Lizzie Borden Society Forum

After reading another post about what was Lizzie invovled with, I got to thinking. After the tial, what interests did Lizzie have. Obviously, she really wasn't welcome in the church she was involved with after the trail (who wants to be assoicated with an accused murderer?) and she wasn't inovled with the temperence moverment.


What was she inerested in after the trial?

Well, we all know that Lizzie was an avid reader, and had her own library at Maplecroft. She traveled to see plays, and got involved with the Animal Rescue League of Fall River. She loved her dogs and was good to her servants. But being that many of her friends shunned her, I doubt she had enough to fill her days.
Pammie

I just had a thought. Is it possible that Lizzie got involved in church activities, sunday school teaching, and later on charity work not because she was an altruistic person,but because that was what she thought all "high classed society ladies" did, and she wanted to be thought of as one so badly. It seemed to be her main goal in life.

Lizzie took an interest in a young boy, giving him gifts and such. She liked animals and spent some time feeding them. All of that, along with her reading and early party years, was probably all she had. I feel Lizzie was probably a very lonely woman.

-1bigsteve (o:

She was still active in charity work after the trial, but did it quietly.
She would buy hundreds of copies of brand new books from
Adams bookstore (she liked them because they would not sell Spearing's 1924 'Studies of Murder' for a time) and would donate these books to the poor who could not afford them.

I've heard different stories about her going to church. One report says she went back to Central Congregational - every Sunday.

It is a myth that she had no friends. Some of her old friends did dump her, but some remained by her side. And she had a lot of new friends as well. Even to her friends, they commented that she always seemed like a lonely person.

Do you mean Edmund Pearson's Studies In Murder?

He also has a chapter called "The Bordens: A Postscript" in Murder At Smutty Nose And Other Murders which you know of, and I only mention it in this context because the book's copyright, of 1926, seems to show that this also was available during Lizbeth's lifetime.

In that chapter he quotes from Gertrude Stevenson's 1913 article in the newspaper about Lizbeth and her friends. Ms. Stevenson claimed Lizbeth was "an outcast, an Ishmael, a social pariah." Pearson claims Lizbeth's "ostracism" was not "so severe or complete as this," but goes on to state that "What may have been true in 1913, may, of course, have changed at the end of more than ten years." Meaning, he doesn't really know if she was an "outcast" in 1913, but that in 1926, "It is not a fact...that all her friends have left her."

We do find tho, that what friends she had were either her cousin, or people whom she became friends with after her acquittal. It's my understanding that even Mrs. Brigham finally deserted Lizbeth and showed favoritism towards Emma in later years.

May I ask about the anecdote about the bookstore? I had read that, but where? Thanks!

The blip about Adams's Bookstore is in the Lizzie Borden Sourcebook, page 334. In case some of you don't have the book, it says:

"The kindest words spoken of Miss Borden were those of Laughlin W. MacFarland, proprietor of Adams's Bookstore, 165 North Main Street, Fall River, who said she did a great deal of charitable work in a fine, quiet way and was a fine, cultured woman. She bought hundreds of books from him, he remarked, to give to the poor people of the city, and displayed a taste for nothing but the very best.

"Mr. MacFarland asserted that many poor people would sorely feel her loss."

Further down on the same page is the anecdote of Pearson's book:

"Mr. MacFarland, the bookseller, mentioned that he had been much commended for never having carried in stock in his store the book, Studies in Murder, by Edmund Lester Pearson, published in 1924, which devoted its first 120 pages to the Borden murder case. The book was excluded from the Fall River public library until April a year ago. Since then, it has been practically constantly in circulation until this April."

Sorry I didn't cite this source when I posted. I posted from memory on my laptop and was too lazy to go get the book. I was coming back to cite the source this morning when I saw your post, Kat. Thanks for the prod, even tho I was coming back to cite it. It's so important to do.

Grace Hartley Howe was interviewed I think twice where she spoke of Lizzie. In one, I think the one she did in the 1940's, she said that Lizzie was not friendless, as all of our myths tell us.

I would think if Lizzie were as miserable as it's been said, she'd move from Fall River. She loved a good time! If she hadn't have probably killed her parents, I would admire her.

Please give to the Edwin Porter gravestone fund.

Thank you for all the typing! And the source!

I was figuring that there was just a typo thing when you wrote:
Adams bookstore (she liked them because they would not sell Spearing's 1924 'Studies of Murder' for a time)

So I was just adjusting it from *Spearing* to Pearson.

That led me to go look up Smutty Nose and of course read that bit and got all re-interested in Pearson again, and Gertrude Stevenson's 1913 article.

For those of you who want the whole article, it was in the free download of The Hatchet issue called "Lizzie Borden In Black & White."
If you missed that free issue, parts of the transcription are also in Terence Duniho's article "All Things Swift" at:
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/NewResearch/Swift.htm

I suppose I can download the whole Stevenson article here as I transcribed it myself for that issue. I'll look for it, if anyone is interested?

What Gertrude Stevenson 1913 article is that, Kat? I'm thinking the Boston Post one of Emma's interview from the year. Whether it is or it isn't, I'd be interested in reading it.

I wonder if Emma's Boston Post interview would be good to put on the website as a source?

Oh, geez! I did write 'Spearing'! You're right - that certainly was a typo. Thanks for catching it, Kat.


Please give to the Edwin Porter gravestone fund.

When I wrote the essay "Actions Speak Louder Than Words: The Borden Sisters, 1913" it was to explain to myself and the interested reader how the 1913 *Interview* with Emma Borden might have really taken place. I was researching that.

In Len's book he had the headline for "Lizzie Borden Twenty Years After the Tragedy," and I was interested in it and sent away for the article. Terence had used part of it as well.

Without knowing anything for sure, and keeping an open mind, my research led me to believe that that *Emma Interview* was true, because the week before there had appeared this Gertrude Stevenson piece in the papers.

Others still have a different view.

The 2 articles which appeared are:
"Lizzie Borden Twenty Years After the Tragedy" Boston Sunday Herald 6 April 1913, by Gertrude Stevenson.

"Guilty- No! No! Lizzie Borden's Sister Breaks 20- Year Silence, Tells the Sunday Post of Past and Present Relations With Lizzie" Boston Sunday Post 13 April 1913, by Edwin J. Maguire.

They are only a week apart. The Stevenson one was an expose. I thought it was possible that Emma really did give some sort of statement to the press after reading that article about her sister the previous Sunday.

See The Hatchet Vol. 2, Issue 4, "Lizzie Borden In Black and White." (Pages 6-19.)

That's the same issue your Tilden-Thurber incident (from the newspapers) assessment is!

Thanks, Kat! I will look Gertrude Stevenson's article up and read it. I'd like to know what convinced you that Emma's 1913 interview was true. The only thing I can think of in favor of it myself, is that after that Trickey-McHenry scandal I have doubts of a paper like The Boston Post fabricating a story that huge.