Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Hi All,

Recently, someone had some newspapers with assorted Lizzie stories for sale on Ebay (I can't find them now). A couple of these papers headlined Lizzie's death in 1927. One in particular mentioned that the undertaker was at work at Maplecroft, as indicated by the undertaker's car there. Another paper showed workers in Oak Grove cemetery tamping down the earth over Lizzie's grave.

This made me wonder: was there a wake for Lizzie? If so, who attended? Is there record of it anywhere?

Just me being curious....

Here is what I found in the Lizzie Borden Sourcebook:

From othe Boston Sunday Herald, June 2 1927, "The Housekeeper and others who had been in touch with Miss Borden refused to talk and the onlyl statement was that the funeral service would be private."
From The New York Times, "Funeral arrangments have been kept secret to prevent a gathering of morbidlly curious and few who saw a small cortage entering Oak Grave cemetary."

The only thing I can figure from what I have read is that if they had a wake it was probably private. But then since the trail in her later years she was pretty much a recluse and didn't have many friends.
So there might not have been one. Just guessing, and I'll keep looking too.

That is interesting question, though. I am wandering if she had a wake, too, but I'll keep looking.

Thanks Snokkums!

When I read the snippets from the newspapers on Ebay, I realized that there were 3 or 4 days between Lizzie's death and her burial, and this made me wonder what was going on during that time....

you are weclcome. I really don't think they had a wake for her. Probably because noone wanted to be assoicated with an accused axe murderer. And like I said, she didn't have too many friends.

There is the story Vida Turner told that she was invited to Maplecroft to sing at a wake and was told not to ever speak of it.

LIZZIE BORDEN:
A Case Book of Family and
Crime in the 1890s
By
Joyce G. Williams,
J. Eric Smithburn,
M. Jeanne Peterson, editors
1980 T.I.S. Publications
263
Mrs. Vida Pearson Turner, active in church society in Fall River, had a rich contralto voice and was often called upon to sing at funerals. She remembers receiving a call from a friend of Lizzie's, asking her to come to the house on French Street to sing "In my Ain Countrie." (Interview, July 6, 1979)
"I was summoned to sing. The undertaker unlocked the door, let me in, and locked the door immediately. I was ushered into a room, sang the song, and was then ushered out. The undertaker told me, 'Go straight home and don't tell anyone where you have been.' And I kept that promise for many, many years." (Mrs. Turner was asked if she wished to see Lizzie's corpse, She declined.)
Of the case, she said, "It is a thing against Fall River, I wish it could be completely erased."

--I was under the impression that she had sung to an empty room?

That is fascinating, Kat. I will have to get that book.

As you say, I wonder if Vida Turner did sing to an empty room. I hope that Lizzie's servants were present, at least. It is sad to think of her (or anyone) having no mourners.

And again, the secrecy surrounding the event is intriguing, to say the least!

I don't believe Lizzie was as friendless at the end of her life as many of the books have led us to believe. Rebello's research shows otherwise. As for her funeral, I would have to check Rebello & Sourcebook, but I think the funeral was more along of the lines of small & private because of Lizzie's notoriety. We know she had friend Helen Leighton at the very least, plus her cousin Grace Hartley Howe. Charles C. Cook (her agent/financial manager) was still around. She was very generous to her servants, who would have been loyal enough to attend the funeral. There were also others with whom she did business, who altho maybe not strictly "friends" were friendly with her and seemed to admire her. I'm sure there was a respectable funeral for her.

I have found this little tidbit listed on quite a few sites that pertain to Lizzie, don't know where it originated, but, it seems to have just been taken verbatim and passed along.

"Lizzie died in 1927. She planned her own funeral, having left a list of those to be invited. When the guests arrived, they were told the funeral had taken place the night before."

This may have originated with the tale in Lincoln about Lizzie wanting to be buried in the dark of night with African-American pall bearers so that no one could see them in the dark. Yet, don't we have a photo of the caretakers in Oak Grove filling in Lizzie's grave in daylight?

Hi, Tina-Kate!

