Were the Bordens Embalmed?

[augusta]

I am wondering if Abby and Andrew were embalmed or not. I have never ran into anything saying they were.

They wouldn't have been embalmed for the funeral, would they, when the authorities knew they'd be doing a full autopsy on them in the receiving tomb the next week.

If they weren't embalmed for the funeral, there would be no reason to do it after the autopsy. In fact, during that autopsy one week later it was noted how badly the bodies were already decomposed so badly, their brains were liquified.

Hmmmm ...

[doug65oh]

For exactly the reasons you suggested augusta (the state of both bodies at the time of the second examination on the 11th) I would suspect that neither were embalmed.

It doesn't make much sense to me either...unless it had something to do with the tissue/organ examinations which were as I recall - well, wait a minute... the stomachs were removed and sent to Doctor Wood at Boston (1 Trial, pg 77.)

Wood said that he received the organs on the 5th (2 Trial, pg. 990.) So if we can reasonably presume from that testimony that the stomachs were removed on the 4th, then it would follow that there would be little if any reason not to embalm.

I dunno...

[Bob Gutowski]

Yes, as the stomachs were requested, the clear inference is that they had not been embalmed, which would have made any chemical analysis impossible.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

[Haulover]

you know, this is curious to me.......... these mutilated bodies in the house for several days -- UNembalmed?

they should have questioned the undertaker more thoroughly.

because the thing is -- it does not take a dead body long to start to smell -- i mean within ONE day.

on TV kat called this "ghoulish" (i think was the word) -- but just the physical reality of it seems awful to me. it seems to be something that the undertaker must have addressed somehow.

[Audrey]

weren't the stomaches removed before the bodies were released to the mortician?

I would think L&E would have had them embalmed if they had any say in the matter...After all A was an undertaker at one time.

[diana]

I'm wondering if embalming was standard practice in Fall River at that time. The practice of embalming in the U.S. only began during the Civil War to accommodate transporting bodies back to the families. And the first American embalming school didn't open until 1882. So perhaps the 1890's were a transition period when some undertakers did and some still didn't?
Here's a bit from a website on the history of funerals:

"Although available, many families did not take advantage of embalming, and there were no laws or regulations requiring it before burial. That changed with the sanitation movement that swept through America. Following epidemics in large communities – often due to water supplies contaminated by unembalmed bodies buried in a nearby churchyard, communities and states began to pass laws requiring embalming before burial. Virginia passed the first embalming laws in 1894. In many communities, the burial grounds were moved to the edge of the community and away from the water supply as an additional precaution."

(Source: http://www.ccgsilib.org/american_funeral.html)

[Harry]

That's a great question. The only enbalming I could find was Emma's but that was 35 years later and it was probably the norm then. Also she had to be moved from Newmarket, NH to Swansea to be waked for a day.

They were buried fairly quick. Thursday to Saturday is only 2 days. If they didn't bury them Saturday they would have to wait until Monday. Maybe deciding on Saturday precluded the enbalming.

I have to agree with Eugene in that the bodies, unless somehow preserved, would begin to smell fairly quickly. It was also August and at least fairly if not overwhelmingly hot. Maybe they used ice somehow.

[doug65oh]

Removal of the Remains to the Executive Mansion -- Feeling in the City.

Washington, Saturday, April 15.

The President's body was removed from the private residence opposite Ford's Theatre to the executive mansion this morning at 9:30 o'clock. in a hearse, and wrapped in the American flag. It was escorted by a small guard of cavalry, Gen. Augur and other military officers following on foot.
A dense crowd accompanied the remains to the White House, where a military guard excluded the crowd, allowing none but persons of the household and personal friends of the deceased to enter the premises, Senator Yates and Representative Farnsworth being among the number admitted.
The body is being embalmed, with a view to its removal to Illinois.
Flags over the department and throughout the city are at half-mast. Scarcely any business is being transacted anywhere either on private or public account.
Our citizens, without any preconcert whatever, are draping their premises with festoons of mourning.
The bells are tolling mournfully. All is the deepest gloom and sadness. Strong men weep in the streets. The grief is wide-spread and deep in strange contrast to the joy so lately manifested over our recent military victories.
This is indeed a day of gloom.
Reports that Mr. Frederick W. Seward, who was kindly assisting the nursing of Secretary Seward, received a stab in the back. The shoulder blade prevented the knife or dagger from penetrating into his body. The prospects are that he will recover.
A report is circulated, repeated by almost everybody, that Booth was captured fifteen miles this side of Baltimore. If it be true, as asserted, that the War Department has received such information, it will doubtless be officially promulgated.
The government departments are closed by order, and will be draped with the usual emblems of mourning.
The roads leading to and from the city are guarded by the military, and the utmost circumspection is observed as to all attempting to enter or leave the city.

http://starship.python.net/crew/manus/P ... lobit.html

-----------
The above is attributed to the New York Times, the day of Lincoln's death. Note the mention of embalming.

