Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Here are some of the photos I took yesterday during the Lizzie tour. This morning I took a bunch of photos of down street which I'll share in the Fall River and Environs forum.

Click on the photos to get a large higher resolution.

Lee Ann was gracious enough to take a moment to pose for me.

Note the curious absence of an unidentified unfocused man on the right hand side!

The tour reaches the sitting room. Colleen is giving her talk. She was an excellent tour guide, just three weeks on the job and gives a great presentation.

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This is from Lizzie's bedroom, the only known photo of Lizzie's biological mother and Emma as a young girl. This photo I find to be very sad.

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The tour makes it to the front stairs. A young boy in front wants to be the first one up the stairs to see the corpse!

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A view of Lizzie's bedroom and the fainting sofa.

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A nice little touch. This is a ceremic cat lurking below the east window in the guest bedroom!

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A room with a view. This is what Lizzie's step-mother would have seen as she glanced out the north east window of the guest bedroom. Well, sort of. Minus the bus station and the bus and add in a Doctor Bowen's house of course.

Here's what Abby and Andrew would have seen had they looked out their master bedroom window. Of course minus the asphalt and the modern cars. Note the windows in the side of the barn where the sliding doors would have been.

Here's a picture of a sewing machine that was actually owned by Lizzie Borden. It's in the Jennings room in the attic. They do not know if it actually had been at 92 2nd but it was part of her effects at Maplecroft.

A self portrait in the Jennings room.

Bridget's view down into the house from the landing outside her bedroom.

The tour pauses for effect in Bridget's room.

One of the many delightful items for sale in the gift shop

A posed shot of Dee and the gift shop counter. Note in the center and to the side the items that were found when the privvy was excavated. One of the most exciting items I saw in there was a pocket knife with the initials A.J.B. on the casing. I wonder why Andrew dropped his pocket knife down the privvy? Perhaps it fell by accident?

I'll also put a few photos in the Borden and Almy plot thread. And tomorrow I'll put in a few photos taken in the Highlands and along South Main Street at 7am this morning.

Thanks for sharing the pictures!! It looks like you really had a great time!!

Thanks for sharibng Richard. Your pictures bring back good memories.





Tracy...

I couldn't help myself. I had to get a photo of an unfocused person on the right hand side of the screen!

Click on the photo to get a higher resolution.

Richard,
Just wanted to thank you for the lovely compliments! I'm having the time of my life working at the B&B. I remember your group and you were all wonderful!

Thanks again!

Colleen (Lolly)

Thanks Richard. I like the unfocused shot!

I like the self-portrait in the mirror- how did you do that without the flash showing?

Hi Shelley,
I turned the flash off for all the inside shots and for some reason they came out. I was surprised but pleased.

I don't know if you got my private message but I wanted to say it was a pleasure to meet you in the cemetary and I'm hoping to be a little less hasty the next time I come up! You caught us just before a grueling 8 hour car ride through horrific winds on I95!!

I figured you'd be heading back soon and had a long drive. So much to see, so little time. Actually with the state of Oak Grove yesterday after the storm I think we could not have gotten around to "visit" all the notables. Something to look forward to when we are not so windblown. I wish I had thought to get a photo of that massive tree that went down just behind the Borden lot across the street. There's always so much to do- then there's New Bedford, Fair Haven, Dedham... endless possibilites for the next visit.

Harry @ Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:14 am wrote:Thanks Richard. I like the unfocused shot!

Richard did you get a blurred shot of the guy sitting down in the guest room when Abby was photographed? A matching pair would be cool!

Thanks for all the photographs, Richard. I'll add these to my private collection.

-1bigsteve (o:

Glad to hear you made it through the storm! sounds like it was pretty intense there for awhile! I just love the pictures! It makes it more "real"

Those are som cool photos! I like the one with the sewing machine in it. Now I want to go as soon as I can! Wouldn't it be neat to go on Halloween.

Richard @ Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:16 am wrote: I don't know if you got my private message but I wanted to say it was a pleasure to meet you in the cemetary !

I had to laugh reading this. I love you guys. Where else would someone write that it was a pleasure to meet someone in a cemetery and no one think anything of it as being weird.