Hi Susan! :-)

Lincoln infuriates me with her errors. Last time I read that book I cursed out loud at least once every page.

There is a newspaper article (unfortunately I'm at work & don't have access to my books) that I believe is in the Sourcebook that states it was *Emma* who had African-American pallbearers. Lincoln and/or someone before her confused this with Lizzie & yet another myth was born.

You are right, there is a photo of the grave being filled in during the day.

Here's the pic.

Yay Kat!

There appears to be a number of floral pieces in that photo. Beside those in the front there is what appears to be a fairly large wreath to the left side of the photo.

And that is Charles C. Cook patting down the sod on Lizzie's grave.
He is buried in Oak Grove cemetary just a short walk away from Lizzie.

In Kent's "Sourcebook", beginning on page 354, there is a newspaper article by a Ruth Bodwell. Kent does not list the name of the paper and the article is titled "Took 35-Year Hope To the Grave". The next to last paragraph reads:

"At her funeral the other day were some 40 people, all Lizzie Borden's friends through thick and thin. Each was invited to attend. There were many beautiful flowers and the service was the Episcopal one for burial, the pastor of the Episcopal Church in Fall River officiating."

40 people is a lot of people! Especially so since it is always alleged she was friendless. Oh, for a list of the names!

Harry, thanks for that. I have got to get the "Sourcebook"!

She left money to alot of people, I would imagine every one of them would be at her funeral. I would even guess the Humane Society would have sent someone, wouldn't they? or at the very least sent flowers. I wonder if Emma did? I'd like to see the list of those she invited too!

Charles Cook: That's real funny Jeff !

There are many stories about Lizzie which have been twisted over history, along with others that are just plain rumors.

We do not know what was said or what went down between Cook and Lizzie. She could have implied or even promised him that she would leave him the house east of Maplecorft when she died. He may have felt that he had a right to it.

Either way, Cook had an inside track and financial kitty in Lizzie. But then again, they must have been close and/or she must have held him in the highest confidence to place a property in his name.

Not to defend Cook; he was an unsavory character and proved that in the end.

Thanks for the pic, Kat, thats the one. And thank you, Harry, for that news blurb! 40 people is a good turn-out for a funeral, especially for a woman like Lizzie who was thought to be so friendless later in life. Yes, that would be so cool to have the list of mourners.

I remember someone had posted a piece of Lizzie's handwritten funeral instructions in the recent past, what psalms were to be read and what hymns were to be sung, that was a really cool find, wish we had the rest of it! Would there be a record of that kept anywhere?

Have we ever had information on Emma's funeral wishes from any source that was somewhat credible?

Harry has Lizbeth's Burial Instructions. Maybe he will put it here.

Emma made arrangements with the Orrin Gardner family at Riverby to wake her.
After she died in Newmarket her body was sent by train to Riverby in Touisset (Somerset/Sawnsea area) and waked there. In my "Emma" article in the Hatchet the people who came to her service are mentioned- some were from her charities who asked if they could be there.

Rev. J. Wynne Jones of Christ Church, Sawnsea, conducted services there on the 13th of June. It was a private affair with immediate friends, relatives, and representatives of a few charities who would benefit from her will: Prevention of Cruelty To Children, the YMCA, the District Nursing Association, and the Boys Club. 'Negro' pallbearers were employed, as an old fashioned custom for prominent persons, and Emma was laid next to Lizzie, now Lizbeth, as carved forever on her memory stone.

Photos of Riverby:









Tracy...

Thanks for the pics, Tracy!

It's an apartment house now.
I spoke by phone to a step-member of the old Gardner family that used to live there and they had absolutely nothing to say and no knowledge of anything and no interest either!

Thanks Harry for the Sourcebook article. I was lazy & did not look it up as I knew someone would have beat me to it by the time I got home, made notes & came back to work the next day to post :-)

Also thanks to Kat for finding the 'Negro' pallbearers quote.

Well, I was quoting myself.

Hey Har! Have you got the Burial Instructions of Lizbeth?

