{"id":4676,"date":"2018-07-17T16:34:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T20:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/HatchetOnline\/?p=4676"},"modified":"2024-07-31T14:27:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T18:27:05","slug":"the-real-andrew-borden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/the-real-andrew-borden\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Andrew Borden"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sherry Chapman<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

First published in Spring, 2012, Volume 7, Issue 2, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The new Bible on Lizzie Borden, Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and Her Fall River <\/i>(by Michael Martins and Dennis Binette, c 2010, Fall River Historical Society, Fall River, Massachusetts) is truly a masterpiece by accomplished historians. That is why it is surprising that virtually nothing was found on Andrew Borden by probably the most diligent of researchers. Maybe they simply didn\u2019t know where to look.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not to pretend it was easy to find anything beyond what has been already known about him, I was a girl on a mission. (If Emma and Lizzie can be called \u201cgirls\u201d anyone can.) I spent innumerable hours that turned into days that were easier to count including, but not limited to, libraries, courthouse documents, and entire newspapers on microfilm. Now there\u2019s an activity for the Church of the Latter Day Saints\u2014to make an alphabetized index of the old newspapers at the Fall River Library. Still I had paltry finds; enough to submit to Mondo Lizzie<\/i> perhaps.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I quit. I was spending too much time on this, getting motion sickness from the microfilm images as I scrolled them and probably burning my corneas from staring at that small, old fashioned print.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes when you quit something and take a breather, relieved that that part of your life is over, things happen. My happening occurred in a restaurant. (I would say the name of it but frankly their service was sub par.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Hungrily into my salad, I was suddenly patted on the shoulder. I thought a fellow patron was trying to give me the Heimlich maneuver so I said, \u201cI\u2019m not choking!\u201d When I talked with my mouth full, a chunk of ham went down my throat. The kind stranger in back of me said, \u201cWell that\u2019s good!\u201d As I tried to get through to him that I was now indeed unable to breathe, the Good Samaritan whacked me on the back. \u201cHow the heck are ya?\u201d too loudly and too close to my ear. I would have elbowed this troublemaker but his whack made the ham go down. Turning, there stood my good friend of some years, Jules Ryckebusch. Exchanging a quick hug, I motioned to one of the empty chairs and he sat down.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been ages!\u201d he said with his usual exuberance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cToo long.\u201d I smiled. When you are with Jules Ryckebusch, you cannot help but feel his warmth and that kind, kind face. I asked him what brought him out during the daytime hours (for some reason I had only seen him at night), and he joked about being a vampire, which wasn\u2019t all that funny but I really like this man. And I was also about two bucks short of my lunch bill. I laughed a little longer than I normally would.<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing I like about Jules is he is constant in his habits for the most part. His conversation is enthralling and fun. You never know what he\u2019s going to say. But his mannerisms, his basic dress, even his after shave has never changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

I doled out my usual jokes about it (I did every time we met, and I think he had come to expect it). But this time I asked the name of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh! Um \u2026 um \u2026 Ah! It\u2019s called \u2018Andrew\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you seem to be wearing it every time I see you? Did somebody give you a case of it one Christmas?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He shrugged. \u201cIt\u2019s still the one bottle I\u2019ve had since the hundredth anniversary of the Borden murders,\u201d which was about 20 years ago. \u201cI don\u2019t get out much.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long before conversation turned to my quest for something on Andrew Borden. \u201cThere just isn\u2019t anything out there,\u201d I semi-whined. \u201cIt\u2019s like unreal. How can someone live a pretty public life for 70 years and the only thing we know about him is he wore black and kept a baseball bat under his bed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d Jules asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re kidding. You didn\u2019t know? I thought you were the Granddaddy of this Liz Biz.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, there are a few things I forget after a while. But not that many. I have some things in a file at my house on Andrew Borden. I don\u2019t want to say who gave them to me, but you\u2019re welcome to peruse them. If you searched that thoroughly, though, you might already have the same info.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I had to confess. \u201cI did skip the Q and X files in Taunton. I was tired\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll pay my bill and meet you at my house?\u201d and he was up and off on his long legs before I could answer\u2014or ask him for the two dollars I was short on.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He had two file folders to hand me. \u201cDon\u2019t get too excited,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of it is correspondence that goes with the good stuff.\u201d He offered me a cup of tea I said \u2018yes\u2019 to, as he left the room and left me with the files. I didn\u2019t know when he came back, when the tea kettle went off, or if he brought me any, I was that absorbed in the papers. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of him in his chair, watching me, smiling at my enthusiasm.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hated to, but I had to. \u201cJules, do you have some paper I can write on?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course.\u201d As he rose to get it I thought I might as well get the other embarrassment out of the way. \u201cAnd maybe a pen?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He laughed. \u201c Marlie. Always the writer without a pen. Don\u2019t ever change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He furnished me with a new legal pad and a pen that was too nice. I don\u2019t mean to be, but I am a pen stealer from way back. I made a mental note to be sure I didn\u2019t take this one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently Andrew Borden was not a very handsome child and got little attention from home or school. A theory was that it led Andrew to gravitate more toward things instead of people. As a small child, he often could be seen by the hearth making little dollar bills out of paper and colored wax, the precursor to crayons. It was harmless enough, until he tried to spend some at a store. Luckily, he was so young and the clerk laughed him back out the door.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andrew showed a propensity toward keeping things. I suppose today he would be called a \u201choarder.\u201d But since his father sold trash for a time, there was little for him to collect. So he got a small box and collected the mouse droppings that were constants in their Ferry Street home. He was moved to tears when they were found and thrown away. Andrew commented years later to John Morse (his brother-in-law from his first marriage) that it was the only time he can ever remember crying.<\/span><\/p>\n