Somewhere, perhaps on a History Channel program, I had heard someone say that Lincoln was embalmed so many times before burial that when the tomb was opened in 1901, the body was still recognizable as Lincoln.

*On September 26, 1901, Lincoln's body was exhumed so that it could be reinterred in the newly built crypt. However, those present (there were 23 of them, including Robert Lincoln) feared that his body might have been stolen in the intervening years. They decided to open the coffin and check.

When they did, they were amazed at the sight. Lincoln's body was almost perfectly preserved. It had been embalmed so many times following his death that his body had not decayed. In fact, he was perfectly recognizable, even more than thirty years after his death. On his chest, they could see red, white, and blue specks — remnants of the American flag with which he was buried, which had by then disintegrated.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedi ... %20exhumed

[Harry]

Doug0h65, the book you want to read on Lincoln's burial(s) is "Myths After Lincoln" by Lloyd Lewis. It contains several chapters on the burial as well as one on the attempted kidnapping of his body. His body was moved and reburied several times.

You are right in that the last year anyway looked upon Lincoln's face was 1901, his final burial. In "Myths ..." it is described as follows:

"September 26, 1901. Only three of the Guard of Honor were
left. They came. Thirty people, in all, some of them State of-
ficials, some townspeople, crowded Memorial Hall. Once more
Leon P. Hopkins, the plumber, who had for fourteen years been
calling himself the last man to see Lincoln's face, opened the
casket, this time unsoldering his own soldering. Thirty Spring-
fieldians passed by, peering down into the hole. J. C. Thompson,
one of the survivors of that group, remembered in 1928 how he
had approached the casket.
"As I came up I saw that top-knot of Mr. Lincoln's - his
hair was coarse and thick, 'like a horse's,' he used to say - and
it stood up high in front. When I saw that, I knew that it was
Mr. Lincoln. Anyone who had ever seen his pictures would
have known it was him. His features had not decayed. His face
was dark, very dark and brown-his skin was swarthy in life.
He looked just like a statue of himself lying there."

There's also these few lines:

"Newspapers then [1865] had said that the body was enbalmed in "extreme rigor" to withstand the 14 day exhibition tour. They had called it "a shell", "an effigy", "a statue"."

[doug65oh]

I actually have that book I think... let me look. Yep... a 1941 reprint of "Myths After Lincoln." Thanks, Harry!

[Haulover]

harry,

weren't there some published photos of lincoln when the body was moved in 1901? i remember someone telling me of seeing them, and i seem to remember they said it was Life magazine. i've never seen them though. have you?

i do know if a body is very well embalmed and sealed in a coffin and then placed into a really strong, sealing vault -- they will stay as they are for a very long time. the cheap vault most people use is basically cement, but there are heavy-duty ones practically indestructible that truly seal it up.

[Haulover]

i was just wondering if the undertaker could do something about the smell-- short of internal embalming, even if just something to treat the bodies externally. this might be the case. i just know that two days untreated a body is reeking -- don't mean to be gross, but i would liken it to any meat you leave out of the refrigerator for two days. and i'm picturing the scene -- they are decked out in the sitting room with mourners, and lizzie kisses andrew.

am i just overlooking the possible fact that they were more accustomed to bad smells, just as spoiled food, horse manure, slop pails, etc.?

[Harry]

harry, weren't there some published photos of lincoln when the body was moved in 1901? i remember someone telling me of seeing them, and i seem to remember they said it was Life magazine. i've never seen them though. have you?

