Lizzie Borden Society Forum

How did her neighbors feel about her living right next door to them after she moved to Maplecroft.

She did have kids harassing her, and she called the cops on them. If you look back to some LBQ's there are articles here and there of some people that were kids when Lizzie lived in Maplecroft and they tell of their experiences with her.

Very recently, and it still might be up, on the Fall River Historical Society website there was an article about a man who went with Rev. Buck to the house on Second Street the morning of the murder. I know that doesn't have to do with Maplecroft, but it's interesting.

In Rebello's book, he has some things in it about Lizzie after the move to Maplecroft. I get the feeling that people that took the time to know her, and did not pre-judge her and stay away, found her to be a very nice and generous person. Do you have Rebello's book?

I see that amazon has his books, but it's out of my price range right now. $150.00

You can contact Mr. Rebello directly and get a copy from him for $49.95. Autograped even ! There's another thread around here somewhere where his contact information is listed. I can't find it right off hand, but I sure Kat or one of the others can direct you to it better than I. You don't have to pay $150...don't worry.


Tracy...

You can still order the book through the B&B if you hurry and order by CC, it says it will be signed, mine should be here....TODAY

Otherwise yes there is a thread about the last of Rebello's books and his contact info, get it now if you want it there are very very few left!!

augusta @ Sat Dec 11, 2004 2:38 pm wrote:She did have kids harassing her, and she called the cops on them. If you look back to some LBQ's there are articles here and there of some people that were kids when Lizzie lived in Maplecroft and they tell of their experiences with her.

Does anyone have the info for this? i've never had the chance to read any LBQ's

In The Casebook Of Family and Crime, Russell Lake had a correspondence with the editor, Dr. Williams.
Pg. 264

"I, of course, was a boy at that time. She came over to our house a great deal and I went across the street with my mother to visit very often. My mother and Miss Borden were very good friends and neighbors. To me, as a child and later as a young man, she was just as nice and kind an old lady as one could ask for. Knowing her so well, it has been impossible for me to believe such a nice old lady could have ever committed such a gruesome murder. Therefore, it is hard for me not to come to her defense whenever I discuss the case with my friends. All of my friends, even those in the neighborhood, seemed to feel she was guilty and did not hesitate to say so and act that way toward her."

Also:

"She made a big hit with me by being my best customer when I had a lemonade stand. Later on, when I left for boarding school, she gave me my first fifty cents. I was one of the privileged children who could run through her yard and climb over the stone wall to get away from the neighborhood bully. I could duck in the kitchen or the hostler would see that no harm came to me. Most other children reflected their parents' views and treated Miss Borden and her house like she was a witch or some person to fear and the house was haunted or a place to keep away from."

There are more personal opinions of Lizzie in this book, and more from Mr. Lake.
Check out neighbor info also at:
http://lizzieandrewborden.com/NewResearch/Swift.htm
from the website, which describes the Swift family neighbors.

This comes from Rebello, page 299:

Neighbors

"Bothering Lizzie, Grown Boys and Girls Unwelcome Callers at Miss Borden's," Fall River Daily Globe, May 9, 1902: 1

'The police were called to the Borden home and led to believe the "hill boys and girls" were trampling over the lawn, lambasting the side of the Borden home with decayed eggs, ringing the door bell late at night, tying the doors and calling her vile names when Lizzie answered the door. The police were unable to capture the offenders.'

Also this:

"But She Baked the Best Muffins ...," The Spectator, Somerset, MA, January 5, 1978.

'Lizzie's former Sunday paperboy, Joseph D. Hopkins, recalled Miss Borden as a nice lady who made the best homemade muffins on the Hill. He remembered her as paying on time, being a good tipper (25 cents), and inviting him in for a snack and conversation.'

Thanks, Kat and Augusta. Perhaps another reason why Emma left Maplecroft? The daily harassment by children? Lizzie must have had some fortitude to put up with all that, shunned by Fall River adults and outward hostility by the youngsters.

It's often said Lizzie took after Andrew. And Andrew - the way he lived and dressed - (and sold eggs with all his wealth) obviously didn't care what others thought. (Hmm. I never thought of this before. Thanks, Susan.)

All those years Lizzie was humiliated by his ways, and their crappy house, and her $4 a week allowance, and the chamber pots, etc., etc. - she must have had to build up a tough exterior to ignore - at least surfacely (sp?) people's attitudes toward them, or comments, or the feeling she got that others in town she thought felt. That + Andrew's hereditary inner strength I would think gave her quite a thick outer crust before Maplecroft. Once she was there, maybe it was just like it was all her life - people making fun or at least she thought they were. But it would have been much worse after the murders. I guess she could take it. I don't know how often Emma went out of the house. Maybe she kinda hid there, like she did on Second Street.

