Sherry Chapmanby Sherry Chapman
First published in April/May, 2005, Volume 2, Issue 2, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.
I feel strange writing this story, as I am not a writer. Oh, sometimes I’ve dabbled here and there but nothing much more than a poem or two has ever been published. By far, I prefer reading than writing. But in this instance, if I do not write it down I am afraid that the story will be lost, as it has been these past 100 years. It is really not my story to tell, and that makes me feel a bit guilty, though I was not only given permission but also urged to tell it. I will try. I can only hope that, should this be published, the editors are also part-time magicians.
I was in Fall River last summer, passing through on my way to Boston on a business matter. I live quite a distance from there, and I had always told myself that if I should ever be in the state of Massachusetts I would see some of the Lizzie Borden sites. I was just there for the day.
That is one reason that I chose to attend the worship service at the Church of the Ascension that warm Sunday in June. I knew that Lizzie’s burial was done by a minister of that church. Well, the sign out front saying “Ice Cream Social Today” helped a little too.
The service was a regular Episcopalian service, except I would be thrown a little by an extra broad “a” heah and theyah. The church was beautiful inside but hot. Opened windows made no difference. When we said our last response, “Thanks be to God,” I really was thanking God the service was over and I could go.
The ice cream social was outdoors, in back of the church, under striped awnings that promised shade that would take ten degrees off the temperature (which was still cooler than the inside of the church). I stood in line and got a generous portion of homemade strawberry shortcake—or a very good imitation. But where to sit? I knew no one, and several tables were starting to fill up with groups of people that have been friends for a long time, you could tell. My best bet was to find someone who, like me, was alone. Off to the side at a little table sat an old woman. Shoulders bent, her hand shook as her spoon traveled from dish to mouth. How sad. I headed over to her.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked.
She looked up, startled. “Whaaat?” she said loudly.
“May I sit here?” I said louder. Her bland expression turned into sudden anger.
“No! You can’t take my chair! You take my chair and I break your face! Veronica! Veronicaaaaa!”
All conversation stopped as everyone turned to see who was bothering the nice old lady. I instinctively backed up as a woman of about 50 cupped my elbow. “Come over here,” she said. “You can sit with me. Please.” I was still shaken but walked with her to another table. “Oh, that’s Roselynn. She’s got the dementia.”
“Oh, I-I’m sorry. It’s a shame some people reach their golden years, then get hit with something like that.”
“She was that way before.”
So began my friendship with Elise Wright. Elise, it turned out, was a teacher in Fall River. She was widowed and seemed genuinely pleased when I told her I was playing tourist with a strong leaning toward Lizzie Borden. She offered to be my guide during my short stay and before I knew it we were in her PT Cruiser headed toward Oak Grove Cemetery. We viewed the Borden plot and I got an extra treat when she pointed out that the Almys were in the same corner plot. Partners in life’s business; partners in death’s business. If we hurried, she said, we could get in on the last tour of the murder house and I was no slacker. I had seen the house that morning—just the outside. Well, everyone is right. There really is a bus depot across the street. The tour was incredible. I was so glad that I wasn’t taking the tour alone. It was much more fun with Elise along, so I suggested we grab an early dinner—my treat.
She asked if I liked good seafood. We were still talking about the house tour when she pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant on the water called LePage’s. We got a booth and ordered a couple of Cokes to nurse for a while. She asked me why I was interested in Lizzie Borden. I said because of the mystery—the many mysteries—the subject contained. Besides the obvious one “Did she or didn’t she?” there were others that gnawed at me. Did she really steal things? Was Abby really a fat wicked stepmother like in the movie? Where did Bridget go afterwards? Why did the sisters part company, never to speak to one another again? Where was the bathroom? (The Coke was working.)
When I returned to our booth, Elise had a serious look on her face. I knew it. I was too boring. I burped (I thought I said ‘excuse me’). I talked too much about my relatives. I said the word ‘toilet’ in front of her. She made me laugh once when I had food in my mouth. As we finished our lovely dinner she gave me a strange look. I voted for the burp. “Claire,” she began. This was it. My kiss-off. “There’s something I’d like to share with you.” Moi? “I’m 72 years old.”
“No way.”
“Thanks. I had made promises to people—relatives—that I would not say a word of this until I died.”
“How can you tell anyone something if you’ve died?” I asked, not meaning to be funny.
“I want to tell you something about Lizzie Borden.” My adrenaline went up a notch. “I think that you’re one of the more serious people who have come here in search of furthering your education on the Borden case.”
“This is true.”
“I don’t think you’re here to seek thrills.”
“I would never seek thrills.”
“I get a feeling about you that I can trust you. You won’t waste this information. It’s time it was put in the right hands. I want you to write an article on it.” I guess I talked up my published poem a bit much. I started to wilt.
“I’m really not a writer,” I said.
“Don’t need to be. No, never mind for tonight. It’s getting late and I have to let my dog out. I doubt the good Lord will take me during the next 12 hours.”
When I got back to my room I knew I wouldn’t sleep. Ten minutes into an old Twilight Zone episode I was out of it. I just had time to get down a complimentary chocolate chip muffin in the morning when Elise knocked on the door to my room at 10 sharp. “Look,” she said, holding up a tape recorder. “I told you you didn’t have to write a word. I put the information on tape last night. Just write what I say on tape.”
We said our good-byes with promises to write, and she was gone. I panicked. I stuck my head out the door and peered down the hallway, catching the back of her slim figure, as she was halfway to the exit.
I yelled after her. “But what if I -“
She turned back with a wave. “Just write what I say on the tape.”