According to this web site by R. Norton there were no photographs taken of Lincoln at the 1901 opening of the coffin. However your memory is good Eugene. There was a Life article in 1963.

http://members.aol.com/RVSNorton/Lincoln13.html

Mr. Norton, who I had the privlege of corresponding with once, has perhaps the definitive web site on the Lincoln assassination. The above URL is part of that site.

http://members.aol.com/RVSNorton/

[Harry]

Winward, the undertaker, at the Preliminary testified the bodies were turned over to him at about 5:30 p.m. on the day of the murders. That would mean Abby had been dead 8 to 8-1/2 hours and Andrew about 6-1/2 hours.

Winward simply states he "prepared the bodies for burial".

Both of their bodies had been opened and organs removed. I would assume that would hasten the decomposition process and increase the potential for odor.

[Kat]

This is “Winwood” at the Preliminary.
It sounds like the bodies were “delivered” but you’ll notice he says that on Thursday and the bodies are still in the house Friday night, unprepared.

It wasn’t until Friday night that “Winwood” came to the house and prepared them for Saturday.
The reference changes from “delivered” to “are you through with the bodies?”

Q. Did you at any time receive permission from Dr. Dolan to bury the bodies?
A. Well, he delivered the bodies to me.
Q. When?
A. That afternoon, about half past five.
Q. For burial?
A. I presume it was for burial; there was not anything said about what it was for.
Q. What did he say when he delivered them to you?

Page 388

A. Dr. Tourtellot asked me if Dr. Dolan had given me charge of the bodies. I said no. The Doctor came along a few minutes afterwards, I said to him "are you through with the bodies?"
Q. You said to whom?
A. Dr. Dolan.
Q. Said what?
A. I asked him if he had finished, if he was through with the bodies?
Q. What did he say?
A. He said, "yes, you may take them now."
Q. Anythingelse?
A. That is all.
Q. Now when was that?
A. Well, I should think it was about half past five.
Q. What day?
A. The day of the murder.
Q. August 4th?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any communication from him after that in regard to the burial of the bodies?
A. I did the morning of the funeral.
Q. What day was that?
A. Saturday.
Q. When Saturday?
A. One of my assistants came to Mr. Borden's house, I should think after nine o'clock, perhaps half past nine.
Q. Saturday, somewhere about nine o'clock?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. What were you notified then?
A. I was notified not to bury them.
Q. But between the time of having the bodies turned over to you by Dr. Dolan, and nine o'clock Saturday morning, had you proceeded to prepare the bodies for burial?
A. I had.
Q. And were they all prepared for burial?
A. They were.
Q. Do you know whether Dr. Dolan knew that you were preparing them for burial?
A. I do not know.
Q. Did you see him up in the house there, while you were engaged in it?
A. The only time I saw him, I went in with him on Friday night.
Q. Went in with him where?
A. Into the room where the bodies were.
Q. Were they then in the caskets?
A. No. They were on boards; they were not prepared then.
Page 389
Q. Was anything said about burying them then?
A. No Sir.
Q. He did not notify you not to bury them?
A. No Sir.

[Kat]

Rebello, 103, says the funeral in the home started at 11 a.m. and that the caskets were open.
The bodies were *prepared* sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning.

[Susan]

Don't know if this helps any or not, but, it is a description of "preparing" bodies for a funeral in the late 1800s, early 1900s:

"Death and preparing the body for burial was a pretty tedious process, he said. We take this for granted today because now we have others to do these tasks for us. Years ago the family had to do this themselves. They had to wash and shave the body, if he was a male. He might have been ill for several weeks and been unshaven during that time. The body had to be dressed and a casket had to be built. Then we’d take a wet rag and wash and dress’em and lay’em out, Wilson comment. We’d keep a wet rag on their face where they wouldn’t turn so quick, you know. We couldn’t keep one out of the ground for over two days cause we didn’t have nothing to embalm’em. People didn’t think nothing about it!"

From this site: http://www.rootsweb.com/~argrant/earlyfunerals.htm

They go on to say that later embalming was available and that it was done right in the home on a cooling table, but, it wasn't always done while preparing the body due to the expense.

[weber]

Do you mean to say that Lizzie and Emma stayed in that house for 2 nights with multilated bodies laying on boards in the dining room? Did they have relatives, friends, there "sitting wake" with them? It would take a very strong woman to sit there for 2 days with the evidence of their crime in her face especially if it hadn't been planned but just a moment of absolute rage.

