Random Thoughts about Lizzie’s Dress

[Catbooks]

yes, it was the first time i'd quoted more than the limit here and i thought oh great, how do i make sense of this spaghetti-like bb code and figure out which to eliminate? it's been a while since i've been on a forum with bb code.

i can't add my original quote back in, because i've already got the limit of three in here. i went back and deleted the oldest (mine), and replaced it with the next oldest (yours) so it was in sequence. but then figuring out where to put the whose name at the top of the code was causing all the back and forth :D

i did use the preview a couple of times , but thank you.

[Curryong]

Activity, Catbooks, (in your earlier post,) in the way of so many terrible wounds, or as in Abby moving around the room to get away from her would-be killer? Although I must admit that odd blood splash near the window has always intrigued me (perhaps a blood speck left by Lizzie who may have adjusted the shutters.) I just can't imagine a terrified Abby attempting to escape by trying to get under the bed or dodging to the other side of the bed in terror. I may very well be wrong but I just can't.
On the other hand Lizzie, hatchet buried under some linen, asking the bending Abby a question and getting nearer and nearer as she is asking it, that I can picture. I think Abby died without ever really comprehending, except perhaps for a split second, what was happening to her.

[twinsrwe]

yes, it was the first time i'd quoted more than the limit here and i thought oh great, how do i make sense of this spaghetti-like bb code and figure out which to eliminate? it's been a while since i've been on a forum with bb code.

i can't add my original quote back in, because i've already got the limit of three in here. i went back and deleted the oldest (mine), and replaced it with the next oldest (yours) so it was in sequence. but then figuring out where to put the whose name at the top of the code was causing all the back and forth :D

i did use the preview a couple of times , but thank you.

Well, you can re-edit it if you wanted to. You're not adding another quote, you are editing a post you have already submitted!

[Catbooks]

curryong, i sincerely hope you're right, and that's about how i'd always envisioned it. yes, activity as in both of them moving around the room. i haven't gotten to the blood splash near the window. i'm assuming the window on the north side near the bed and dresser? i don't see abby dodging around the bed, but unfortunately i can see her completely cornered and panicked, with nothing to do and nowhere to go except tp fruitlessly try to hide her head under the bed. i don't know how else her head came to be where it was, unless lizzie (or the killer) moved her.

twins, are you saying if i edit, i can override the forum software's limit on 3 posts? i could try, but i may well make a royal mess of it!

[twinsrwe]

... twins, are you saying if i edit, i can override the forum software's limit on 3 posts? i could try, but i may well make a royal mess of it!

No, I am not asking you to override the forum software!!!

All you have to do is:

1. Click on the edit option of the post that needs fixing.
2. Highlight and copy the paragraph I indicated you needed to add in
3. Place your cursor just above the last sentence you have in your quote and then paste the paragraph in.
4. Do a preview, and if it is fixed, then…
5. Submit

It's a simple copy and paste matter.

[Catbooks]

twins, if i'd done that, it would have put my paragraph and your reply in the same quote area, so it would have looked like you'd asked yourself a question and then answered it

can't separate it out with another quote (catbooks wrote:) because the forum software will only accept 3. i did the best i could with it. we were basically just agreeing with one another anyway :)

[twinsrwe]

twins, if i'd done that, it would have put my paragraph and your reply in the same quote area, so it would have looked like you'd asked yourself a question and then answered it

can't separate it out with another quote (catbooks wrote:) because the forum software will only accept 3. i did the best i could with it. we were basically just agreeing with one another anyway :)

Well, it's OK. We both made an attempt to fix it, and that is all we can do.

[twinsrwe]

I must make a correction to the information I posted above regarding the length of time Lizzie had the Bedford Cord dress before the murders. (I am posting the correction here, because I have been quoted and therefore cannot make the change within my original post.) Mary A. Raymond, the dressmaker, stated that she had gone to the Borden house the first week in May, and made this dress first. She also stated that Lizzie got paint on the dress during the three weeks she was at the Borden house. So, Lizzie had the dress for 3 months prior to the murders, not 4 months.

See page 1576 of the Trial Transcript for Mrs. Mary A. Raymond's testimony: http://lizzieandrewborden.com/wp-conten ... orden2.pdf

[Catbooks]

I think you were correct the first time, Twins. Mary Raymond arrived the first week of May, and made the Bedford cord within the first 3 days she was there, which Lizzie began wearing immediately.

So that makes it most all of May, then all of June, July, and a few days into August until the murders. That's closest to 4 months.

But I did find rereading her testimony very interesting. The Bedford cord was made to replace an old wrapper of Lizzie's, which presumably had worn out. Jennings asked what Lizzie had done with the old one, and Knowlton repeatedly objected to her answering. Eventually she answered Lizzie had cut some pieces of out it, and then said she was going to burn the rest.

Earlier, when Emma was on the stand, Jennings wanted her to answer the question "Do you know of your sister's habit of burning old dresses, or portions of old dresses previous to this time?" Knowlton objected and the question was excluded.

So then was it common for her to burn her old dresses? According to Mary Raymond, she'd done it once before, even if it wasn't something she did regularly.

[Catbooks]

Didn't Alice Russell come into the kitchen when Lizzie was already tearing up the dress. I think Lizzie had her back to her and a portion of the dress Alice glimpsed on a shelf in the coal cupboard next to the stove?

A. I went into the kitchen, and I saw Miss Lizzie at the other end of the stove; I saw Miss Emma at the sink. Miss Lizzie was at the stove, and she had a skirt in her hand, and her sister turned and said, "What are you going to do?" and Lizzie said, "I am going to burn this old thing up; it is covered with paint."

[snip]

That was Alice's testimony of what Emma said. Emma's testimony is quite different.

If Emma had told Lizzie the night of their parents' funeral what she testified to - "I said, 'You have not destroyed that old dress yet; why don't you?'" - then why, according to Alice's testimony, did Emma ask Lizzie "What are you going to do?" when she saw Lizzie with the dress at the stove the next morning?

This is Emma's version,

A. I was washing dishes, and I heard my sister's voice and I turned round and saw she was standing at the foot of the stove, between the foot of the stove and the dining room door. This dress was hanging on her arm and she says, 'I think I shall burn this old dress up.' Do you wish me to go on?

Q. Go right along.

A. I said, "why don't you," or "you had better," or "I would if I were you," something like that, I can't tell the exact words, but it meant,--Do it. And I turned back and continued washing the dishes, and did not see her burn it and did not pay any more attention to her at that time.

Alice and Emma's version agree as far as Emma being at the sink and Lizzie at the stove, just prior to Lizzie burning the dress, and Lizzie's reply to Emma is very similar. But the rest is tellingly different.

[PattiG157]

I get confused when it comes to Lizzie's dress on the day of the murders. I thought that at the trial, Lizzie's dressmaker testified that Lizzie told her about 6 months before the murders that she had, in fact, gotten paint on the dress, and she wanted the dressmaker to make her another one. Is that correct or is that one of the many "myths" going around about Lizzie? I'm just curious!!