A fleeting image came to me of a munchkin telling me to just follow the yellow brick road. I followed the road, to Boston, and then back home again. The next day, I played Elise’s tape. This is what she recorded:
“Claire, I want to thank you for taking this project on of transcribing this tape for publication. It was a delight to meet you and make a new friend. You probably wonder why I didn’t just type this up myself and send it off to a publisher. And you’d be right to ask. You see, this way it doesn’t feel as if I am breaking my word. I am telling a friend. And you are making it public.
Oh, you don’t know how close-mouthed people were and still are about the Borden case. I know several of the descendants still living in Fall River, still keeping many things out of public view. Perhaps if they knew this was out, they would speak up also and say what they know, share the many letters of Lizzie’s that they keep, and photos as well. Did you know there is a picture of Lizzie in the nude? I’ve seen it. Lizzie had a lot of friends, despite what people say how she lived after the trial. She did lose most of her old friends. But she made new friends easily. She had that way about her, or so I’ve been told.
“I could describe many of the photos that exist of her behind closed doors. And I could tell you what a lot of the letters contained. But they are not mine to tell of. This is.
“There has always been a great ‘mystery’ of why Emma Borden left her sister, Lizzie, in 1905. Some say it was because Lizzie was fond of having stage people at the house, particularly one very famous in her day, Nance O’Neil. They say there were wild parties and Emma did not approve. No such thing happened. Oh, Lizzie did invite theatre people over. She enjoyed them. She talked literature with them—she was such a reader. She admired their craft and the backstage stories they told. Wild parties? No. The affairs she gave were no noisier than the string quartets she would hire to play pleasant background music. She served the best food. And she did let her guests drink. She herself did not imbibe. But she told Emma that it was in their nature to drink, and she could not change their natures now. I understand she lived by that same philosophy.
“I won’t touch the homosexual theory. There never was any proof to that and I doubt any will ever surface. I have been a widow for a good many years, and I know that one can truly live in celibacy.
“In 1905 Lizzie had several servants working for her at Maplecroft. One of them, Hannah Nelson, was my grandmother. She was a housekeeper and lived right there, in Maplecroft. She was born in Sweden and came over to this country to find work. After working for one or two families in the area, she eventually was hired by the sisters. It’s often said that Lizzie held the reins at the house, but Lizzie and Emma made household decisions together.
“When my grandmother worked there, a girl named Ann did too. A quiet little thing, with brown hair and dark eyes. She and my grandmother became good friends. They both enjoyed working for Lizzie. Lizzie was a good employer. She paid good wages and treated her hired help like real people. She talked to them. She wanted everyone to be happy, so if she heard of something distressing going on with one of the staff she would try her best to fix it and often did.
“There was a man working there, too—Tatro. Let me spell that for you: (She spells the word here. – CS). A ladies’ man he was. He was very handsome, and he knew it. There was barely a woman that got around him that he didn’t try to dally with. He was the coachman. The sisters rarely went out and Tatro would often idle his time away, still getting full wages even if it had been a week or more since he had to take the carriage out. Emma disliked the man thoroughly. From seeing photos of her myself, maybe it was because he didn’t pay attention to her like he did nearly every other female. Emma got herself worked up and got to believing Tatro was evil. She went and talked to her minister about it. ‘Yes,’ Reverend Buck said. ‘Tatro should go.’ When Emma relayed the words to Lizzie, Lizzie was reluctant to fire the man. He often kept her in stitches with his naughty sense of humor. But she did fire him. He had another profession and he went back to that.
“After my grandmother had been working there about a year, Lizzie went and hired Tatro back when their coachman decided to go to Africa to make a fortune in ivory. Of course it didn’t set well with Emma and she stayed in her room for most of 1904. Lizzie once made the comment, “Oh, let the old crow sulk.” Well, one day Emma did come out of her room when Lizzie was away for the week, and she ran across Tatro and Ann having sexual relations in one of the rooms downstairs that didn’t even have any draperies covering the windows. She dismissed them both on the spot. Ann left in tears but Tatro had the nerve to refuse and wait for Lizzie. “I think I know your sister better than you,” he said, flashing his smile. Tatro picked Lizzie up at the train station in a few days. He gave her his side of the story, and hard telling what that was. When she got home, Emma told her what had gone on and Lizzie did not believe her. Emma was incredulous. She had believed Lizzie during that mess in 1892. Lizzie didn’t believe her? Emma moved in with the Buck family that night. They were glad to have her, if nothing else for her recipes for canned green beans and minute rice.
“When my grandmother got pregnant in 1908, Lizzie then believed Emma. But it was too late. She fired Tatro on the spot and tried to contact Emma to apologize and ask her to come back, but she could not find out where she was. She did hire a Pinkerton man, and he found her in New Hampshire. Lizzie thought more about it and wrote her a note apologizing but left out the part about asking her back.
“The pregnancy was not an easy one for her. Lizzie took excellent care of my grandmother, bringing her bowls of cold mutton soup and small plates of meatloaf in bed, but eventually all the trips up and down the stairs to my grandmother wore her out and she had to go to Marion to rest. As for my grandmother, she ended up in a hospital in Rhode Island, with Lizzie checking on her condition often. On July 3, my grandmother gave birth to my mother. My grandmother died a few hours later.
“When my grandmother died, she had written a note that was found in her hand. If you read it from right to left it makes it easier: nampahcyrrehsmorfyadslooflirpayppah. My grandmother never did learn good English. And that is the true story of why Emma left Maplecroft. I am glad that the truth will now be told. Write soon, Claire. And the next time you are in Fall River, please stay longer.”