The family ate a lot of fish\u2014the fish that his father (later a fish peddler) could not sell. By then it was past its expiration date, if they had one back then. From this, it is assumed that Andrew developed his cast iron stomach that allowed him to eat leftover leftovers as long as it took to finish them. However, the only fish he cared for in his adult life was swordfish, one of the fish his father never sold.<\/span><\/p>\n

It cannot be agreed upon when he acquired a phobia, but it is known that he had an unexplained fear of axes. He never used one, even when he did away with a flock of pigeons in his barn in his later life.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an adolescent, Andrew Borden was low keyed, compared to most others. One thing about him that does survive is that after he moved out, he used to joke that Ferry Street was where all of the homosexuals in Fall River lived. It is not known if Andrew was actually against this population, or if he simply thought it was a funny joke. He was an undertaker. Who can figure undertakers?<\/span><\/p>\n

Evidence has been found that Andrew did serve in the Civil War. He was in the 91st<\/sup> Fall River, Massachusetts unit under General George C. Browning\u2014alternatively known as \u201cThe Bloomer Loomers.\u201d It was said that all of the homosexuals in the Civil War armies were in that group.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While in the Union Army, he did not understand why fellow soldiers called him \u201cMajor Tight,\u201d no matter how often he told them he was not a major and his last name was not \u201ctight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to a medical source, Andrew did not wear a truss out of necessity. He used it to conceal money upon his person. He was probably right in thinking chances are no one would look there.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is entirely possible that he mellowed as he aged. Correspondence shows that Lizzie\u2019s Grand Tour in 1890 was a present from her father for her 30th<\/sup> birthday. Andrew did indeed send his youngest daughter funds during her European trip. Apparently he had little choice, since she wrote him that if he could not send her some money she would not be able to return home. Lizzie\u2019s stepmother, Abby Borden, tried to persuade her husband not to send anything, but in the end Andrew knew he could not face his fellow Fall Riverites had he left \u201cBaby Lizzie\u201d overseas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Private correspondence also proves that Andrew did not purchase Lizzie\u2019s sealskin cape. Lizzie had taken the garment from a shop in Germany called Dilten Berther. This escapade of hers was not as easy to dismiss by the owner, as clerks at home knew they could collect the price on the tag from her father. The German police were involved, and it was only after they had a check in their hand from Andrew Borden for the cape that they allowed Lizzie to leave the city.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>There are sources that say Andrew did not sell his horse about a year before the murders in 1892 but used it to feed his family, unbeknownst to them. The only person who would be able to positively know about this would be Bridget Sullivan and, well, she simply is not available.<\/span><\/p>\n

A rare news clipping reported that Andrew tried to buy Jay Gould\u2019s yacht by trading pears and eggs. Mr. Gould was incensed. \u201cMr. Borden. An item of such beauty and wealth cannot be traded for\u2014garbage. It\u2019s obvious you have never seen men working to build a fine yacht.\u201d Borden paused to consider what Gould said. \u201cWell,\u201d he said, stroking his whiskers, \u201chave you ever seen a man laying an egg?\u201d He did not get the yacht.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, the Bordens were strange in their ways, even for Victorian Americans and the many fascinating things they had and did that seem so foreign to us. But what is probably more fascinating is that you have read this article and once again have been Prila ooledfa by Errysha apmancha. Many thanks to Jules Ryckebusch and his magical files. I really do like the man.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another work of humor by Borden humorist Sherry Chapman.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":4925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor-by-sherry-chapman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4926,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4676\/revisions\/4926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lizzieandrewborden.com\/hatchetonline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}