To Discover the Language of My Soul.....: Lizbeth Andrew Borden

Monday, October 3, 2011

Lizbeth Andrew Borden

Lizbeth Andrew Borden

Alleged Killer

July 19, 1860 - June 1, 1927

I've decided to place Lizbeth Andrew Borden- or Lizzie, as she is so fondly known throughout history- as the newest member of October's strong historical woman of the day. I think I'll do a figure from history that has to do with "Halloween" or "Hauntings" every two days, so expect a similar person on the 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th and so on....

Lizzie Borden was born on July 19, 1860; the youngest, and second surviving daughter of Andrew Borden- a wealthy investor- and Sarah Morse. Sarah Morse died in 1863, and in 1865, Andrew married Abby Gray. The girls lived a very leisurely existance, and, being over thirty by the time the murders took place, stilled lived a leisurely lifestyle at home with their father and stepfather.

92 Second Street

The Borden House then

And now, as the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast

After Lizzie's return from Europe- a gift for her thirtieth birthday- things in the Borden house seemed to break down. Emma and Lizzie found themselves pitted against their parents, and also most likely saw themselves denied a life on the Hill- the upper crust of society.

Emma left for Fair Haven two weeks before the murder, to visit friends, leaving Lizzie at home with her parents and the maid, Bridget. On August 4, 1892, Lizzie went about her usual chores after her father went to work, even though she claimed that she wasn't feeling well.

Andrew Borden's body

When Andrew came home, he settled on the sofa to take a nap, and Bridget slipped upstairs to rest, saying she wasn't feeling well. It is unknown what Lizzie did; she claimed that she slipped out to the barn to look for some tin to fix a door. At this point, Andrew Borden was killed with ten strikes to the head and face with a hatchet.

Lizzie returned to the house and found her father dead on the sofa. It was after she sent Bridget to fetch the doctor, that historians speculate that she went upstairs and killed Abby. Abby Borden was upstairs in the guest room making the bed, when someone entered and struck her nineteen times on the back of the head as she turned to face her attacker with the same hatchet.

Abby Borden's body

Once Bridget returned with help, the police discovered Abby's body; Lizzie was instantly a suspect. It is known that she was seen burning a dress with "paint" on it, not long after the murders were discovered. The trail took place on June 5, 1893, and lasted sixteen days. The skulls of her parents were used as evidence; and the fact that not a drop of blood could be found on Lizzie's person or clothing was also brought into question.

On June 20, 1893, the jury brought back a verdict of not guilty, and Lizzie returned home and she and Emma settled back into their normal routine- even with Lizzie recieving death threats. In 1905, Emma left Lizzie alone in the house, moving from Fall River for good. She never saw Lizzie again.

The axe presumedly used in the double murders

Lizzie died on on June 1, 1927, her death the result of an infection caused by a gall bladder operation. She never married, and died childless; an heiress. Her sister Emma died on June 10, 1927. Both sisters are buried in the Borden family plot. Her legend lives on in the form of a children's poem that- not surprisingly- gets the number of whacks wrong.

"Lizzie Borden took an axe,

Gave her father forty whacks

When she saw what she had done,

Gave her mother forty-one."

It wasn't forty whacks; it was ninteen, total.

One film has been made about Lizzie- The Legend of Lizzie Borden, in 1975. The film stared Bewitched actress Elizabeth Montgomery in the title role. It played on the theory that Lizzie killed her parents in the nude, and then cleaned up- one possible explanation why the police never found blood on her or her clothes.

The promotional poster for the movie

"Do please come over, someone has killed father." - Lizzie to a neighbor about her father's murder

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The Photograph in the Music Box

April 15, 1912

“They recovered two children that had been in first class. One was identified as Loraine Allison. The other was never identified.”

The RMS Titanic sinks after striking an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic on April 15, 1912, taking thousands with her. Though the majority of the survivors are first and second class, and the majority of the victims third and crew, there were a few casualties among the upper classes that have long since been forgotten with the passage of time.

Among the casualties is a young girl; never claimed, she is later referred to as Victim 281 and buried in Halifax. All that is left of this innocent girl is a fading photograph in a music box buried in the wall of an apartment building in Manhattan- discovered nearly a century later by Shaynee Wilcox, the daughter of the new tenants. Armed with only the faded photograph of the young girl, Shaynee’s determined to discover
her true identity, and finally lay to rest the spirit of one of the Titanic’s youngest victims. As she uncovers clue after clue, Shaynee soon discovers that, not only does the girl have a link to the Titanic sinking, but she also has a link to Shaynee herself.

The Romantic Egotists

“I grew up among the great artists of Paris- Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley; Ezra Pound and William Faulkner, Picasso, Gertrude Stein and her lover, Alice Toklas, and
of course my parents Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.”

It is with these very words, that Frances “Scottie” Fitzgerald takes us back to those long ago nights in Paris; when the
world was still recovering from the destruction of the Great War, when Russia was trying to reassemble the shattered pieces of itself after the bloody fall of the Romanov dynasty and Germany was allowing a man called Hitler to start taking control.

In Paris, the wave of painters, writers, dancers and playwrights’ crashes upon its shores like the Allies upon the European coast. Sex, drugs and alcohol run the streets of grand ol’ Paris, corrupting the mind and setting in motion the wheels of rebellion. It is here, in Paris, at 27 Rue de Fleurus, that a group of expatriate Americans meet and begin turning out some of the greatest literature, art and dance of the twentieth century. The child of the couple forever known as the “Romantic Egotists”- the real beautiful and damned- Scottie tries
hard to come into her own during those muggy Paris nights, despite the constant push and pull of her mother’s erratic behavior and her father’s egotistic criticisms. Here, among the sting of smoke and smell of alcohol, surrounded by lust, love and sex, young Scottie sips her first taste of jealousy, and
discovers the cost of being famous. Into this world, Frances Fitzgerald is thrust, a silent witness to the trials, tribulations, darkness and light of a generation defined as forever “Lost.”

The Sound of Sickness

"Sickness has returned.
Cover your ears and hold your breath.
Breathing in could result in death."

Alexi Michaels has been surrounded by Tuberculosis his entire life. With his mother, he places docent at the Waverly Hills Sanitarium to tourists in Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops, telling them the history of this sad and disturbing chapter in Kentucky's history.

That same evening, while taking a private night tour of the decaying building, Alexi meets Marit, a fourteen-year-old girl who resides at the Sanitarium while she slowly dies from TB. She's watched and waited for Alexi to arrive, spending decades within Waverly's rotting walls, a spiritual shell of the girl she once was.

Over time, Alexi begins to win Marit's trust, and using a series of family photographs, Marit tells him of her unfortunate story. She knows all the secrets and stories of the hospital, including those of her unlucky family members- both hospital resident and worker.

But Marit has a secret. A secret that sent her to an early grave. A secret she's willing to share with Alexi if he gives her something in return.

Something that, to Marit- like every other patient at Waverly Hills- is worth more than its weight in gold.