“I have seen Andrew and Abby’s skulls at the Fall River Historical Society”
It happened again on Sunday. A woman was at the Fall River Historical Society for the book signing of Michael Thomas Brimbau’s new book, By the Naked Pear Tree: The Trial of Lizzie Borden in Verse, and told me that she remembered seeing the skulls on a tour there. I asked her how long ago, but she wasn’t sure, but maybe four years ago. She said she saw them upstairs. Then she said it could have been as long as 15 years ago, time goes by so quickly. I agreed. Then she said she remembered them in the kitchen. On the first floor. That would be where the gift shop is now.
She said she saw the actual skulls. I asked her if she could have seen photographs instead, and she said perhaps.
This is not the first time I have heard this story. A man who is quite vocal about it was telling everyone he knew that the Historical Society had the skulls of Andrew and Abby Borden, because he saw them as a kid. He claims they have hidden them. That they really are there and not buried in Oak Grove Cemetery with their bodies.
These stories have always puzzled me. You don’t want to dispute someone’s memory to their face. It becomes, instead, a questioning of the memory. As they try to relive the feeling they had when they said they saw the skulls, you can literally see them getting worked up again. Excited. Fearful. Amazed.
The curators assure me that they have never been the repository for the skulls. That they were indeed reburied at Oak Grove, albeit in smaller boxes above the coffins. But the stories continue, adding fuel to the fire, so to speak.
A photograph was published by the Fall River Herald News today on Facebook that allows us all to finally see what all these folks saw when they entered the kitchen area of the Fall River Historical Society. Click on it to see it extra large!
What they all saw is now clear to me. Life-sized (or almost life-sized) photographs of the skulls, standing up, in a case above the stove. Perhaps if I had been a child or young adult, I might also believe I had seen the actual skulls. I might keep that “fact” in my head the rest of my life. And tell everyone I knew that I had.
The explanation for this belief has finally been found, and thanks to the Fall River Herald News, we can see the visual evidence of the origins of the myth.