After Lizzie's death, The Boston Globe ran an article entitled "Lizzie's Ambition", which contained the following:

"In the latter years of her life Lizzie Borden retained few of her old-time friends, and they often maintained that attitude at some cost in social standing. One of them, who continued to call, said to Miss Borden that since Fall River had turned against her, she ought to pull up stakes and go to a new community and there make her home and her career, with the abundant financial resources which were hers. Miss Borden replied that she would never do so. She had one great ambition in life, which she set forth as follows, according to this veracious informant: "When the truth comes out about this murder, I want to be living here so I can walk down town and meet those of my old friends who have been cutting me all these years."

The above also comes from page 332 of the Lizzie Borden Sourcebook.

From Rebello's book, pg. 291: "Life at Maplecroft":

"The house does not wear a solitary air nor an appearance of being inhabited by a recluse. The blinds stand open and the curtains are thrown back to admit the sunlight upon the blooming plants which grow in the windows. No fence surrounds the place. While there is nothing in the air of the dwelling which indicates an unusual frivolity in its occupants, there is nothing which marks it as the dwelling of those who shrink from the gaze of the world."

Interesting thought Susan, that maybe this was why Emma left.

I found this quote made by Emma in The Lizzie Borden Source Book on page 342. I am not sure where this quote was originally published I am still looking.

"The happenings in French street that caused me to leave I must refuse
to talk about. I did not go until conditions became absolutely unbearable."

It's the 1913 Post article, *Interview* with Emma.

Actually, Lizbeth put up fences and hedges and trellis' galore.

Interesting thought Susan, that maybe this was why Emma left.

Allen, actually I was thinking that the kids' harassment in addition to other things was why Emma left. But just what all those other things would be, I don't know. Maybe Emma received a dose of daily shunning too by the townsfolk just because she was Lizzie's sister? Can you imagine what things were like when the two of them went together anywere in town? Yikes! That just made me wonder if either of them ever received hate mail?

Thats what I was thinking. Could she have meant when she said things became unbearable that it was all the harrassment by the children, and all the whispering and gossip? After she moved away, didnt she live under and assumed name? Maybe poor Emma had just had more than she could bare and high tailed it out of there to live a peaceful life somewhere else.

wasn't it Nance O'Neill and the theatre people that
drove Emma away?

It's probably a combination of all these things.
Lizbeth's friendliness with the coachman/chauffeur, her ostracism by the town, Emma's own doubts, the way the children treated the house like the *haunted house* on the street (Boo Radley?), the scandal of the Tilden-Thurber incident, the yearly accounts in the newspaper recounting the tragedy, and Lizbeth's preferred friends of theatre folk ...

Emma would be 54 and ready to settle down. Lizbeth would still be ready to live, to thrive, only 45, but very likely entering menopause.
Can you imagine Lizzie Borden in menopause?
(Sounds like a good inscription on a tote bag!)

I imagine that Lizzie's menopause was an event to remember. Look what it did to Edith Bunker!

LOL, Stuart!

Menopause is such an odd time in a woman's life- it can creep up without one expecting it, insidious.
Lizbeth wrote the "noisy bird" letter to a neighbor and said the crowing bothered her and she was "nervous."
I would think that her onset would start with paranoia, (whether she did the killings or not), having difficulty sleeping, mood swings. She might not have had the benefit of medical information as to what she was going through.
I think that might drive Emma away- especially a sleep-deprived Lizbeth!

augusta @ Sun Dec 12, 2004 10:17 am wrote:This comes from Rebello

"But She Baked the Best Muffins ...," The Spectator, Somerset, MA, January 5, 1978.

'Lizzie's former Sunday paperboy, Joseph D. Hopkins, recalled Miss Borden as a nice lady who made the best homemade muffins on the Hill. He remembered her as paying on time, being a good tipper (25 cents), and inviting him in for a snack and conversation.'

Glad you found that, Sherry. Years ago I worked for The Spectator in Somerset. My boss, the assistant publisher, was Ray Hopkins. His father was the Joseph D. Hopkins mentioned above. If I'd had the interest in Lizzie then that I have today, I would have sought more info.

It was while I was editor of the newspaper's "Gateway to Cape Cod" summer tourist supplement that I got to talk to Florence Brigham at the FRHS. I wrote a couple of really short blurbs about Lizzie for the "Gateway" sections. Basically they were to promote visits to the FRHS, but this was in the '80s when Fall River was still against cashing in on its Lizzie infamy.