Emma

[Audrey]

I am very interested in hearing everyone’s views and opinions of the relationship between Emma and Abby.

There is little verifiable information about their interactions and the relationship they shared. Emma’s testimony paints a picture of an acrimonious relationship between the two and as far as I can interpret, leads us to believe that she instigated this lack of cordiality.

I have tried to imagine how Emma must have felt when Andrew brought Abby into the home and their lives. She had been taking care of Lizzie and probably had a large part in running the household. Was there a servant prior to Abby’s arrival? Did Emma take most of the household responsibility for those two years? Girls of that era grew up a bit faster than they do nowadays and Emma may very well have assumed many of the household chores and decisions about meals, housework and other things.

Several things strike me about Emma. First and foremost was her lack of any real identity. She did not participate in Church; she was not in clubs and social activities. Her “best friend” was an elderly spinster who lived nearby. We are led to believe that her trip at the time of the murders was very unusual, that she usually remained home most of the time and kept to herself.

What consumed her time? Did she while away her days smoldering with anger and resentment? Did she, as the major female/maternal influence in Lizzie’s life manipulate her into hating Abby? Lizzie referred to Abby as a “mean old thing” yet we have absolutely no documentation, testimony or even hearsay about any incidents where Abby was unkind or cruel to anyone. She was, in fact, well regarded.

Did Abby, who loved her half sister so, come into the family happily and excited to have two stepdaughters to love? Did she shower Lizzie with affection? Did Emma see this and become angry and jealous of Abby’s “stealing” Lizzie from her? Years later, did she use the property transfer debacle as a means to manipulate Lizzie into hating Abby? Remember, Andrew’s near obsession with the acquisition of property and wealth may have been the example Emma and Lizzie needed to see such acquisition as a barometer of personal success and happiness. Did his purchase and transfer of property to Abby somehow indicate to the girls that he regarded her more than he did them? It is interesting that Abby did not wish for the property for personal gain. She wanted to protect the sister she loved. Did Abby charge her sister a rent? This seems to be the only thing Abby ever asked of Andrew. Regardless of the circumstances, Andrew’s investment in Abby paid him as well as any of the financial deals he every entered into! She seems to have kept an immaculate home and oversaw Andrew’s comfort and asked for very little in return.

Another thing that comes to mind when I think of Emma is the very high credibility she enjoyed. She was treated well and never reviled in the papers or by rumor (that we know of) and her defection of Maplecroft only caused more gossip and blame placed on Lizzie’s shoulders. If Emma left then she must have had good reason. Lizzie must be a lesbian, or she must be having wild parties, etc.

Why? What did Emma ever do (apart from being away at the time of the murders) to afford her such courtesy and credibility? She did a fantastic job on the stand and her testimony had to have played a great part in the reasonable doubt that acquitted Lizzie. Granted, they lacked proof of a murder weapon and the chain of evidence for the alleged weapon produced by the prosecution was compromised and suspect. Emma had to have lied on the stand about doing dishes when she saw Lizzie burn the dress. Why was this not questioned by prosecutors? They had to have been in the house. Did they not notice the lack of a sink in the kitchen? Emma made it sound as though she practically begged Lizzie to rid the clothes press of the paint stained dress. She takes the fall for being the one with the bad relationship with Abby. No one questioned her nor did they revile her in print, ever.

Why?

Had Emma gone public and stated she believed Lizzie was guilty—do you think she would have been convicted—lack of evidence and all?

Emma did state in the uncharacteristic interview she gave years later that she believed wholeheartedly in Lizzie’s innocence. She remained loyal if not loving.

Could she have felt guilty for encouraging Lizzie’s hate of Abby?

Was the murder (if Lizzie did it) more about hate than it was greed? Was the murder a byproduct of the hate? Did Emma urge and encourage Lizzie’s hate of Abby with fatal results? Did she think “what have I done?” Did the fact that Lizzie did not turn to her after her acquittal cause the eventual discord that caused them to be estranged?

Emma intrigues me.

Any thoughts?

[Kat]

A first thought is to define the early years of the Andrew Borden family. This group, comprised of Andrew, Sarah, Emma and Lizzie, lived within a larger family composed of Patriarch Abraham Borden, his second wife BeBe, Andrew's sister Lurana, her husband Hiram, and for a time little George Harrington. And probably a servant or a "couple."