I wonder if, in the immediate aftermath of the murders before Lizzie was suspected by the general public, Abby's relatives were there and supportive of the girls? I am still curious if the girls had a relationship with Uncle John after the murders- other than leaving them money from his estate.

[Audrey]

People in those days were accustomed to having bodies in the home prior to burial.

As far as being a strong woman-- I have always thought that of Lizzie.

[diana]

Here's something I ran across while trying to find information on this topic.

"By the early 20th century, funeral preparation and wakes began to be held outside of the home in modern day funeral homes. However, the association between death and the parlor continued to linger.
To change this perception, inventive furniture makers and home designers invented the name "living room" to describe the parlor. This would associate the room with life not death."
Source: http://www.cola.wright.edu/PublicHistor ... rning.html

A sterling example of creative marketing.

[Harry]

Looks like the undertakers countered that with "funeral parlor" making you think their establishment was like your parlor.

[Bob Gutowski]

So, our considered opinion would be...not embalmed, correct? The bodies were not even removed from the house, were they? Of course people of that time were used to smells we can't even begin to imagine, just as some of the smells we take for granted would at least perplex 19-century folk.

[Kat]

"I am still curious if the girls had a relationship with Uncle John after the murders- other than leaving them money from his estate."

Uncle John left no money to the Borden girls, but they got some anyway.
Please see my last post at:
viewtopic.php?t=168&start=50
------

We were talking earlier in this topic about the second autopsy and the most significant thing found there was the wound to Abby's back, which then seems to have caused the officials to order the re-digging up (The final digging up) of the bloody clothing and carpet etc. which had been buried and re-buried in the yard behind the barn. I think they wanted to match the hatchet they had suspected at the time (The claw-head hatchet), to the rip in the clothing. Too bad that dress top didn't make it into the Jenning's collection.

After the partial autopsy in the house on the 4th, the preparaton of the bodies for the funeral, the week they stayed unburied at Oak Grove: Not until the 11th at the second autopsy, did they find that wound to Abby. It sounds like the bodies were not handled a whole lot or examined thoroughly.

[Susan]

That just made me think, the doctors originally may not have handled the bodies much when they noted the wounds and did the partial autopsy. But......Winwood prepared the Borden's bodies for burial, which must have included washing them to get off all the blood. He probably saw the hatchet wound between Abby's shoulder blades at that time and may not have thought anything of it as the doctors had already examined the bodies, so, no mention of it from him.

[keim]

Talk about morbid curiosity!
But this thread has been very interesting!
Harry and Doug, thanks for the Lincoln story. I can't even imagine the mood of that last "viewing"! It must have been incredibly reverent, but with a bit of ghoulish fascination, mixed with the desire to see an american icon. I would have certainly looked!

For me, the dining room of the Borden house, where I believe the bodies layed, was as infamous to me as the parlor and the front bedroom. During breakfast at the house, I tried not to think too much about what that room was like after 2 days!
As revolting a thought as rancid mutton and fish!

[theebmonique]

Wow...the caskets were open at the wake ? Maybe seeing Abby wouldn't have been so bad...but Andrew ??? If Lizzie did it...how could she stay there looking at what she had done ?


Tracy...

[doug65oh]

I wondered about that too Tracy. I know if it had been me, I'd have left the place, never to return!:lol:

It's important to remember tho...death, you might say, has been taken differently in different times. Public executions at times were like carnivals; everybody turned out, nearly.

One of the popular exhibits Matthew Brady ever assembled was a montage entitled "The Dead of Antietam." Public response at the time was astounding.

The New York Times wrote of the Brady exhibit:

"The dead of the battle-field come up to us very rarely, even in dreams," wrote a reporters for The New York Times.

"We see the list in the morning paper at breakfast, but dismiss its recollection with the coffee. There is a confused mass of names, but they are all strangers; we forget the horrible significance that dwells amid the jumble of type ... We recognize the battle-field as a reality, but it stands as a remote one. It is like a funeral next door. It attracts your attention, but it does not enlist your sympathy. But it is very different when the hearse stops at your front door and the corpse is carried over your own threshold...Mr. Brady has done something to bring to us the terrible reality and earnestness of the War. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our door-yards and along [our] streets, he has done something very like it."
http://www.wpt.org/civilwar/images.html

True, I've gotten a bit far back, but hopefully the point isn't lost. I just looked at the Rebello actually, and discovered that the Boston Globe estimated some 2,500 people packed into the immediate vicinity of the funeral...page...103, paragraph 2.