Here's a link to a previous thread on Lizzie's funeral instructions...and the funeral instructions can be found there as well as below. I got them from Harry:
viewtopic.php?t=2207&start=0

Lizzie's funeral instructions:






Tracy...

Here is my interpretation of the instructions:

"My funeral to be strictly private with a short prayer at the grave.
At the house I wish read “The Crossing of the Bar”. Also the 14th
chapter of St. John and the 23rd Psalm.
Also sung the first and fourth verses of “My Ain Countrie”.
I wish to be laid at my father’s feet.
A small head stone to match the others of my family.
Lizbeth [underlined twice] to be cut on the stone.
Lizbeth Andrews [or Andrew] with the date July 1860.
The minister of the Church of the Ascension is to conduct the services.
Grave to be bricked.

Signed/ Lizbeth A. Borden
March 31, 1919 Fall River"

Comments in brackets are mine.

Wow, thanks everyone, what a wealth of info here. Looks like Lizzie didn't have a specific choice for pallbearers like Emma did, or was it a choice? I wonder if it was the choice of the church if someone didn't leave instructions?

Here is a snippet from the New York Times.
However, they were not always accurate.

Thanks for the clipping, Kat. I find the whole "funeral of Lizzie" issue to be fascinating. Sad, too, however.

-K

If Lizzie's funeral was a privte one, with only those she herself invited, then, it was the way she herself wanted it. And apparently her wishes were honored even to the point of the woman singing at her house was allowed there only long enough to sing the song and then was shone out. I don't think the people shunned her as much as SHE shunned them.....if ya get what I mean.

Thanks, Kat. Wasn't Ernest Terry her chauffeur at the time? Odd, if Lizzie had a chauffeur why did she need a coachmen, would she still use a carriage once she had a car?

kfactor @ Tue Jun 19, 2007 4:49 pm wrote:Harry, thanks for that. I have got to get the "Sourcebook"!

I just found this link that gives you some pages from The Sourcebook!!
Cool!

http://books.google.com/books?id=y9ypEW ... +Durfee%22

Great link, Kat! Thanks for posting it.

You're welcome! I didn't know if the link would work- the one I gave for Dr. Masterton's book on the othewr thread didn't raise an eyebrow. Thanks for letting me know. The illustrations are worth saving to one's computer.

Susan, maybe Lizzie's will might let us know if Lizbeth still had her gardener and her coachman and her chauffeur around her.

Thanks, Kat, I looked. Terry and his family are mentioned in Lizzie's will, nothing about a coachman or gardener. Perhaps it was her past coachman that is mentioned in the article?

Kat @ Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:31 pm wrote:There is the story Vida Turner told that she was invited to Maplecroft to sing at a wake and was told not to ever speak of it.

LIZZIE BORDEN:
A Case Book of Family and
Crime in the 1890s
By
Joyce G. Williams,
J. Eric Smithburn,
M. Jeanne Peterson, editors
1980 T.I.S. Publications
263
Mrs. Vida Pearson Turner, active in church society in Fall River, had a rich contralto voice and was often called upon to sing at funerals. She remembers receiving a call from a friend of Lizzie's, asking her to come to the house on French Street to sing "In my Ain Countrie." (Interview, July 6, 1979)
"I was summoned to sing. The undertaker unlocked the door, let me in, and locked the door immediately. I was ushered into a room, sang the song, and was then ushered out. The undertaker told me, 'Go straight home and don't tell anyone where you have been.' And I kept that promise for many, many years." (Mrs. Turner was asked if she wished to see Lizzie's corpse, She declined.)
Of the case, she said, "It is a thing against Fall River, I wish it could be completely erased."

--I was under the impression that she had sung to an empty room?

I have alway's been under the impression that she did sing to an empty room. I think it was in "1000 of The World's Greatest Trials" book that the singer mentioned that she was led into an empty room and sang the song to no one. It seem's to fit with Lizzie's "off-the-wall" demeaner if that make's sense. In other words, it "sound's like Lizzie."