Abraham's first wife and the mother of his children, died in October, 1853, so Emma was born by then, but not Lizzie. The second wife came into the same household in November, 1854. For all we know, this might have been upsetting to baby Emma, who would have been nearing 4 years old. She might have witnessed what she saw as a *replacement* of her Granny, and not yet understood death.
How this affected Emma would also depend upon how the settled Borden extended family reacted to and treated Bebe, as Abraham's new addition to the household. Sarah would have needed to adjust as well.
The female heirarchy would have been unsettled.
Phoebe is Mistress of the house and Andrew's and Lurana's mother.
When she dies, it might be a tug-of-power between Lurana, as it was her home, and Sarah, who would be the first-born son's wife. Sarah probably had dominance.
Then to bring in a new Mistress of the house-- that would leave the petty fighters standing on shifting sand.
Then Lizzie is born (1860), into some family dynamic we might not be able to imagine, after the death of another baby girl before her(1858).
By the census of 1860 there are Abraham, BeBe, Andrew, Sarah, Emma, Lizzie, Lurana, Hiram, little George (b. 1857) and the servant Caroline Gray, age 19.
In March of 1863, Sarah Borden dies.
BeBe is still Mistress, though the house is probably divided, as Abby would be mistress of #92, tho that house was basically divided.
Emma and Lizzie tolerated the acquistion of a step-mother. This was not new to Emma by now- she experienced it with the replacement of her grandmother.
By 1872, Andrew was ready to provide security and privacy to his rennovated family by moving into Second Street.
Maybe Emma missed the house full of people. Maybe Lizzie was used to more attention and she saw that drop off when they got their own house and maybe their first own rooms.
Maybe the girls patterns of behaviour was already set by then. Emma seemed to have had to adjust to living amongst all these older people from 1851 until Lizzie came along in 1860. It might be why she doesn't seem to have had an aventuresome spirit or a have been fully a child. It's hard to imagine her living until almost age 9 amongst 2 older generations plus losing her mother.
She might have been jealous for her mother's sake at the move to Second Street. That move may have seemed like a gift to Abby from Andrew, because Sarah never had a house of her own. Who knows what monster's motives a child may assign the actions of their closest adult?
It's certainly interesting to speculate, tho.

[Nancie]

i was trying to "quote" just one sentence, so frustrating, it keeps copying the whole message.
how do you quote just a part of someone's post?
I wanted to ask Audrey if "the elderly spinster" she referred to as Emma's only friend was
Alice Russell? Alice was 40 years old. God, I'm
ancient then. Did my avator work yet?

[Kimberly]

edit

[Nancie]

Thank you Dear, how do you know all this and
how do you make those M & M's jumping (don't
tell me) So much for an old elderly spinster to take!

[doug65oh]

... "the elderly spinster" she referred to as Emma's only friend was Alice Russell?"

The woman Emma was visiting at Fairhaven on the 4th... this is from the Witness Statements, pg 12:

"Lizzie requested the Doctor to send a telegram to her sister Emma, but not to tell her the facts, for the lady whom she isstaying with, is old and feeble, and may be disturbed." (Harrington and Doherty)

Alice was in Fall River on the 4th, so it wasn't her.

[Kat]

No need to quote- you can just ask Audrey if she meant Alice.
This became 3 posts off topic.

[Audrey]

Mon Dieu....

I was speaking of Alice. She was an elderly spinster when one takes the standards of such things at that time into account.

Pardon me....

[Kat]

I have a timeline next to me always.
It takes a question like yours to help me put things together, like Emma's early envoirnment.
Thanks. It gave me some ideas.

[FairhavenGuy]

There are some good insights into Emma here. As an oldest child myself, with the next sibling trailing five years behind me, I've always related better to those somewhat older than myself.

One thing that strikes me about Emma is that she seems to be rather ignorant of "the outside world" and even some of the basic workings of the household. She testifies that she has no idea where Abby shops for dinner--and that has to be within walking distance of the house. She doesn't know who might be responsible for cleaning the guest room in her absence. It's a wonder that she found her way to Fairhaven on her own. . .or did Lizzie come as far as New Bedford to make sure Emma got here?

[Gramma]

Emma was not stupid nor slow, except in testimony. More suspicious words as far as I am concerned.
Reading the posts above I noticed the servant girl for Abraham's house was Caroline Gray. Any relation to Abby? Did a family, formerly of servant status, come into the position of "equal" family? Could that have been a source of resentment on top of the usual Stepmother anguish?

