smell.....

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:49 pm

Morse's bedroom, when he stayed longer, was a room right before Bridget's. It was in the northeast corner, while Bridget's was in the southeast corner. It's pretty small but is the attic area bathroom now.
They would share the landing at the top of the stairs but that's about it.
I don't know to which floorplan you refer?

I do wish to point out, for what it's worth- that Bowen gave the medication, Morphine, but not directly TO Lizzie. We have no proof that she ever took it.
(If Robinson says diferently please show that- but he will say anything, as far as I can tell.)

Audrey · Post by **Audrey** » Thu May 20, 2004 1:53 pm

I think I looked at it wrong. I thought the door opened from Bridget's room inward to the spare room. Now I see!

Oops!

doug65oh · Post by **doug65oh** » Thu May 20, 2004 3:47 pm

I may have inadvertantly overlooked that when I was transcribing, FairhavenGuy. I do recall the passage you're talking about though, where the effects oif MS on memory is discussed. I thought it was a bit later though -actually I think it might be Adams yet who broached the issue. I'll look.

The "hopped up" comment by the way was meant to refer not so much to Lizzie's behavior, but only to the dosage amount of a quarter grain, which seems to me a fairly heavy one. Depends of course on her height, weight, etc....

doug65oh · Post by **doug65oh** » Thu May 20, 2004 3:55 pm

I found that passage FairhavenGuy. It's ...starts at about page 329 - just beyond the section I had quoted earlier.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Thu May 20, 2004 4:48 pm

Audrey @ Thu May 20, 2004 1:53 pm wrote:

I thought the door opened from Bridget's room inward to the spare room. Now I see!

I'm glad you brought it up, then! Good.

Here is the plan modified by me- not a very good job-
Note in Morse's room, which is now the bathroom, the ceiling slopes very steeply on the north side- and so does Bridget's on the south.

please click on the picture to make it larger

FairhavenGuy · Post by **FairhavenGuy** » Fri May 21, 2004 7:53 am

Haven't had much luck looking up dosages of morphine, but I did find that taken orally, it has only 1/10th the strength as when injected. Oral dosages are also broken down by the body very quickly.

To get back to the heart of this thread, virtually everybody has "missing time" on the morning of the murders. We really don't know exactly where Abby goes after dusting in the dining room. Andrew seems to have some unaccounted for time on the street. Who knows, really, what Morse was up to. Lizzie took an hour and a half to iron a few hankies. Only Bridget seems to have been relatively well occupied with activities, but how she missed both murders is a huge question.

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Fri May 21, 2004 8:19 am

kat:

***It actually sounds like a direct exchange of Lizzie missing time because she is murdering Abby and can't explain for Lizzie missing time out in the barn with a man and so is innocent of that crime and can't explain.***

you're exactly right. it's really that simple -- what i'm wondering. is there another explanation that fits as well? why? that's also simple but huge mystery. why/how it is that lizzie is hanging in the doorway unbloodied almost immediately after the crime. (i'm going by all the descriptions of andrew's body.)

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Fri May 21, 2004 9:18 am

i'll go so far as to say this -- that morphine or any other drug does not explain lizzie's "performance." the fact is that lizzie was in the house the whole time OR she was somewhere else and doesn't wish to tell us. IF lizzie was in the house the whole morning, her account of it makes no sense no matter how you shake it. maybe we need to go over all this again in a thread specifically about her inquest -- perhaps all of it, from start to finish, line by line. we've sort of done this in the past, but it might be a good idea now anyway. i remember obsessing on it, and i finally satisfied myself that lizzie was lying (purposefully, with reasons) -- my next level of questioning on it was: does she reveal a pattern, a key, something -- that leads to truth? here's a question: is there inherent in any deliberate deception, a hidden but findable revelation of truth? hence -- this notion of mine posited as i hope one of many -- that lizzie was not in the house when abby was killed. having no more than we have, i consider imagination here to be valid -- if you can make it fit what we do know.

about all characters missing time:

yes. i remember a while back susan did an extremely detailed timeline for the morning (in archives, i guess, i can't remember what the thread was called--could have been anything).

one curiosity is whether or not (it would seem) that bridget and andrew were at one point in the back yard together.

about bridget: radin made a timeline of the morning and claims that bridget is THE ONE with too much time on her hands. i admit i've never really understood his timeline -- maybe it's the way he makes his comparisons, i don't know, or i'm dense about it. but the simpler and more probable explanation for someone finding a huge gap in bridget's time is that she is not questioned in such a way as to give a FULL account of all the housework she did that morning.