What can I say, we are die-hard fans.

Shelley, I followed your links to your Titanic site and I didn't realize how deeply involved you were in that whole field of study.

It would have been weirder had we met in separate submersibles trying to get to the wreck!

Well, birds of a feather tend to flock together. And tragedies at sea, murders and cemeteries are just an ordinary day to us. As Lee Ann says, "Welcome to our world."
Yes, Titanic has been my #1 passion for 30 years -I worked for the artifact recovery folks and it has been a wild trip. It's good to have a hobby, and even "gooder" to have friends to share them with.

The Borden case and the Titanic. Can't think of a better wayto spend a day than strolling through OakGrove and chatting about Lizzie and Titanic.

I wonder if that Marine museum still has any artifacts from the ship

Wonderful, witty pix, Richard! Thanks!

thanks Bob, I have more of down street and the Highlands which I'll post tonight to Fall River and Environs.

I think I solved the mystery of what Andrew carried home with him on his final walk. Here's a shot from the little side stand in the sitting room.

Click for higher resolution and to read the book spines. Sorry for the out of focus.

That sewing machine, in the attic Jennings room, is near the west front window on Bridget's side (south room).
If you follow the leg of the sewing machine down to near the floor, you would have found my head right there sleeping on a rollaway cot, this past August. Right exactly there.

snokkums @ Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:52 am wrote:Those are som cool photos! I like the one with the sewing machine in it. Now I want to go as soon as I can! Wouldn't it be neat to go on Halloween.

BTW: it used to be displayed in the guest room.

The guest room would make more sense since that is where Mrs. Borden used the machine.

Or as Lizzie would say, "I don't think but she did!"

Colleen pays homage at the Elizabeth Montgomery shrine in the Guest Bedroom

Abby's tragic spot of floor.

The tour guide gets on the floor in the guest bedroom to demonstrate a point.

A not too commonly photographed room. Abby's changing room which has been converted into a bedroom.

The sewing machine in "Jennings'" room Martha told us back in 1996 was from Maplecroft. Naturally Lizzie did not sew on it- her dressmaker did. The one currently in the guestroom (or Morse room as we call it) belonged to LeeAnn's grandmother. Martha took the old Singer which was there since the B&B opened when she sold the place. Now, however, the big armoire (also LeeAnn's grandmother's) is filling the place the sewing machine should go and the machine is between the front windows. Too bad, but the housekeeping staff needed a place for towels and sheets and that was the only place to put it. I really like the crime scenes to be totally authentic.

Sometimes guests in the Jennings room say the machine starts up by itself in the night....

Shelley @ Tue Oct 31, 2006 10:53 am wrote:Well, birds of a feather tend to flock together. And tragedies at sea, murders and cemeteries are just an ordinary day to us. As Lee Ann says, "Welcome to our world."
Yes, Titanic has been my #1 passion for 30 years -I worked for the artifact recovery folks and it has been a wild trip. It's good to have a hobby, and even "gooder" to have friends to share them with.

Hey,
Shelly,

The Titanic has been an interest of mine too for the past 30 years! Isn't that funny? Lizzie Borden and the Titanic what a combo!


StevenB

I also find Lizziephiles and "Titaniacs" frequently are musical, artistic or literary, are often teachers, have had several career paths, like Sherlock Holmes and detective fiction and true crime, are anglophiles, like to travel, prefer non-fiction to fiction, are happily self-sufficient, enjoy quiet alone-time, are voracious readers, labelled "a little eccentric" by doting friends, like theatre, collect something (frequently antiques) prefer another era to the current one, love animals and cemeteries, are members of several historical societies or clubs, and embrace other like-minded souls with enormous enthusiasm and energy! This is a non-scientific study I have conducted over the past 30 years, often using guests at the house and other message board members and various historical society folks as statistics data!

It's always such a joy to find oneself in a room full of people with so very much in common- no matter what the age. The younger set fire up the energy and enthusiasm of us "middle-agers" and the oldsters have so much experience to share, and those of my own "set" love to rejoice about how much we have in common. Life is good