[Kat]

And here I was, reading John Douglas, and wondering if Lizzie did it, did she keep a trophy?

[Audrey]

Wow...the caskets were open at the wake ? Maybe seeing Abby wouldn't have been so bad...but Andrew ??? If Lizzie did it...how could she stay there looking at what she had done ?


Tracy...

Didn't they have Andrew laying on his side??

In my opinion a peson with the wherwithall to hack a couple of people to death has nerves of steel and remaining in a house with their bodies on the dining room table or looking at their bodies in their caskets is easy for them. They have already depersonalized the victims-- including what is left of them once they are finished with them...

[theebmonique]

Good point Audrey. I didn know they had him on his side. That seems very strange. Maybe it's just one of those "back then they did things different" thing...


Tracy...

[Kat]

I think they only needed to turn Andrew's head to the side.
If Lizzie saw them *as in life*, she may have made herself believe it never happened- if she did it.

I have heard no oral or written tradition that the Bordens were *waked*, tho I'd think they should have been. Just the funeral in the house with invited guests, and then the service at the grave which was very short.
I don't think the girls got out of their carriage...

[augusta]

The undertaker's name was James Winward. Annie White, the stenographer at the hearings and trial, or at least most of them, sometimes wrote "Winwood" because of the beautiful Boston/Cape Cod accent they have out there. Saying "Winward" came out "Winwood", because they don't say their "r"s most of the time. Try saying 'Winward' without the 'r'. It's neat.

Right, the doctors didn't do much on August 4th except take out the stomachs to have them tested for poison. They also collected the milk to test. They had their hands actually in Abby's wounds (I think Dr. Bowen was one). They were touching them a lot. But the flap on Abby's back wasn't discovered until the complete autopsy was done at Oak Grove, like Kat says. I don't know if they knew to look for 'defensive wounds' back then. So much we do today was not in vogue then.

The amount of time a body stays well preserved, I have learned, is dependent upon the skill of the embalmer. I think today, tho, embalming is pretty much standardized, and the people who do it go to school for it and they're all taught pretty much the same way.

The last I heard a mortician speak of it, he said that an embalmed body stayed as it is the last time you see it for 50 - 75 years.

On some tv show, they exhumed the body of Medgar Evans. And they showed him. That was 30 or 40 years ago that he died. He looked fine. The only thing was, there were some wisps of mold starting to come across his face and on his clothing.

The smell, I think, was worse than meat going bad. A body has all these gases that start coming out not long after the person is dead.

Did you know that sometimes a body will actually EXPLODE in their coffin from the built up gasses? Today they do a procedure so that won't happen.

Nobody sat with Andrew and Abby and had a "wake". Wakes were held in large part in case the person wasn't dead. In their case, there wasn't any doubt they were dead. People were terrified of a premature burial. Years ago, it has happened that a person pronounced dead was only comatose. That caused some people to get specially made caskets - ones that had an air hose leading from coffin to the outside, so they could breathe if they woke up after they were buried. Some had bells on them that the person in the casket could ring.

There was a place in Paris where, for a price, bodies were kept in beds for a long time, amidst tons and tons of flowers (probably for the smell) to make sure they were dead. I saw a picture of it once - it was like a hospital ward. And they had strings on their fingers so they could sound a bell or something to alert the people on duty there.

Death is fascinating. Society has made it a kind of "taboo" subject. And if you think about it, it's ridiculous because it's, uh, out there.

One day when I worked as a secretary, my co-worker said, "If I die, I hope I go in my sleep." And I said, "What do you mean, 'IF'?"

[Kat]

Thanks for the extra info!

In this situation, with no wake needed, I was more thinking of *waked* as in someone chaperoning the bodies, staying with them out of respect and mourning- and also as a *guard* so no one tampered with the *body of the crime.*
That is what I meant by "they should have been."

[augusta]

Lizzie took a trophy. The money.

[Kat]

If she was responsible for the robbery the year before, then some things she lifted could very well be perceived as trophys. Think of the power thrill that would give her to steal from the Bordens, Sr.
Especially if she was a shoplifter. That would be an escalation in her pre-offence behaviour and she could be seen as thumbing her nose at those people.
I still wonder if she killed, if she kept some hair or something.