-1bigsteve (o:

Kat @ Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:31 am wrote:....--I was under the impression that she had sung to an empty room?

According to Spiering (and you know you can count on him ) she said only she and the undertaker were there. When she sang she was alone.Page 225+ of Spiering's book:

"Mrs. Vida Pearson Turner sang in the choir at the Congregational Church on Rock Street. On the night before Lizzie Borden's funeral she received a call from the undertaker asking her to come to Lizzie's home on French Street the following morning to sing "In My Ain Countrie."
When Vida Turner arrived at Maplecroft the undertaker unlocked the door, let her in and locked the door immediately.
Mrs. Turner was startled. The house was empty except for the two of them. She was led into the parlor---where the undertaker left her.
All alone, Mrs. Turner was surrounded by Lizzie's crystal, scalloped sconces, exotic flowered walls and white linen ceilings. In her rich contralto voice, she began to sing. It was Lizzie's favorite hymn, the title of which had been carved into the fireplace mantel of her bedroom following her acquittal in 1893. The words, taken from the verse of an obscure Scottish poet, Allan Cunningham, epitomized Lizzie's feelings of being betrayed---and the awful violence which followed:
The green leaf of loyalty's beginning to fall.
The bonnie White Rose it is withering an'all.
But I'll water it with the blood of usurping tyranny.
And green it will grow in my ain countrie.
When she finished singing, Mrs. Turner was paid and ushered out. She had no idea that Lizzie had already been buried during the night.
The undertaker told her, "Go straight home and don't tell anyone where you have been."

So, in Williams' book she is asked if she would like to view the body and in Spiering's she has been already buried.

Amazing.

There is also this on Mrs. Turner. On July 26, 1992 the Sunday NY Times ran an article on the Borden case titled "Lizzie Borden Took An Axe". The last paragraph reads:

"... A handful of friends, the books about Lizzie Borden say, attended a funeral service at the house on the Hill, during which a hymn was sung by the soloist from Central Congregational Church. Not exactly, Florence Brigham says. "Mrs. Turner -- Vida Pearson to me -- was asked if she would sing 'My Ain Countree' at 306 French Street at a certain time. 'So I rang the bell,' she told me, 'and a gentleman said: "Follow me. You're to stand beside the fireplace." So I stood there and sang that song to an empty room. I never saw a soul but that one man.' "

What does that mean "grave to be bricked". I've never heard that expression before.

As Harry pointed out in his informative post, Frank Spiering and the truth are often at opposite ends of the street.
Spiering claims the song sang at Lizzie Borden's wake by Vida Turner, was based on a poem written by Scottish poet Allan Cunningham.
This is incorrect. The song sang by Ms. Turner was "My Ain Countrie,", written by Mary Lee Demarest. A hymnal in the possesion of the Fall River Historical Society contains this song.
I covered this subject at some length in an article written for The Lizzie Borden Quarterly ( The Carvings of Maplecroft, Vol. 2, #6, 1995).
Also see citations in Rebello on pages 291, 321, 322, and 323.

Nadzieja:

Bricking is lining the grave site with bricks to afford additional protection to the coffin and the remains of the dearly departed.

This was a common practice in Victorian times.
It is done today to some degree in the British Isles, but rarely in the U.S.

About the only time I hear about "bricking in a grave" in the USA in the last hundred years or so is when a famous person is/was buried whose remains are to be protected from vandals. It has also been done for the graves of the world's tallest men who didn't want their graves raided by carnival showmen or medical researchers and the like. Usually it was reinforced concrete sealing those coffins but in past centuries it was brick used for the average person's grave and that was mainly to keep the coffin and body in better condition as William mentioned.

-1bigsteve (o:

Instructions were left by Lizzie herself to have the 1st and 4th verse of "in my ain countrie" sung at her funeral. This was carried out as requested. I think the 1st and 4th verses are very revealing in a way plus the fact that she wanted to be buried at her Father's feet.