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Fri May 21, 2004 11:48 am

Yes, I remember doing that, don't recall what the thread was that I did it on though. Harry came up with a great time discrepency for when Lizzie said she went to the barn and that she couldn't have due to what she was supposed to have been doing and at what time. It was a really good find.

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Fri May 21, 2004 12:27 pm

Susan, yes, i remember that one too. i've been in the archives a lot lately anyway and will look for it.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Fri May 21, 2004 1:33 pm

You might be referring to the thread below. See message #128.

http://www.lizzieandrewborden.com/Archi ... ianose.htm

Susan · Post by **Susan** » Fri May 21, 2004 5:40 pm

Yes! Thats the one! Thank you, Harry.

128. "Re: Diagnose Lizzie?"
Posted by harry on Oct-9th-03 at 12:01 AM
In response to Message #127.
This is an interesting bit of testimony by Bridget at the trial:

"Q. What did you do in the kitchen?
A. I washed out the cloths that I had washing the windows, and hung them behind the stove. As I got through, Miss Lizzie came out and said, "There is a cheap sale of dress goods at Sargent's this afternoon, at eight cents a yard." I don't know that she said "this afternoon," but "today." And I said, "I am going to have one."

Q. What did you do then?
A. I went up stairs to my room."

-----------

Q. Have you a judgment as to how long you were there between the time you reached your bed and the time that the city hall clock struck eleven?
A. Well, I might be there---of course I can't tell, I didn't notice the time when I went to my room, but by my judgment I think I was there three or four minutes.

If Bridget is telling the truth and she went up to her room just after talking with Lizzie and and was only in her room 10 (?) minutes where does Lizzie squeeze in this 20 minute trip to the barn?

Nancie · Post by **Nancie** » Fri May 21, 2004 6:51 pm

The way the Question is asked "reached your bed"
is confusing. Maybe she did other things in her room
before laying in bed?

Kimberly · Post by **Kimberly** » Fri May 21, 2004 10:48 pm

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Sat May 22, 2004 12:03 am

***I think Lizzie would have had a relationship with a farm worker
or someone of a lesser class -- she is said to have had an affair
with her driver & an actress. I think she would have welcomed
the attention. I think she could have been telling tales about
seeing men lurking around the house to hide the fact that men
might have been seen and she wanted to pretend she didn't
know who they could have been.... ***
_________________________

i agree with you, babe. that's very astute. we're about on the same level here on this subject. quit ironing and follow me up to the barn loft, would you?

check your pm and tell me about it. i haven't decided yet if i'm your lover or your father. and BTW -- about your hair fixing -- don't you have straight stud hairdressers in tennessee?

Kimberly · Post by **Kimberly** » Sat May 22, 2004 12:53 am

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Sat May 22, 2004 1:11 am

Again, my opinion, I don't think Lizbeth had affairs with her coachman or her actress friend. I do think she liked attention.
If she is going to go to the Hill, she would know she would have to show an exemplary life- she did that when she joined the church and made new friends there. If her whole goal was to be cultured, I still don't see Lizzie with a person a'rollin' in the hay.

Kimberly · Post by **Kimberly** » Sat May 22, 2004 1:35 am

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Sat May 22, 2004 3:38 am

kat:

where do we come up with these things? i don't know. i see her as "friendless" and "lonely." and very sad -- and somehow part-in-parcel with that an affinity for the downtrodden, the underdog, the lowly. and that has nothing to do with the money. exactly why i think it i don't know, but it is something i should think through thoroughly. why do you think that her love life (provided she had one) would be an outgrowth or would be compatible with her social displays? is there not a clue in the very fact that her love life (provided she had one) was never a social issue? so what did she do day after day inside maplecroft? what i'm saying is -- either she had no love life OR her love life was a BIG SECRET. what disturbed emma? if it was not the form of lizzie's intimacies, then what else could it have been? (it had to be something of a moral nature, meaning it had to involve someone else.) i'm aware of this other view of lizzie -- as a person of stunted growth, naive and childlike or childish -- v. lincoln in her book dismisses the idea of lizzie having a sexual affair -- as though lizzie is not adult enough for such a thing. and this is a good example of victoria lincoln taking a leap in her own imagination -- she has no other basis for drawing such a conclusion.

Kimberly · Post by **Kimberly** » Sat May 22, 2004 3:13 pm

FairhavenGuy · Post by **FairhavenGuy** » Sat May 22, 2004 5:02 pm

I'm going OT here for a second. Can somebody explain why I sometimes see haulover's avatar and sometimes I see a tan rectangle?

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat May 22, 2004 5:46 pm

FairhavenGuy @ Sat May 22, 2004 6:02 pm wrote:I'm going OT here for a second. Can somebody explain why I sometimes see haulover's avatar and sometimes I see a tan rectangle?