Gramma

[FairhavenGuy]

Being "unworldly" or ignorant of household management doesn't mean one is stupid or slow. I think that both Emma and Lizzie were "protected" from the real world to a considerable extent.

[lydiapinkham]

Audrey--I find Emma interesting too--perhaps even more of an enigma than Lizzie, because we have really even less info about her than about Miz Liz. I've wondered if Emma instilled Lizzie's hatred for Abby. She undoubtedly shared it by refusing to eat with her. But as for feeling guilty, I don't know. I almost wonder if she was well pleased by the way things turned out. She reaped the same rewards as Lizzie at very little cost to herself!

Fairhaven--Do you think Emma really knew so little of the goings on about the house, or do you suppose she pleaded ignorance to avoid any unpleasant surprise questions? I can't believe that she had no idea where Abby bought meat, but what if the answer might be used against Lizzie? I can't help thinking she was playing it cagey.

Gramma--The question of Caroline Gray and Abby Gray being related is an intriguing one! The girls could feel snobbish resentment or or suspicions that Abby was a gold digger. A gold digger who had gained so little thus far might be deemed dangerous.

--Lyddie

[FairhavenGuy]

I noticed the servant girl for Abraham's house was Caroline Gray. Any relation to Abby?

Gramma

Also, any relation to Gray's Ice Cream at Tiverton Four Corners? Yum. . .


Lyddie-- Yes, I do have the feeling that young women of a certain class in the late Victorian era may honestly not have known about some of the household operations. I also wonder if Victoria Lincoln knew where her meat came from when she was growing up.

[Kat]

The 1860 census said the maid Caroline Gray was born in Rhode Island, if that helps.

I could see how Emma might have hedged her answers in order to not implicate Lizzie unknowingly. I think in the early days after the murders, Emma was still grappling with the truth. She is let off the stand at inquest rather early it seems, as Knowlton decided to be a gentleman with her and excuse her on grounds that she hadn't been well. AND Emma gets out of testifying at the preliminary!
So it could seem like Emma is trying to stay out of the limelight- which was probably Lizzie's best defence until trial.
She might have been malingering at time of inquest- resorting to the expected role of a faint and appalled survivour.
It's odd that I would used to picture Emma as a hypochondriac, maybe to avoid the world and her role in that world- I don't know why I have that impression.
But then Emma comes through with flying colors for Lizzie at the trial. And all those months of living without her sister or Andrew and Abby at Second Street- what must that have been like? (We don't know where Morse lived until he left in December)
Anyway- if Emma was a hypochondriac- or liked to appear fragile (she seems to be the thinest female in the household)- then that is a master manipulator.
I coulnd't see Lizzie taking that tack in her own life- she seems more interested in life and going out and having- but that manipulation gene would probably be in Lizzie, activated by witnessing her sister?
This is speculation; I have no basis to assume Emma was hypochondriac.

[Tina-Kate]

Interesting, Kat.

I can see Emma perhaps being prone to "sick headaches" etc as a manipulation tool. After all, when young, she had seen her mother Sarah go thru a lot of sickness & would have learned there were certain advantages to being poorly.

(Hey, if this goes thru, that means I can actually POST!)

[Haulover]

i think what would help my understanding on this topic more than anything is to understand what the sisters had in common -- that they were both spinsters. lizzie already 32 and emma older....i just wonder if there are specific elements/conditions/whatever in the way they were raised that practically "trained" them in this direction? or "prevented" them from getting close to marriage. i know Radin mentioned lizzie had gentleman callers but you can't put any stock in these type things he says (he literally has no source for these things).

if i follow this line of thinking.;.........and this is just speculation.........a proposed marriage or an affair lizzie had going -- from the looks of it, such a thing would have been most unusual, would't it? perhaps too controversial to stand? but why? (i guess this is where the incest theory comes in -- they were not allowed normal relationships but were "kept" by andrew.) but i'd rather find something else if possible.

[FairhavenGuy]

Hey, tina-kate! You made it.

[Kat]

There's Tina-Kate!
There's Haulover!


My personal opinion is that if Lizzie was a victim of incest or seizures (being medically unsound in any way, not just in Lincoln's way), she would not have been allowed to go to Europe with the other ladies.