[doug65oh]

You know, that's an interesting thought. Had she wished, Lizzie could have kept locks of hair and never an eyebrow would be raised, because such things were so common. (Actually they still are, because somewhere here in a book there's a lock of reddish-brown hair from my first haircut - good grief, I think I was two or three years old then!!)

[Audrey]

I think that in her own mind--Lizzie had removed herself from her guilt to such a degree that she truly believed she was innocent. I also think she could have passed a polygraph... She would not feel the need to gloat over a trophy and if she could have she would not even have remembered her crime(s).

[Nancie]

these last posts are assuming she was guilty,
robbery is not close to cold hard murder of
ones parents. I've been stuck on the butcher theory
for quite a while...Morse living with the butcher and
being such a mystery character...Jefferey's theory..
Gramma's theory... so much more than "Lizzie did it" is out there. ain't this fun?

[Kat]

Yes we're working that theory that Lizzie did it...as a
*Suppose.*
I'm reading John Douglas for "Deputy", tho maybe he doesn't know it.
I got it from Inter-library loan.
(That's why I am writing like a Profiler - it's catching)

He talks about stressors that can set someone off to kill. He talks about those signs from adolescence, and I think shoplifting might apply to our girl because of the anecdotal material on that. Plus the Tilden-Thurber affair. All was not right in her world.
The things Lizzie might have done in her earlier life leave clues as to whether she could become a killer.

[augusta]

Interesting thoughts! Hope you can share some of that profiling stuff and how it fits with Lizzie with us, on here or in The Hatchet, Kat. That's true - her kleptomania was some kind of sign something was wrong.

I think there is also something behind that stuff she told Alice Russell - the part about her friends asking her what's wrong while out having a good time - how she explained how she felt sometimes. It sounded like some kind of mental impairment.

She had "those eyes". And her mother had worse ones. Those headaches her mother got - and her sudden temper outbursts. I always thought something from Mama trickled down to Baby Lizzie.

I am into the butcher theory, too. It makes the most sense all the way around, so far.

Yes, I think Lizzie could pass a polygraph test, too. She seemed to be one of those types that could do it.

[Susan]

Just the funeral in the house with invited guests, and then the service at the grave which was very short.
I don't think the girls got out of their carriage...

I was just rereading Porter's The Fall River Tragedy and came across something I had missed in the past, don't know if we can validate it or not?

Page 32:

"The procession arrived at the cemetery about 12:23 o'clock, when several hundred people stood about the grounds awaiting the burial. The crowd was kept back by a dozen policemen under direction of Sergt. John Brocklehurst. No one left any of the carriages during the ceremonies except the officiating clergy, the bearers and Mr. Morse."

I thought that was interesting if true, Lizzie and Emma and the rest of the mourners stayed put in their carriages and John Morse got out. I wonder why? He didn't seem to broken up about it the day of the murders.

[Kat]

Oh I remember that! Thanks, Susan!
Maybe he was still looking for the weapon, or making sure he got that Prince Albert coat!
I wonder if Morse knew that the bodies would not be buried and when did he know it?

I had heard that it was sort of unbecoming for a lady to get out of the carriage for the burial. The men could get out but the women usually didn't. It's not something I can source, just something I picked up. So Morse was it.
Anyway, the graveside rigamerole was supposedly going to be very short.

[Audrey]

What I wouldn't give to search Maplecroft from stem to stern and find a ghoulish memento mori hiding somewhere....

They may not have emerged from their carriages as there was no "stoop" available for them to climb down on.

[Susan]

Oh I remember that! Thanks, Susan!

You're welcome, Kat. Ya' know, one thing I just thought of, how close is the road or path to the Borden plot? Could it be possible that the carriages were close enough to view the proceedings without the participants getting out? Or, was it possible that the carriages were driven directly onto the grass alongside the graves?

I'm also wondering if cemetary was covered with grass in 1892 or was it still mostly dirt? Might be a reason for the ladies to not get out of the carriages if it was mucky around there, long skirts to drag in it.

[lydiapinkham]

The open casket always seemed strange to me , but Susan's info about the wet cloth makes it easier to picture. A closed casket would probably just intensify the smell. Didn't they have a funeral parlor in Fall River? Natural death was commonplace, but I would think these circumstances would have put even a stern Yankee off a bit. Maybe they just avoided the parlor until the bodies were buried. . .

