Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Sorry Kat. I have been looking for the last 2 hours without success trying to find the thread that you posted that picture of the guestroom with a rug where the section of carpet was cut out. It was obviously taken after the murders. I came across it for the first time a few days ago. I was going to post this on that thread.

I never seen that picture before and it brings a few things to mind. While we have pictures of some of the rooms and what they looked like back in the 1890's for most of the interior of the house we have no pictures. Unless there are other pictures that I am unaware of.

Emma probably would not have let any pictures be taken while Lizzie was in jail except for the pictures that Lizzie's attourney's took.

I have wondered that perhaps some pictures were taken after Lizzie and Emma moved out of the house. Whoever stayed there then may have taken pictures although it would be unlikely that they would have let any reporters take pictures as Lizzie and Emma still owned the house and could have evicted them for doing so.

Even pictures taken after the house was sold in 1918 could help us a great deal as the interior of the house might not have changed that much by then.

So many times I have looked at the sitting room pictures thinking that if only they had left the parlor door open so we could get a glimpse in there. The same for the dinning room. It makes you wonder about the other people that were in the house at the time. Was Lizzie upstairs in her room when the pictures were taken ? Who was in the dinning room and the kitchen ? Perhaps ther were people in the parlor and that is why the door is closed in the pictures. Also the pictures taken of the outside of the house. Was Emma in the house when they were taken ? Was she perhaps looking out one of the windows but standing far enough back not to be picked up by the camera ?

You can find my posts the way I do, if you like:
I go to my name, click on it, and go to my profile and in little letters on the upper right it says "Find all posts by Kat." Click there and scroll!

Here's the link- the short-cut.
search.php?search_author=Kat

The parlour was usually kept closed up under Abbie's regime and I never had the impression that the girls used it. It seemed more Abbie's domain. But the girls took it over pretty quick, I think, after the deaths, and by Saturday after the funeral, later in the day, they met the mayor in that room. So maybe they did not keep the parlour closed up as Abbie did.

You know, the tradition in the day was to hold the funeral in the parlour and the sitting room was for the immediate grieving family members to stay during the wake and through to the funeral.
Hence: Funeral Parlour nowadays and the term living room took over from the phrase "sitting room."
Those girls bucked traditioon by holding the service in the sitting room that was also a crime scene! That's audacious!

I haven't seen any more photos of the interior but I have read a few descriptive news articles and have had the curator, Bill Pavao, describe the inside under the McGinn's ownership.