And maybe that is why I had that impression, TK! Emma saw her grandma die and her ma. Yes she would have noted the attention that gave them- and she was the only child in that house for a long time. Basically raised by people born near the turn of the previous century! Maybe we need to know more about 1800 than 1900 to understand Emma.

[Nancie]

I have always been curious about Emma's life
in New Hampshire, what she did all those years.
If she talked to anyone about the murders. All I
can remember reading is that she took her furs to
be stored once a year.

[Susan]

Yes, and since Emma was raised by women who were born in the early 1800s, I think we need to focus there.

"Perceptions of Women in the 19th Century
During the early 1800s, Americans generally believed that there was a definite difference in character between the sexes -- man was active, dominant, assertive, and materialistic, while woman was religious, modest, passive, submissive, and domestic. As a result, there developed an ideal of American womanhood, or a "cult of true womanhood" as denoted by historian Barbara Welter. This cult, evident in women's magazines and religious literature of the day, espoused four basic attributes of female character: piety, purity, submissiveness,domesticity.

1) Religion/Piety was the "core of woman's virtue, the source of her strength" (Welter, 21). Religion was a gift of God, given so that the "Universe might be Enlightened, Improved, and Harmonized by WOMAN!! (Philadelphia, 1840, quoted in Welter, 22). Women were expected to be the "handmaids of the Gospel," serving as a purifying force in the lives of erring men. Women naturally possessed virtues of faith, simplicity, goodness, self-sacrifice, tenderness, affection, sentimentality, and modesty.

2) Purity was an essential characteristic to maintain one's virtue against the continuous "assault" of the more aggressive male. To protect one's self, Mrs. Eliza Farrar recommended in The Young Lady's Friend (1837): Sit not with another in a place that is too narrow; read not out of the same book; let not your eagerness to see anything induce you to place your head close to another person's."

Eliza Farnham stressed the importance of preserving one's innocence and demonstrating female moral superiority, concluding that "the purity of women is the everlasting barrier against which the tides of man's sensual nature surge" (Welter, 24-25).

3) Submissiveness required women to accept their positions in life willingly and obediently, thereby affirming God had appointed them to that special position. Godey's Lady's Book of 1831 emphasized this attribute: The lesson of submission is forced upon woman...To suffer and to be silent under suffering seems the great command she has to obey. (Welter, 30)

Likewise, Samuel Jennings advocated complete submission in The Married Lady's Companion (New York, 1808): [Marriage rests on a] condition of a loving and cheerful submission on the part of the wife. Here again you object and say, "Why not the husband, first show a little condescension as well as the wife?" I answer for these plain reasons. It is not his disposition; it is not the custom but with the henpecked; it is not his duty; it is not implied in the marriage contract; it is not required by law or gospel;...when you became a wife, he became your head, and your supposed superiority was buried in that voluntary act.

Much of this reasoning was founded upon Ephesians 5:22-23, which commanded "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the family, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body."

4) Domesticity, or the cheerful performance of social, household, and family duties, was highly prized by women's magazines of the day. Women were expected to comfort and cheer, to nurse and support, to manage and oversee. Housework was to be viewed as a morally uplifting mental and physical exercise. Marriage was the proper sphere for women where, according to Rev. Samuel Miller (1808), she could fulfill her divinely ordained mission: How interesting and important are the duties devolved on females as WIVES....the counsellor and friend of the husband; who makes it her daily study to lighten his cares, to soothe his sorrows, and augment his joys; who, like a guardian angel, watches over his interests, warns him against dangers, comforts him under trials; and by her pious, assiduous, and attractive deportment, constantly endeavors to render him more virtuous, more useful, more honorable, and more happy.(Welter, 37-38)"

"Even foreign males were very perceptive and critical of male-female relationships in America. Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville saw marriage confining a woman to a narrow circle and restricting her development as a human being, making her "cold and virtuous" instead of "affectionate wives and agreeable companions." Both Capt. Basil Hall and Francis Grund observed poor relationships in American marriages, attributing such to the absence of mutual understanding, little communication, and limited attention from husbands."

From this site:




http://www.connerprairie.org/HistoryOnline/womrole.html

[Gramma]

I noticed the servant girl for Abraham's house was Caroline Gray. Any relation to Abby?

