Do you think?

[snokkums]

I have always wondered about this. As tight as Andrew was with money, do you think he gave to any charities? Was there any documentation of this? I know there was no will found, but if there was, do you think Andy might have given some to some cause, or was he just to tight with his money that it wouldn't have crossed his mind.

[Kat]

i had replied to your suggestion that andrew was tight in money matters at your other topic, just a bit ago-
viewtopic.php?t=4185

if no one provides the accounting i cited i will do so at another time if you want.

if you saw the liz montgomery tv movie, that may have colored people's idea of andrew.

[augusta]

Good posts, Kat, and source material. Also, great photo on here! So pretty.

Snokkums, I have read that Andrew was walking/talking with John Morse one day and he told Morse he wanted to leave some money to charity - I believe some land to an old age home.

I cannot for the life of me remember where I read it. It very well could be in some of Morse's testimony. Try the inquest.

[diana]

Good memory, Augusta -- it is Morse's testimony. He recounts a talk he had with Andrew and testifies"
". . . he [Andrew] thought of making some bequests out, you know, for charitable purposes. His farm over there, he was talking about the old Ladies Home, 'I don't know but I would give them this, if they would take it.'"

[snokkums]

I just got ot thinking that he might have been from those older ways of thinking --get off your diff and go to work. That maybe he lookied at it as a hand out, not something out of the goodness of the heart.

[augusta]

Thanks for finding the quote from Morse's testimony, Diana.

BTW, is the entire inquest available in hard cover?

Snokkums, Andrew was raised a Quaker. For some reason he seems to have stopped going and went to, I believe, the First Congregational Church in FR. There was at least one Quaker meeting house in FR, so he could have went if he wanted to.

He did stop going to the First Congregational Church because of one of the members and he having a dispute. I know I know this, but I have just come home from an exhausting day and am almost too tired to think. I can't remember where I read it, tho. It seems like a small sum of money was involved, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, it looks to me like Andrew carried his Quaker beliefs with him during his lifetime. Quakers were very simple folk then - some didn't even have their names on their tombstones because of wanting to be modest. I read that in a current-day newspaper article that told of vandalizing in a Quaker cemetery in Westport, Massachusetts. I would like to learn more about the Quaker religion, as it was back then. I think I might find more of an understanding of Andrew. It could prove quite insightful.

[Kat]

snokkums, when you consider that during andrew borden's lifetime, women were to be seen and not heard- and were the property of men with no civil rights, then thinking that he might have thought lizzie and emma should leave his home and shelter and responsibility to make their own way in the world, is more a modern concept and i really doubt that would have occurred to him.

they should have been launched into society and married off by the age of 19 or 20, emma first which protocol demanded, then lizzie. since they were not, it would be interesting to know why- maybe abbie was not interested- maybe the girls were not- maybe, maybe ?

[snokkums]

Yes, Kat, you are right. I had forgotten that back then, women were pretty much property of men. It's a modern thing of women going to work, thinking for themselves.

I think I'd like to know,too, why they weren't married. Maybe Andrew took it to the extreme when thinking about the girls were his. But it would be interesting to find out why they never married. Maybe the girls thought it was their duty to stay and take care of their father. Who knows.

[augusta]

Maybe the FRHS's new book, "Parallel Lives," will talk about some of those rules of society in Lizzie's time.

[Kat]

We do have Alice Russell's take on what went on behind the scenes- more a glimpse of real life amongst that family than anyone else has showed us- more insightful I should say. (Hiram has his own opinion, of course.)

This might be what sounds so modern-thinking...but even this insight should be realized within the context of the times:

Inquest
Alice Russell
150+
Q. I do not like to ask this question, but I feel obliged to. Did you see enough to notice what the relations were between Miss Lizzie and her mother?
A. In all my acquaintance, which is ten years sure, and most of that time has been, part of the time quite intimate, I never yet heard any wrangling in the family. I have got to answer the question, and I will say I dont think they were congenial.
Q. What gave you the impression they were not congenial?
A. Because their tastes differed in every way; one liked one thing, and the other liked another.
Q. Were they together very much?
A. I dont think they were very much.
Q. I suppose what you say about Lizzie is also true of Emma?
A. About the same; it was not always the same, but it would be hard work to tell.
Q. I judge by your saying they had a sitting room up stairs---
A. They sat up there a great deal.
Q. Their step mother did not sit up there with them?
A. I dont think so.
Q. Did you ever hear Lizzie speak of any trouble she had had with her mother?
A. Yes, I suppose I have. I have heard her say that Mrs. Borden thought so and so; the same as any family.
Q. Did she express to you ever that she regarded her mother as untruthful or deceitful?
A. I dont think she ever did.
Q. Did she ever allude particularly to any trouble she ever had with her mother?
A. No Sir.
Q. Did she ever tell you what the trouble was?
A. Nothing further than she was a step mother. The whole thing was as far as I could see, that an own mother might have had more influence over the father; it was the father more than the mother.
Q. What do you mean?
A. The father was the head of the house; they had to do as he thought. Mrs. Borden did not control the house; the whole summing up of it, was that.
Q. Were her relations with her father cordial?
A. So far as I know. I never saw anything different.
Q. Were they congenial?
A. I should not suppose they would be - knowing their different natures.
Q. The different nature of the father and mother and Lizzie?
A. Yes, each of them.
Q. What was the difference in their natures?
A. Mr. Borden was a plain living man with ridgid ideas, and very set. They were young girls. He had earned his money, and he did not care for the things that young women in their position naturally would; and he looked upon those things--- I dont know just how to put it.
Q. He did not appreciate girls?
A. No, I dont think he did.
Q. Their ideas were more modern than his with regard to the way of living, do you mean?
A. Yes Sir.
Q. How did you get this, from the girls talk, or what you observed?
A. From what I observed. Everybody knew what Andrew Borden’s ideas were. He was a very plain living man; he did not care for anything different. It always seemed to me as if he did not see why they should care for anything different.
Q. Did they complain about it?
A. Yes, they used to think it ought to be different; there was no reason why it should not be. They used to think it might be different.
Q. Lizzie or Emma, or both?
A. Both.
Q. There never was any wrangling between them?
A. No, I never heard any. 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.