I can see that my initial post is in need of clarification. I did not mean that just because Lizzie was or portrayed herself as being a Christian that she could or would not kill. I was looking at the truly good works she had done in her time, works that point to a person of at least some good intention. Her love of animals is one. The torturing of animals can today be indicative of a very cruel adult; a murderer or serial killer. (I know, even Hitler had a dog - a German Shepard named Blondie. I am not making blanket statements; only generalities.) I believe Lizzie was one of the persons who actually got the Fall River Animal Rescue League started. She is on record as helping out horses - giving bags of apples or something like that. She and Emma both gave very generously in their wills to the animals of Fall River. She did serve Christmas dinner to poor children in Fall River. She treated her servants at Maplecroft very kindly and paid college tuitions of one or more servants' children. If she knew one had a problem, she was often one to give assistance wanting no recognition for herself.
I agree wholeheartedly that she hated the house at 92 Second street ("street" was not capitalized in her day). It is interesting to go there and to see how close the house is to downtown - it's like a few steps. I think I would be embarrassed, too, of my father being a wealthy businessman and selling eggs and vinegar out of his house, tottering about Fall River in the same old black unfashionable coat and stovepipe hat, picking up stray locks and probably anything still having any kind of use for it, even if he could not think of one at the moment. I should not say "tottering", because when you look at his unclothed body after his murder from the waist up, he looked to be in pretty good shape for his age. But Lizzie, I imagine, might have disgustedly thought of him as 'tottering', because I think she was so fed up with him and The Large One that she could have thrown "old" in her list of adjectives she let fly about him to Emma.
There were some occupations unmarried women in their 30's could do then. Yes, a school teacher, a seamstress, working in the mills. But not for someone of Lizzie's standing. She could get married, or she could continue to live with her father. She was tied to her father who held the purse strings that only opened to her on Allowance Day, which was paltry and she certainly could not live on that.
What made me look at the possibility of Lizzie's innocence came to me from someone I interviewed who was a descendant of staunch Lizzie supporters. I had never looked at Lizzie as innocent before; not truly innocent even of conspiracy. The loyalty there, still strong after generations, made it impossible for me to look away from that point of view. There must have existed a reason for it. The way she was treated afterwards, and to this day. My God, what if she
were innocent?
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