Gramma

Also, any relation to Gray's Ice Cream at Tiverton Four Corners? Yum. .

OK, now you've done it! I have to go to Tiverton for an ice cream! Standard stop on the way home from the beach! I'm sure Abby didn't make ice cream but I bet Caroline did!

Gramma

[Kimberly]

edit

[Susan]

Very well put, Kimberly! I think alot along the same lines as you, poor Emma had a life full of upheaval within a very short time period, alot to take for a girl barely into puberty. Who comforted her when she needed it? Grandma Bebe? Lurana? Somehow I can't see Andrew in that capacity. It sounds as though she had to grow up quickly and douse the spark of childhood in order to survive. Who knows how she may have turned out had she had a, relatively speaking, normal childhood? Would she have been the withdrawn person she was later on in life?

[Kat]

Oh Gawd, reading all that stuff about women & marriage in the early 1800's America- it makes the woman sound like some sort of priest who is humble and submissive and had the power to bestow grace on the animalistic man.
I don't see how they can have the man both ways
A slave to baser instincts which was acceptable, yet his mind and will is superior.

Jeesh.
Thanks Susan for all that.
I'm reading an expose on Martha Stewart (1997)--and Erica Jong is being quoted as thinking Martha set women back into the past centuries by sticking them back in the home and the kitchen. (Jong was a sometime friend/ neighbor).
I assume some people are fulfilled by that so I don't have an adverse opinion of that matter.

[Susan]

I know! Isn't it sickening? As they had stated in the piece, it was the perception of women, I'm sure no one woman ever fit the bill entirely. And there were the radical women of the time, you know, "the ones who didn't know their place i.e. home with the kids. But, I thought it was important to note, that the women primarily responsible for bringing Emma up, had had this sort of malarky crammed down their throats since they were girls. I wonder how it made Emma view herself?

I wonder if Alice Russell's statement about Lizzie and Emma wanting to be "cultured girls" carries more meaning, such as that they wanted to be perceived as society's ideal of womanhood, but, always fell short of the mark.

[lydiapinkham]

Here's a topic we can get our teeth into! Given the scant info we have on Emma, it must be based on speculation gathered from surrounding circumstances, but that's better than nothing!

Hi TK and haulover! Glad to see you back.

About Susan's reference to Victorian American ladies' code, it seems foreign and horrid to us and from reading the suffragettes' writings, it seems to have been intolerable to many of them, too. But if we try to approach it from the average, rather than the exceptional, woman's perspective, it had a strange logic that may have made life more bearable. The woman had little control outside the household, but there, she ruled supreme. Men were considered dominant and generally more intelligent, but the women were deemed morally superior ideals, uncorrupted by greed or vice. (Interesting thoughts in a site so devoted to women's avarice! ) I think women fulfilled their idealized roles with varying degrees of success and contentment. Usually we think of this as a men versus women conflict, but there must have been many women who fought over expectations of themselves and each other. Emma may have liked the role or liked the way she could use it as a manipulative tool. Lizzie seems much less suited to it. She read widely and must have seen articles about literary writers and wives, who were remaining with the men for cigars and talk after the meals. I wonder if she yearned for the life of a cultured and modern woman. I just revisited Hawthorne's home, and he and Sophia called themselves the New Adam and New Eve--adoring and absolutely equal. He wrote about that ideal in works such as
Blithedale Romance (sorry, my italics suddenly won't work). What if the girls argued about this? And how did Alice Russell and the other Fall River girls see the issue, I wonder?


About Emma and the New Wife. The post about Abby's failure to measure up suddenly made me think of Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. Emma even looks a bit like Judith Anderson in the role!

About Emma in NH. Do we know where she lived exactly? I would like to investigate any local references if I can find out where to find her final home and/or home town.

--Lyddie

[Harry]

About Emma in NH. Do we know where she lived exactly? I would like to investigate any local references if I can find out where to find her final home and/or home town.

--Lyddie

Emma lived at 203 Main St. in Newmarket, NH. Newmarket is just west of Portsmouth. She lived there 6 years prior to her death.

Per Rebello, page 341.

There is a photo of the house from Mr. Rebello's private collection on page 315.

[FairhavenGuy]

Let's not lose sight of the fact that the various social and familial forces that are being discussed here applied to millions of women at this time, not just to the Borden women. The large passage quoted earlier begins, "During the early 1800s, Americans generally believed. . ." That's most Americans, male or female, whether it was "crammed down their throats" or not.