--Lyddie

[Curryong]

Take a look at this thread which is a good one. Consensus is, no embalming, but hot Summer days, Thursday to Saturday, I think the household would be avoiding the parlour, somehow!

[irina]

I live pretty close to nature and observe a lot of natural stuff. Say one is hunting, maybe shoots a deer; the first thing is to gut the animal, skin it and open the carcass to cooling air to prevent spoilage. Decomposition starts with bacteria in the guts. I know in the case at hand the stomachs were removed but I assume other internal organs were left. Ancient Egyptians removed the internal organs and brain to prepare for mummification. Egypt also has a very dry climate. I would assume all of Massachusetts has a moist sea air. In the case at hand there were horrific wounds to heads.

I think I read somewhere that ice may have been used with the Bordens. It was sometimes used for cooling purposes. Even so enzymes go to work in flesh. Rigor mortis is like a muscle spasm that only breaks when enzymes begin decomposition.

In the wild anything that dies in the heat of a year attracts flies. Even one fly lays trillions of eggs. I do exaggerate with the word trillions but there are many eggs. These hatch rapidly. I am sure Fall River was full of flies. Flies go to any body opening first if there are no wounds or lesions.

I too have thought about living with those bodies in the house if Lizzie was guilty. I do think if she did it she would have someway rationalized or had a form of amnesia. On the other hand she just might be innocent. If she couldn't manage a mental trick she could have stayed in bed with "nervous collapse" or some other good Victorian ailment.

Remember, Lizzie kissed her father's lips as he lay in the casket.

It is said the tradition of flowers at funerals was to cover unpleasant smells.

[Curryong]

And I can well believe your last statement! I know it was the fashion to lay out your dead at home, so that family and friends could have a viewing, but surely to goodness in this case couldn't the Reverend Buck or someone have suggested a viewing at the funeral parlour? I mean, the police were still searching and taking pieces out of the house, which was unpleasant enough as it was. Then, as you say, there were the flies and the smells of decomposition.

(My grandmother, who died when I was in my early twenties, was laid out for a viewing in her home. She didn't die in summer though, and I can't remember there being any smell, thank goodness.)

[irina]

Did funeral "parlours" have viewing rooms in those days? Had they progressed that far? The funeral industry really got its start during our Civil War.

[twinsrwe]

On Mon Jun 02, 2008 UndertakerWinward posted (Highlighting is mine):

Embalming was certainly being practiced in the United States at this time, as a result of the Civil War. Whether or not embalming had made its way to old Fall River is another question. Most early undertakers in the Fall River area made caskets, furniture, and had a funeral coach with horses for processions. The first and only mortuary school in Massachusetts was the Oriental School of Embalming that was bought out by chemical manufacturer, Arnold Johnson Dodge who founded the New England Institute of Anatomy, Sanitary Science, & Embalmling in Boston. If I'm not mistaken, the Oriental School of Embalming was founded around 1896. Undertaker James E. Winward would not have attended mortuary school. Unless he was a Fall River pioneer in arterial injection with formaldehyde or arsenic, I highly doubt that Andrew & Abby were embalmed. When Abby and Andrew were brought to Winward's preparation room, he would have immediately placed them on coolilng boards to retard decomposition. Since he had no way of actually embalming the bodies, he most likely kept them on the cooling boards as long as possible before they were prepared. He would have bathed the bodies, posed the features (Mouth, eyes, etc.) to the best of his ability, dressed, and casketed the bodies. If Winward received the bodies around 5:30, he most likely immediately placed them on the boards, grabbed his coat, hat, and headed for the pub! Back then, there was only so much undertakers could do with traumatic cases. It probably took him all of 2 hours maximum to prepare them, since there was no embalming.
James E. Winward
Undertaker

Source: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3542

2 - ad.jpg

This ad for a 19th century cooling board, also known as a cooling table, is from the book, “The History of American Funeral Directing.” Take a close look at that illustration. The table is covered with a large, dark, fringed cloth! So, this cloth is a cooling table cover.

3 - Cooling_table.jpg

Here is a photo of an actual cooling table, without the frame for the cloth cover. Unfortunately, my museum doesn’t own a cooling table, so this image is from the website of the Rogers Historical Museum in Arkansas.

http://guardianoftheartifacts.blogspot. ... nated.html