Mary August Lee Demarest's Poem "My Ain Countrie"
1st verse
I am far from my home, and I'm weary after while,
for the longing for home bringing and my Father's welcome smile.
And I'll never be full content, until my eyes do see,
the golden gates of heaven, and my ain countrie.
4th verse
My sins have been many, and my sorrow has been sore,
but this day they'll never vex me, nor be remembered more.
For His blood has made me white and His hand shall dry my eye,
When He brings me home at last to my ain countrie.

So the vaults that are used in todays buriels is bascially what the bricking was used for years ago. My husband use to work at one of the local cemeteries and he hadn't heard of bricking. Was grave robbing that common a practice? People seemed alot more religious back then I would think they would have shown more respect.

Sorry I hit the submit button by accident. Do you think Lizzie was afraid that her grave would be desecrated after she passed because of all the publicity and anonimity of townspeople?

The concrete vault crypts of the grave's today are to prevent the ground from caving in.

Years ago, unlined (unbricked) graves would cave in when the wooden coffins deteriorated, much like the sink holes that are so popular in Kat's Florida.

Nadzieja @ Sat Jun 23, 2007 5:55 pm wrote:Sorry I hit the submit button by accident. Do you think Lizzie was afraid that her grave would be desecrated after she passed because of all the publicity and anonimity of townspeople?

I think it was possible that Lizzie was worried about her body being dug up for morbid reasons but if her grave was bricked she probably had it done to keep the soil away from her body, as Cynthia and William mentioned. Rich people can afford the best treatment. If I remember correctly, Abraham Lincoln's body was encased in concrete after it was "dug up" in 1902. That was to keep it out of anyone's hands. There is a museum in England with skeleton's on display and many giants had their coffins encased in concrete to keep their skeletons from public view. It was a real threat. Every giant had at least a dozen "scientists" waiting for them to drop dead and other prominent people shared the same fear. In Lizzie's case I think any bricking was more for protection from the soil than anything else. That is my educated guess anyway.

-1bigsteve (o:

Thanks for finding and posting all that Harry!
I tend to believe Dr. Williams because she interviewed Mrs. Turner, and I also tend to believe Mrs. Brigham.

Harry @ Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:54 pm wrote:There is also this on Mrs. Turner. On July 26, 1992 the Sunday NY Times ran an article on the Borden case titled "Lizzie Borden Took An Axe". The last paragraph reads:

"... A handful of friends, the books about Lizzie Borden say, attended a funeral service at the house on the Hill, during which a hymn was sung by the soloist from Central Congregational Church. Not exactly, Florence Brigham says. "Mrs. Turner -- Vida Pearson to me -- was asked if she would sing 'My Ain Countree' at 306 French Street at a certain time. 'So I rang the bell,' she told me, 'and a gentleman said: "Follow me. You're to stand beside the fireplace." So I stood there and sang that song to an empty room. I never saw a soul but that one man.' "

Mrs. Brigham's version is the one I remember from my introduction with the Borden case over 30 years ago. The singer was asked to sing that song, was led into the empty room, sang the song standing next to the fireplace to an empty room, was then paid and left the house.

It was clear in the book I read that the room was empty. The undertaker waited outside that room. I had the impression that it was all short, to the point and very business-like.

-1bigsteve (o:

This may be one of those "Truth is stranger than fiction" sort of deals. Its almost too good to be true. Lizzie the eccentric, oddball of Fall River dies and has someone come and sing to an empty house; truly the stuff of legends.

I began to wonder though if this wasn't someone else's doing. Lizzie wrote her instructions for her funeral and it was honored, sort of. Perhaps the thought was due to Lizzie's notoriety, people who were invited to the funeral service, if held at Maplecroft, might try to walk off with things? Maybe it was thought to insure the safety of her belongings that had been bequeathed to certain people? Hence the singer performing to an empty house. Or was it? Could Lizzie's coffin have been just off the parlor?

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of leaving things to certain people, invite them to my funeral, but, don't let them in my house until it is all over!

In the photo, there is a gentleman tamping down the soil and a man in a suit watching him-I would think the man in the suit is Charles C. Cook, and not the man working on the grave???
Pammie