Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I know this sounds silly, but I have always wondered what Lizzie thought at the time of the sinking of the titanic in April of 1912.
She was alive at the time of the sinking, and it was big news back then. Or maybe she wasn't all that concerned with it?

That is a good question, Snokks.

My grandmother was alive then and when I asked her about it she said: "Yea, I remember it." It was like "ho hum" to her. No big deal. I imagine it was the same way with Lizzie. I think people who witnessed, or heard of the events when they happened, did not really appreciate the significance of it like we later generations do.

It's like President Kennedy's death. I remember it happening, seeing Oswald getting shot and all that but it was like "ho hum" to me. I knew it was a big, earth shaking event at the time, but I was so used to seeing him on TV that it was like any other big event. I did not feel I was "experiencing history." Younger people ask me what it was like seeing all that unfold in '63 the way I asked my grandmother about the Titanic. I'm sure the future generations will be asking us what it was like seeing the Space Shuttle blow up. The past seems to interest the future generations more so than the generation that saw it happening.

I imagine it was probably not a super big deal to Lizzie. She probably followed it in the paper but that was about it. Probably. That is my feeling anyway.

-1bigsteve (o:

Maybe I am out of line, but for me, watching both space shuttles blow up and seeing those innocent people die is not a ho-hum thing. For me it was and is tragic. Like the 9/11 attacks...not ho-hum in the least for me. When I visited Ground Zero, the first time, not long after the attacks...I was overcome with the emotion of it all. It was like I could see the smoke, the running people, hear the screams, the crashing buildings...could smell the burning...everything. It was tragic then...it is tragic today, and will be tragic tomorrow.


Tracy...

I'm old enough to remember where I was when Kennedy was shot- I sunk to the floor in the school corridor outside of Home-Ec.
I remember vividly the day the first shuttle blew up- we had company show up at our front door before we had heard the news- they came from up north, and went to see the launch and when we saw them and heard we were reeling and sick to our stomachs and those people were then going to go to lunch- and yet they had been there at the Cape!

That shocked me. But I guess there are some who are ho-hum. I'm not judging it- I mean these people were not too disturbed- so I guess that happens.

I'm still alarmed and amazed at the sinking of the Titanic. I would think that people would be more impressed by big stories like that back then because it was an *international* disaster, and people had something to talk about and plus the story contined for a long time afterwards- and there was no TV. Did they have radio then?

I know it was tragedy then, I was just wondering what might have thought. I know what I thought when nixon resigned the space shuttles blowing up and 9/11. Just was thinking about what might have gone one in her mind.

It is not the destruction of human life that is "ho hum", that is always a tragedy. But, the passage of time takes the edge off of major events and our brains place the event into it's proper place within the flow of history.

Like my grandmother's "ho hum" attitude toward the Titanic sinking. At the time it went down I'm sure it was viewd as a major, sad event by her and the world and there was nothing "ho hum" about it at the time it happened. But, with the passage of time it gets placed within the stream of other major events like the Wright Brother's flight, World War I, the 1918 flu outbreak that killed millions, World War II, etc., etc. So, when I asked her about the Titanic decades after the event, she was probably thinking, "Yea, well, it was a big tragedy but so was WWI and the flue outbreak, etc."

When President Kennedy got shot I saw it as a sad event at that time and still do, but, we also had the recent Cuban Missile Crisis and months later the Alaskan earthquake and the Vietnam flare-up. So when President Kennedy died, to me it was only one big event in a series of big events. I didn't feel as if I were experiencing a "One Major Event" when there were so many other tragedies happening at the same time with much greater loss of life.

A week before the Challenger blew up I was watching a replay of an earlier lift-off and I turned to my dad and said these exact words, "You watch. That thing is going to blow up one day and kill everybody. You mark my word!" A week later when I saw that "This is an ABC news break..." come up on the screen I just knew it was the shuttle even though I was not aware that is was being launched that day. 911 was a big sad event I saw unfold on live TV. But with the passage of a few years my brain is putting it in line with the tragedies that happened before and those since, like the Iraq trouble.

A few years ago when I heard on the evening news that one of my friends had breast cancer I felt like someone hit me in the belly with a baseball bat. But, when I look back on that night the pain is no longer there. The passage of time heals everything.

Seeing an old antique item in a store we look at it and say, "Gee, look at this beautiful old treasure!" The original owner was probably thinking, "I've had this thing forever. Let's get rid of it."

Future generations will be looking at these events like the Challenger, 911 and the rest with the same interest we had when they happened. Unfortunately, we have the habit of losing the significance or importance of big events and end up repeating them. NASA failed to learn from the Challenger so they repeated the event with Columbia and the cause of that problem is still being ignored so I'm sure it will happen again. NASA said yesterday that the odds of the crew dying is 1 in 100. They are content with not fixing the foam.

Some people react differently to tragic news. "The Challenger just blew up. Everyone is dead. So, where do you want to eat?" Maybe it is our brains way of softening the blow so we can deal with the event in manageable pieces.

-1bigsteve (o:

Snookums - That was a very good question. I've wondered it myself.

Everything before the year of Lizzie's death, I can't help but think that she was alive then and knew of it. What role did it play - if any - in her life then?

Maybe a friend told her about it. Or maybe she read it in the paper. Or both. She may have been extremely interested in it and followed everything on it, or she may have not thought more deeply than, "How terrible!" and was not wrapped up in details of the sinking. Maybe she knew someone on the ship. Or someone who almost got on the ship.

I don't think writers of Lizzie fiction think to include a big event that happened in her lifetime, and I think that's a mistake - if they are covering that particular year. Usually books are about the time of the murders only, and I think once or twice I've read the author mention who was president and a couple other facts from 1892.

Some of the people on the ship had mansions in Newport. The Astors did. Well, John Jacob Astor was on the ship with his second wife; I think his first wife lived in the mansion. I wonder who else on board had a Newport estate. There could be a possible tie-in of her knowing someone on the ship from there, or at least knowing of them

If any Titanic books (and I think quite a few were written right after the disaster) show up from Lizzie's Maplecroft library, we'll know she was pretty interested!

I don't wonder so much about what Lizzie's reaction was re the Titanic as I do her reaction to the Jack the Ripper case. That would have been interesting to know because it might offer more insight into her emotional makeup.

I think any reactions we learn of Lizzie and anything would give us more insight into her character. But the Ripper case - cool ! Can't you just hear her telling Emma, "Now why didn't I think of that?"