lovable woman who tried, but ineffectively, to win the love of her stepdaughters." Mrs. Southard Miller, who lived across the street, described Mrs. Borden as, "the best and most intimate neighbor I ever met." Bridget Sullivan said that when she considered going back to Ireland, Mrs. Borden said she would be lonely without her. "I didn't have the heart to leave her," Bridget added.
FIGURE 2.3 Abby Borden
The reaction to Abby's death differed considerably from Andrew's. Several people, including Joseph Lemay's weirdo (Chapter 1), referred to, "poor Mrs. Borden." No one mentioned, "poor Mr. Borden" which would have been the ultimate oxymoron. The same Fall River Globe article which took a dim view of Andrew had this to say about Abby Borden:
"She had a kindly disposition . . . and was a model helpmate for her somewhat eccentric husband. She was opposed to pretentious appearances and dressed neatly and plainly; neither was she fond of amusement but rather preferred the surroundings of her home . . . Her memory will be cherished."
From the autopsy results, it appeared that Andrew and Abby Borden had been in excellent health. They did, however, have a severe gastrointestinal upset on Tuesday night before the murders. The next morning Abby went across the street to consult with Dr. Bowen. She told him that she and Andrew had vomited several times between 9 P.M. and midnight. Lizzie was less affected, Bridget apparently not at all.
Abby expressed to Dr. Bowen her fear that they had been poisoned, perhaps by some baker's bread they had eaten for supper. Bowen doubted that but advised a stiff dose of castor oil to be washed down with a little port wine. Later he decided that the neighborly thing to do was to go across to 92 Second Street and see how the Bordens were doing. Andrew greeted him with a warning that he didn't intend to pay for an unrequested house call. Same old Andrew, always looking for ulterior motives. Just for the record, Dr. Wood found later that the stomachs of the victims did not contain poison.
The Accused: Lizzie Borden
We really know very little about Lizzie's life prior to the murders. She was one month shy of being five years old when her father married Abby Gray. She had no recollection of her own mother, Sarah Morse Borden. As a child, Lizzie called Abby "mother"; later that changed. Lizzie said once, "I had never been to her as a mother in many things. I always went to my sister because she was older and had the care of me after my mother died."
Lizzie was an indifferent student, about average in intellectual ability. Teachers remembered her as a lonely girl with few friends at school. She dropped out of high school in her junior year, apparently for lack of interest. Lizzie gave her high school ring to her father; Andrew wore it on his little finger for the rest of his life.
In 1890 she crossed the Atlantic to tour Europe. No one knows what countries she visited or what impressions she brought back to Fall River. It has been suggested that Lizzie's trip abroad made her realize how dreary life was at home; that would be understandable.
About five years before the murders, Lizzie became active in the Central Congregational Church. She was the only member of her family to be involved in church work; in August 1892 she was secretary-treasurer of Christian Endeavor. As a member of the Fruit and Flower Mission, she visited the sick, the poor and the shut-ins. For several years she taught a mission class of Chinese men; later she worked with a group of young girls employed in the cotton mills.
For a woman, Lizzie was about average in height (5'4") and weight (135 lb). A photograph taken in the early 1890s suggests that she was attractive. No one ever called her beautiful, perhaps because of a certain "heaviness" in her lower face. Many said that Lizzie's best feature was her hair; the phrases used to describe it ranged from "mousy brown" to "auburn tinged". There was disagreement about her eyes as well:
"She had dreadful eyes, colorless and soulless like those of a snake" "Her large, light eyes were by far her most attractive feature"
"The eyes themselves were huge and protruding, the irises ice-blue" "She had large brown eyes"
FIGURE 2.4 Lizzie Borden, circa 1892
What kind of a person was Lizzie Borden? That depends upon whom you listen to, the Lizzie lovers or the Lizzie haters. There are, however, some areas of agreement; we'll concentrate on those.
Lizzie resembled her father in many ways. She was stubborn, assertive in maintaining her rights, and forthright in expressing her opinions. She was a stoical person who never (well, almost never) showed emotion in public. This was the quality that got Lizzie into trouble with Officers Fleet and Harrington and, through them, with the head of the Fall River police force, Marshal Hilliard. Her friends said that her calm demeanor after discovering her father's body was predictable; she always suppressed her emotions. Perhaps Lizzie herself said it best: "There is one thing that hurts me very much. They say I don't show any grief. Certainly I don't in public. I never did reveal my feelings and I cannot change my nature now."
In their attitudes toward money, Lizzie and Andrew were at opposite poles. Lizzie enjoyed spending money and did so every time she got a chance. While touring Europe she ran out of money; Andrew, much as it pained him, had to send her more. Her wardrobe was both expensive and extensive. Officers Fleet and Seaver examined the dresses in the Borden sisters' clothes closet, about eighteen in number; of these, one belonged to Abby, a few to Emma and the rest to Lizzie. Most of Lizzie's dresses were blue, her favorite color.
There was another side to Lizzie's willingness to spend money. With less than one tenth of Andrew's income, she gave at least ten times as much to charity. When the mother of one of her former teachers needed a major operation and couldn't pay for it, Lizzie assumed all of the expenses. Somehow she paid the doctor and hospital bills out of her savings. Throughout her life, Lizzie did many, many kindnesses of this sort.
Lizzie was extraordinarily sensitive to rebuff or disapproval. Victoria Lincoln, a Fall River native, explained this by saying, "Her need to be loved outstripped her ability to love." Her uncle, Hiram Harrington, put it more critically. "Lizzie is of a repellant disposition and after an unsuccessful passage with her father would become sulky and refuse to speak to him for days at a time."
Again, let's give Lizzie the last word:
"One thing that hurts is the malignity that is directed against me. I have done much good to people who now desert me. In my own home there are hands stretched out against me that I have loaded with favors in the past. There is no one so humble that does not dare to condemn me."
An insight into the differing views of Lizzie's character comes from two stories. One appears in the book, Lizzie Borden, the Untold Story by Edward Radin, who was convinced of Lizzie's innocence. It seems that there was a group of boys in the neighborhood who lusted for the pears growing in the Borden backyard. One of them went to the door and, when Lizzie answered, asked if he and his friends could pick a few pears.
"She told me we could pick the fruit that had fallen to the ground but we must not climb the trees. We soon found a way to beat that. We would sneak into the yard and shake a big pile of pears off the trees. I'll never forget the first time we did it. Lizzie gave a start when she saw that mound of pears on the ground. She caught on immediately. Her eyes danced, her lips quirked up, and you could see she wanted to laugh out loud. After that, it became a game. I know she watched us through the window shaking the trees first, but she never spoiled the game for us by telling us outright that she knew. It made the pears taste even better and she must have realized it."
Agnes