I've never seen that. May I ask what browser you are using?

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Sat May 22, 2004 8:22 pm

***I'm going OT here for a second. Can somebody explain why I sometimes see haulover's avatar and sometimes I seen a tan rectangle?***

that's strange. it's only my image that does it? does it show up if you refresh? do you use Explorer? i know at least one lesser-known browser i tried did fail to read certain things.

FairhavenGuy · Post by **FairhavenGuy** » Sat May 22, 2004 8:27 pm

Whatever browser AOL 8 uses. At work I have AOL 6, I think. Here at home I see a tan rectangle. I just right-clicked it, copied it into Photoshop and I'll attach it. I did the same with yours, Harry, and will attach that, too.
At work, instead of the tan rectangle I see a little boy's photo.

Also, Harry, could you edit the "seen" in your quote of my post to "see" so I don't seem so gramatically challenged? Thanks.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat May 22, 2004 8:55 pm

I'm at a total loss. It has to be something in the browser, but what?

If computers don't drive you crazy nothing will.

Chris, I fixed the typo.

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Sun May 23, 2004 12:58 am

i can't see a difference in the properties of the two images. ?? also, it's odd how the rectangle does appear to pick up the dominant color of the photo but w/o the image. i don't see how it could even do that.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Sun May 23, 2004 2:06 am

Kimberly @ Sat May 22, 2004 1:35 am wrote: -- I think she would have "dated" and gotten to know someone & care for them. I'm not getting the party sl*t vibe from her..

Then why didn't she?
We'd know about it if she had. People were digging into her life for years after the crime.
She made "friends" with her staff. We have knowledge now of her friendly treatment of her servants, she left them money, she provided for their children.
I think she was affectionate to "strangers"- staff is sort of "strangers".
I think she lacked that part that could really feel love and so she could not give it or take it.

Haulover, how do we know that Emma didn't leave because she herself was "crazy" or hard to live with?

Kimberly · Post by **Kimberly** » Sun May 23, 2004 1:05 pm

Nancie · Post by **Nancie** » Sun May 23, 2004 6:16 pm

RE:how do we know that Emma wasn't crazy or hard to live with herself...(i haven't got the hang of
how to quote someone yet). I'm just remembering
the last interview Emma gave said something like
"conditions made it unbearable to live there anymore..." That could mean anything of course, but it points towards conditions regarding Lizzie. As
Kimberly suggests, maybe Lizzie was responding to
her hormones in her raging 30's. If that was the case, I think she got over it and settled down in her
40's to the end.

Haulover · Post by **Haulover** » Sun May 23, 2004 10:01 pm

Emma could have been the more difficult one of the two, for all i know. up to the time of the murders, it looks like they are more alike than different. they are living the same life, basically? though lizzie seems the more dissatisifed and restless.

i wonder if i'm projecting on lizzie the character of emma bovary in the novel, "madame bovary." someone whose desires are restricted by everything around her, yet she finds ways to try to satisfy them and gets herself into serious trouble in the process. that's a literary character fixed in my mind, and i think i see lizzie as a darker more repressed version of it.

lizzie's ability to love constantly stands there with a huge question mark by it. all we know are her pets and people who seem to be what i would call "acquaintances."

i see there is the question that if lizzie had intimate relations could she have kept them secret to this day? (discounting gossip or rumors.) i would say on the face of it she is good at keeping people out. but i know other people, as a rule, who know something, don't stay quiet.

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Sun May 23, 2004 10:55 pm

Nancie: yes raging hormones- but I was thinking that of Emma last night, tho!
Around 1900, Emma would be in menopause probably. Going into or going out of. That is a precarious mental state. Emma thru 1903, 04 & 05- talking to Buck before he died and then leaving so much later- and signing an agreement-
Emma could have been very hard to live with and Lizzie paid Emma's share for Emma not to live there, basically.

Nancie · Post by **Nancie** » Mon May 24, 2004 6:47 pm

that is a good point Kat, Emma being not only
menopausal but a frustrated uptight and emotionally
bankrupt woman, I can see a much more free spirited Lizzie doing whatever she could to "get rid
of her"

Kat · Post by **Kat** » Tue May 25, 2004 11:52 am

Let's see. Emma was born in 1851, so she'd be 49 in 1900.
I wonder what women did for menopause at that time? Roots? Herbal concoctions? Patent medicines might have contained opiates or alcohol.
Maybe Emma got addicted?
However, addictions usually cost money- so maybe not. She had more money at the end then Lizzie.
1905, Emma would be 54. Untreated, the condition can seem like a mental illness...