Lizzie in Public

[augusta]

Remember the series of correspondence between Edmund Pearson and Frank Knowlton that ran in several LBQ's? I found this in a letter to Pearson from Knowlton in Volume VI, Number 3, July, 1999:

"One of my neighbors, a lady, tells me that shortly after reading your book, and being very much interested in it, she had a rather thrilling experience. She went into a rather expensive but small tailor shop run by a humble Hebrew and while waiting for her fitting was attracted by a terrible dressing down which some woman was giving to the tailor. The language was scathing and caustic and aroused the admiration of my friend, who asked the tailor when the lady left who the customer was. He told her it was Miss Lizzie Borden of Fall River."

Heaven help the guy if he screwed up Lizzie's order.

[Susan]

Thanks, Augusta, I missed out on the LBQs. This must be one of the few times Lizzie was publicly rude to a servant, outside of that one interview with a pharmacist who Lizzie allegedly bought chloroform from to kill a cat. I'll have to check later and see if I can find it, but, he says something about her manner or speech being saucy and he responded in like and it was the last time she ever shopped in his store.

Could these stories be true and that was the true Lizzie Borden? Or, was she always nice to her servants from all walks of life?

[lydiapinkham]

Wow, Augusta! I just replied to your other thread with a reference to Pearson; we must be on the same wavelength. I can imagine Lizzie bossing tradespeople, although she seems to have been especially kind to servants. I wonder why the woman was so admiring? Do you suppose the tailor was a bit bossy himself, or do you suppose she was a bit of an anti-Semite?

--Lyddie

[Susan]

Ah, I found it, Kat had posted this on the old forum:

Rebello, pg. 81
"Nailing The Poison Story / Neither Nor Any Relative Bought Prussic Acid at Brow's", Boston Herald, Aug. 8, 1892: 2.

It was claimed Lizzie made a second attempt to purchase prussic acid at Walter J. Brow's Drug Store at 62 Second Street. A Boston Herald reporter interviewed Mr. Brow to verify the rumor. Mr. Brow said Lizzie traded at his store and had known Lizzie for the past twenty years. He assured the reporter Lizzie did not purchase any prussic acid. He recalled that Lizzie stopped trading at his store about four years ago. Her last purchase was chloroform, stating she wanted it for the purpose of killing a cat. Mr. Brow states Miss Borden asked for the stuff in rather a surly manner, and he answered just as saucily. Miss Borden paid for the chloroform and went out. She has never been in the shop since."

Thats the only other reference that I know of where Lizzie was portrayed as being nasty to a shopkeep. Do you think that there may be other stories out there?

[Kat]

There is the story about the workman berated by Lizbeth at Maplecroft so that he left work and wouldn't return.
I can't seem to find it tho. I looked in William's Case Book and in Rebello.

[Harry]

Kat, it's in DeMille, page 83. I can post it if you want.

[Kat]

Yes, please!
Thanks a bunch!

[Harry]

Here it is Kat.

"Native townsfolk, however, rarely saw the inside of her mansion, except Mr. Jennings, her lawyer, summoned peremptorily to take care of this or that until he finally lost patience and declined to follow up any more of her whims.
It was only servants or workmen, hired occasionally for alterations, who got in and were able to report what went on. The accounts were meager. One of them once, though, witnessed a curious scene in connection with the laying of some bricks on a back terrace. Miss Borden returned from shopping to find them cemented contrary to her instructions. She wheeled on the laborer and without a moment's warning flew into such a white fury that she seemed almost out of her mind. Her language and the violence of her physical demeanor were horrifying. The workman left and refused to return. This incident was undoubtedly of significance chiefly because of her history. No workman would have paid much heed to the bad temper of an ordinary cantankerous rich old spinster."

Hide the hatchets!

[Susan]

Thanks, Harry and Kat! That was a new one for me. So is it possible that there is some validity to these claims and that this was the real Lizzie? Capable of flying into white hot rage over things that didn't go her way? Thats the Lizzie I can see swinging a hatchet. I realize that these stories are biased as they were told after Lizzie had been arrested for murder and people had already made up their minds as to whether she actually got away with it or not, but, could there be a grain of truth to them?

[Haulover]

i can believe these things to a great degree, because i DO see a haughty arrogant aspect to lizzie's character. after all, in the one place we get to hear her talk -- we definitely hear it from time to time. or the whole thing for that matter -- in that she basically refuses a "logical" Q&A.

i wouldn't say this is exactly "appealing" but it makes her interesting......and also quite human. plenty of people get like this from time to time who are not murderers. i think the story of the store incident and her outrage at a brick layer at maplecroft -- is very funny, funny enough i laughed aloud -- perhaps because there is an element of truth in it?

in the story about lizzie buying the chloroform to kill a cat -- why would someone kill a cat -- i mean, a practical reason? to get rid of a stray? perhaps at that time more cats roamed homelessly -- and were often regarded much as people would regard rodents? i don't know, i'm just looking for a reason other than trying to spite abby.