In the 1800s having step parents was no rare thing. It was much harder back then for a single female or male to live alone, especially with children. Second and even third marriages were extremely frequent. And they generally came very quickly after the loss of a spouse. They were necessary for survival.

Also, the concept of childhood as we think of it today didn't really develop until close to the 20th century. Children were viewed as miniature adults even into the late Victorian period. There were no child labor laws. There were jobs and chores and schools (without playgrounds). Even the children of the wealthy were being prepared to fulfil their adult roles in the world.

So so many people dealt with these forces every day during the 1800s, and yet so few ended up with murdered parents.

The murder of the Bordens was extraordinary. The cause had to be something more than what almost everyone faced back then.

[Bob Gutowski]

Audrey! I am loathe to reprimand such an attractive dish as yourself, but 40 wasn't elderly in 1892. 1692, maybe, but not 1892.

Then again, I'm sure you were just being witty.

[Audrey]

Touché!

I am fastly approaching 40....

I recently turned 37 and now I am dealing with my son's drivers license and his father's decision to buy him a car. I am sure my hair will turn snow white one of these days.

[Nancie]

Harry, only 6 years in NH? Or just at that one house? Seems we have a lot more years to account
for Emma after she left Maplecroft, I'll look it up in my books this weekend.

[Harry]

Rebello contradicts himself on page 311 when he says Emma went to Newmarket in 1923. That would make it only 4 years at that location.

Nancie, see page 311 of Rebello. He lists Emma's whereabouts after she left Maplecroft.

1905-1908 Fairhaven. not 100% certain
1909-1913 Providence, RI
1914-1918 Fall River at Rev. Bucks
1919-1922 Providence
1923-1927 Newmarket

[lydiapinkham]

Thank you, Harry! I had completely forgotten Rebello had that info. Apparently Emma never owned a home after leaving Fall River. Instead she appears to have boarded with others. In Rebello, I find

1905-08 in Fairhaven
1909-13 in Providence at a home also pictured on p. 315
1914-18 in Fall River with Rev. Buck(!!??)
1919--26 at Minden Apts. in Providence (photo with Buck's home on 316)
1923-27 in Newmarket

Above dates on p. 312, Rebello

She seems not to have formed an attachment to Newmarket, as her will addresses mostly Fall River and a bit of Providence--mostly charities for children, scholarships, the elderly, and animal rescue. The Connor family seems worth a check in Newmarket, which I should be able to get to fairly soon. Rebello also cites in this section the claims in the Newmarket Democrat that Emma claimed to have moved to Newcastle, keeping her address secret from her sister because afraid of her. (p. 314) We should bear in mind that secondary cause of deathe was senility. (p. 341)

--Lyddie

[Nancie]

I think Emma had to have
suffered more than anyone from her death -- she was growing
up & was dealing with puberty & a new sister & one had already
died -- and then she lost her mother & then she gained a new one.

I don't know if i'm doing this right but I'll find out. I agree that age of Emma was so tender. I was 11 years old when my folks had a baby,
big surprise, big changes in the family. That is nothing compared to what
Emma went through. traumatic stuff though!

[Nancie]

ugh obviously I didn't do it right, i meant to quote
Kimberly in the first part. still learning here....

[Kat]

Rebello, 15:
"Rev. Buck married Elmira R. Walker of Medway, Massachusetts. The Bucks were the parents of six children, a son and five daughters: Augustus Walker (1866-1924); Elizabeth R. (1853-1924); Alice Lydia (1855-1944); Mary R. (1857-1913); Nancy Evelyn (1861-1944); and Clara F. (1868-1924)."

16:
"Rev. Edwin Augustus Buck died at his home in Fall River on March 9, 1903."

-Buck had 5 daughters, and I'm not sure but I think only one married? Their mother had died in 1877- so when Emma stayed there anytime after 1903, she was staying with the remaining daughters, orphans like herself.
I always had the feeling that Emma had a crush on Rev. Buck- he was a handsome widower and his daughters were people she approved of. It would seem natural that Emma would long to be part of the Buck family. She might have made a very good preacher's wife, if she didn't have too much of her mother in her.

