Don’t Blame the Lizzie Borden Chronicles for Vandalism of Borden Monument
(photo by Sue Vickery)
In case you have not heard, someone or some people defaced the Borden monument at Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River sometime over the weekend. The police say that it is not gang related but the work of “skateboarders.”
I have myself witnessed people, in broad daylight, traversing the cemetery from a broken fence at the end of Sevigny Street and walk out at Vincent Street. The walls around the cemetery are not imposing and can be easily climbed. One time a guy (with a skateboard) was moving so quickly while crossing the cemetery that he didn’t even let a headstone stop him in his desire to go in a straight line from point A to point B. He simply jumped on the stone, with great balance and agility, jumped off, and kept going.
There are two vehicle accessible entrances to Oak Grove: the main entrance at Prospect Street to the west and another at Oak Gove Avenue to the east. The entrance at Garden Street on the north is a pedestrian entrance.
When it was first reported that the defacing (with black and green spray paint) had occurred by Sue Vickery on the FaceBook page Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, the outrage (rightly) began. This was followed by an article in the Herald News by Deb Allard, with quotes by Tom Eaton (Oak Grove Cemetery Director) and Shelley Dziedzic, author of “A History of Oak Grove Cemetery: With a Walking Tour of Borden Related Graves.” Shelley is the administrator of the page on FaceBook where the post first appeared.
The story has now gone viral, picked up by the AP, the Boston Globe, ABCNews, and London’s Daily Mail! Each of these reports is putting some if not all of the blame on the defacing on the premiere of the new Lifetime series The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, starring Christina Ricci.
As someone who has seen a great deal of vandalism by humans in Oak Grove Cemetery, as well as damaged monuments due to weather lying in disrepair for years, I would not place blame on a television show. This type of problem is an epidemic in Fall River and occurs every single day. An Oak Grove maintenance worker told me that one day he came to work and an entire row of headstones had been knocked over. Most often, he said, they find discarded drug paraphernalia and empty syringes lying around! The workers do what they can, but there are only three employees and a director to maintain this 120 acre cemetery and the Old North Burial Ground on North Main Street. Not enough time in the day to fix the problems that occur regularly.
While it is the first time to my knowledge that the Borden monument has been tagged like this, the headstones of the Borden family, especially the stone marked Lizbeth for Lizzie Borden, has seen a continuing rash of issues. People feel the need to place all many of crap at her stone and around the graves, including coins on the markers, leaving permanent marks from the staining of the metal through time. Worse than this, a few chips of granite have actually been chiseled from the corners of her marker. This gravesite is used to vandalism and defacement.
Last summer, I discovered that the Sarah Cornell grave was felled and left that way for way too long, so long that it was actually mowed over (accientally) by cemetery groundskeepers.
Here are but a few examples of vandalism in Oak Grove Cemetery. Photos were taken by me in June/July 2014.
When the article first appeared in the Herald News, a person commented on the story saying it was probably done before Sunday because she was there that day and it was already vandalized then.
I don’t think the television show had anything to do with inspiring someone to do this. Until they catch the persons or people responsible and they confess that the TV show made them do it, it is silly to blame The Lizzie Borden Chronicles for the actions of vandals—or even say they were influenced by the show. And from knowing how Fall River feels about Lizzie Borden (they would rather forget it), it is entirely possible that the people who did this didn’t even know who they were marking. They chose the side of the monument that is not engraved.
On the positive side, a few good things are happening from this attention to this act: increased awareness of other acts of vandalism at Oak Grove Cemetery. Perhaps now the city will devote additional resources to cleaning up the cemetery and restoring the damaged stones. Oak Grove is an important part of the history of Fall River, is very well attended, and deserves better surveillance and quicker action to repair the problems caused by people and the weather.
I say it is time for a citizen’s watch of Oak Grove Cemetery. We can help the city by informing them quickly after the desecration, altering the police to suspicious activity, and let the public know that this type of behavior will not be tolerated and that there are consequences to actions. Who’s in?