[augusta]

I think the Knowlton letter to Pearson was probably true - at least Knowlton believed it. Whether the lady in the store was truthful is another story. Yes, that made me wonder - what did that mean that the woman who saw her was admirable of her? Maybe she admired a woman in those days with guts enough to speak her mind as she did.

I'm glad you guys found the Maplecroft incident with the brick layer. That was a good one. The 'rage' might be exagerrated because it'd make a better story, her being who she was.

I always felt the clerk who sold Lizzie the chloroform was truthful. To spite Abby is a pretty good reason. I can't think of any other. Lizzie was a dog person. I don't think she had any cats at Maplecroft. I wonder if this clerk's story was the beginning of people making up the other cat stories about her.

I'm sorry; I just never believed in Little Abby's cat story given during her interview when she was up in age.

Oh - there's also the story of Lizzie and someone taking a walk and Lizzie coming across a cat and picking it up and strangling it, and throwing it.

She did have this personality that was more than the old New England way. Look how Harrington jumped on it when she said, "She isn't my mother. She is my STEP-mother." I never thought she meant anything by that. I always took that as she was correcting him, that's all.

It's interesting to read about the people who she hung with back then. They were no slouches. They were mostly from old money, and very upstanding citizens. She had quite an impressive crowd rooting for her.

Her being stuck at 92 Second Street and believing she belonged on the Hill, which Andrew could afford, I would think she would try a little harder to make herself snooty. Do you know what I'm saying? When she was mixing with her friends, or doing her charity work, she probably tried to at least look like she came from the Hill by the way she acted. Not saying everyone on the Hill acted snooty. But she might have thought she needed to 'put on the dog' a bit.

Remember her real mother was said to have angry outbursts and bad headaches. Maybe she inherited something like that from Sarah.

[Alice]

Haulover, have you ever seen the film 'I Remember Mama'? It's about an early 20th century family and there's a scene in it where they use chloroform to put a sick cat to sleep. Maybe people really did do this as a humane way to end a cat's suffering. No vet to put it to sleep in those days?
I never believed the 'Little Abby' cat story, either. Probably Abby's family so hated Lizzie after the murders and her acquittal that they spread as many awful stories as they could.
Lizzie's own words in her will about animals convince me she loved them, not just dogs.

[Haulover]

alice, thank you. and in fact, susan already pointed this out in another thread about the chloroform.

i wonder what the surliness with the clerk was about exactly?

[Kat]

I think the bad-tempered Lizzie is more realistic because no one set out to collect bad-tempered stories, if you see what I mean? They are something we had to hunt for and so sound more *everyday*.
I was wondering too about Lizbeth's age by now. Was she in menopause? That might be around 1905- age 45?
I was thinking about that specifically while Harry found the bricklayer cite.

As to that other cat story- I think it was told that Lizzie swung it around by the tail and let go.
It makes her sound like an Amazon!

I always picture the movie "I Remember Mama" when hearing the chloroform story.

The newspapers said Lizbeth had *back-fence* variety cats at maplecroft. If an outdoor cat got into a fight (say at #92) it could be wounded to the point of infection and suffering and hence the use of chloroform. Cats weren't spayed or nuetered yet were they, back then? Those active cats will fight!

[lydiapinkham]

I can certainly believe that our Lizzie could fly into a temper with people--especially to protect herself from shoddy service. But I don't believe she would practice deliberate cruelty to animals. They were the one thing she championed, and I don't think she simply favored dogs or she'd have specified "dogs only" in the will. She fed squirrels when most people deemed them a nuisance. I agree with the mercy killing interp. Maybe she disliked the prospect of putting the cat to sleep and disliked the offhand manner of the druggist. That would explain why she never returned.

I know it sounds strange to say you can't believe a woman who'd chop up pop would flinch at animal cruelty, but I see the crimes as murder driven by passionate temper--in keeping with the Lizzie in a tizzy stories and with the stories of Sarah's temper, a temper I suspect Lizzie inherited.

--Lyddie

[augusta]

I saw "I Remember Mama" but never all the way from the beginning. I don't remember a chloroform/cat part, but next time it's on I'll look for it.
Thanks, Alice.

I didn't know Lizzie had 'backfence' cats at Maplecroft. That's interesting.

And I never knew people would put a suffering cat to sleep with chloroform. Wouldn't it be more fair when someone wrote up that chloroform/cat incident about Lizzie that they also included that information?

I agree - Lizzie (or me, either) wouldn't go back to that clerk's store if he was snotty. Lizzie might have just been herself that day. She very well could have talked down to the clerk, and he was giving some of it back to her.

Oh my. Lizzie going thru menopause! Kat, you are amazing. I don't recall anyone putting that together with that bricklayer incident. That poor, poor bricklayer ...

[Kat]

That's funny because 1905 is about the time Emma left.
Can you imagine Lizbeth suffering through sour-pus Emma's menopause, only to have Emma split right when Lizbeth was going through the same thing?