--About early women and their expected roles in the family and society, and the facts of life being mentioned that a lot of families went through upheavals because of early deaths - that is valid- but so is the fact that even in that time, each individual would respond emotionally to these types of situations in their own unique way depending upon their family dynamic and even if a lot of families went thru these changes it seems to me that it still required an individual adaptation with all the attendent angst. Especially the act-ing out of a spoiled child.

[FairhavenGuy]

I agree, Kat, about individual adaptation to stressful events. However, it is extremely difficult for us today not to accidently project our 21st century belief systems and customs on 19th century people, whose life and society was so different.

[Kat]

Yes I can appreciate that it is always a good reminder.

You are probably reminded every time you don your costumes and perform a re-enactment!

[Nancie]

Thanks harry for the timeline on Emma, I don't
know why I thought she was in NH longer.
What a lonely life she had, no children, no loved ones, and the murders hanging over her head to think about every day I'm sure.

[Susan]

The large passage quoted earlier begins, "During the early 1800s, Americans generally believed. . ." That's most Americans, male or female, whether it was "crammed down their throats" or not.

Yes, FairhavenGuy, I'm not arguing that point about it being a general belief of the times, the belief of adults. I realize that we do tend to overlay our beliefs on the Victorian era. But, what did the children of the times know? Children are born with no preconceived notions of the world at large. What they know was taught by their parents and schools, politics, religion, society, prejudices, etc. So, their heads were literally crammed full of these ideas, good or bad to us now.

[Kat]

Can we come to a consensus as to just exactly what Alice did mean when she said "They would like to have been cultured girls?" per Susan's post at the top of the page, in the context of those times:

Inquest
Alice Russell
152
They had quite refined ideas, and they would like to have been cultured girls, and would like to have had different advantages, and it would natural for girls to express themselves that way. I think it would have been very unnatural if they had not.
Q. He did not give them the advantages of education that they thought they ought to have had?
A. I dont know as it is just that; but people cannot go and do and have, unless they have ample means to do it.

[FairhavenGuy]

My impression of Alice Russell's testimony is this: The girls wished they could comfortably hobnob in the social circles of others who had the kind of money their father did.

[Audrey]

Can we come to a consensus as to just exactly what Alice did mean when she said "They would like to have been cultured girls?"

I think she/they viewed culture as having an elegant home, giving smart soirées and traveling more frequently.

I think Lizzie was especially interested in her version of "culture" and defined it as "having" versus "being".

[Kat]

Is Alice including Emma in the "They" just to hide Lizzie's whims?
Like Emma tried to cover for Lizzie when Emma said "We?"

Inquest
108
A. I always took charge of the parlor, my sister and I, we always took charge of the guest chamber and our own rooms.
Q. That is, you and your sister did that?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. Not your separate duty, but yours and hers?
A. I did most of it, sometimes she assisted.

Do we think Emma wanted these things as well?

[Audrey]

I think Emma said we in order to paint Lizzie in a better light. Murderess or not-- Lizzie seems lazy and self centered.

I don't think Emma yearned for such things like Lizzie did until after the murders. Then she yearned for peace, quiet and to be left alone.

[Kat]

Yes that might be right. I'm thinking now about Lizzie's trip to Europe whereas Emma did not seem to prefer to go?
I guess that would be an outward sign to society that Lizzie wished to be cultured and to better herself. It might be that the trip was as much for *show* as it was to have the experience. I wonder what Lizzie felt when she embarked on such a massive journey, little spinster American Miss from Massachusetts and what they thought of her in Italy?

[Audrey]

I wonder if Lizzie was shocked or enchanted with the rather earthy Italians.


I remain positive Lizzie walked down the street in front of my house.

[doug65oh]

"...I think Emma said we in order to paint Lizzie in a better light. Murderess or not-- Lizzie seems lazy and self centered.

I don't think Emma yearned for such things like Lizzie did until after the murders. Then she yearned for peace, quiet and to be left alone."

---
I've often thought that myself. that Emma in saying that the duties were divided among the girls was merely trying to cover Lizzie's... backside. For some reason I also have a distinct feeling that Emma was less than thrilled at having to do that. Perhaps she was still keeping some ages-old deathbed promise to Sarah?

It's a shame we don't know a bit more about Sarah's makeup. The eldest surviving daughter just may have been a carbon copy psychologically...

[Kat]

That's a drawing, Audrey? Or Photoshop *posterize* a picture? Either way that's a striking picture- thank you!