Lizzie Borden Society Forum

From Radin, page 50, paperback edition. Here's something I don't remember reading before:

"...She actively participated in many of the women's groups in her own church, and was one of the leaders of the Christian Endeavor Society. She also volunteered her services to the Mission Church on Pleasant Street and for several years taught a Sunday school class of Chinese men; later she taught a class for girls employed in the mills. ...."

Radin does not list a source and thus creates yet another question to be answered.

Hmmmm, that sounds so familiar for some reason? I wonder if I read that in one of the other authors who possibly got it from Radin? I'll have to hunt and see what I can come up with. I wonder if there was any language barrier when Lizzie was teaching the Chinese men? If there was an interpreter? Was she in her glory being the one in power, or was every day a power struggle like the story where Lizzie was supposed to have lost control of the Sunday school class and was deeply affected.

I had read that Lizzie taught one Chinese man in Sunday School.

I bet Gramma might know whether Lizzie taught mill girls- her grandmother was a servant at Maplecroft.

But her grandmother and Nellie McHenry were mill girls- maybe they are who she "taught"?

It's ringing faint bells for me, too. I'll look around a bit. Meanwhile here's a snippet from Robinson's closing at trial:

" ... our human experience teaches us that if a daughter grows up in one of our homes to be 32 years old, educated in our schools, walking in our streets, associating with the best people and devoted to the service of God and man, binding up the wounds of the unfortunate, teaching the ignorant and down-trodden, spending her life for others, it is not within human experience to find her suddenly come out into the rankest and baldest murderess."

Gramma has no idea if Lizzie taught Gertrude Russell or Nellie Miller while they were employed at the Kerr Thread Mill. I do know my grandmother was not ignorant and had her own church involvment.
Oh, how I wish she HAD know Nellie McHenry and had told me stories from her!!!

It was an intriguing thought as I read the previous posts, that Lizzie might have taught them. She did instill a love of reading the classics in Grandma.

Gramma

I apologise- I'm confused.
Gramma, your grandmother might have gotten Nellie the job at Maplecroft when she left service to go court & be wooed, and you have a photo of the 2 of them together out on the farm?

Are you saying that they knew each other but that your Grandmother did not talk about Nellie to you?

Kat,
Grandma's friend and Lizzie employee was Nellie Miller, not Nellie McHenry as you stated above. I was just saying I wish it HAD been Nellie McHenry because I might know more about what went on with the Trickey McHenry affair.

Gramma

Thanks! My mistake.
I'm sleep-deprived.

Replying to my own post on Lizzie as a teacher. From Rebello, page 11:

""Lizzie Borden: Her School and Later Life - Noble Woman, Though Retiring," Boston Daily Globe, Sunday, August 7, 1892: 6.

"She was given a class of rough, untutored boys and labored with them until her courage was almost gone and then she was given some girls to teach. Also connected with the church is a Chinese Sunday school and Miss Lizzie took one of the men to instruct. She had good success and her pupil has since left Fall River."

I would have paid to see Lizzie with a class of rough, untutored boys.

Thanks, Harry. Perhaps it was the rough untutored boys that caused that story to come about, the one where she was inordinately upset when she had lost control of her class. It makes me wonder if Lizzie was quick with the ruler......WHACK!???

I hate to merely comment but that was pretty funny Susan!

Lizzie would have been a good school teacher. She loved kids and animals.

Wow this is from 2 years ago!
Are you in the archives again?

Harry @ Tue Apr 27, 2004 8:56 pm wrote:From Radin, page 50, paperback edition. Here's something I don't remember reading before:

"...She actively participated in many of the women's groups in her own church, and was one of the leaders of the Christian Endeavor Society. She also volunteered her services to the Mission Church on Pleasant Street and for several years taught a Sunday school class of Chinese men; later she taught a class for girls employed in the mills. ...."

Radin does not list a source and thus creates yet another question to be answered.

Edward Radin went to Fall River around 1960, the 100th anniversary of Lizzie's birth, and interviewed local people for his book. He may have also researched the official records, if any, for this. Radin was a reporter for a NY newspaper (Herald-Tribune) who covered hundreds of murder trials.
There are reporters who do this today.
PS
If nobody objected to this when the book was published, you can correctly assume that this was the accepted story.