Lizzie Borden Society Forum

With Thanksgiving next Thursday, I wonder what Lizzie would have done for the holiday. Did she spend it by herself, or with a few friends? I know she must not have had many friends after the trial, but she must of had a few to spend the day. Or did she just not make much of a fuss.

Not sure, but I know I wouldn't ask her to carve the turkey!

This is from Kent's "Forty Whacks", p69. He is quoting from Mrs McGurk's interview of Sept. 30 with Lizzie that appeared in the New York Recorder.

"... I was anxious to see if this girl, with whom I was associated several years ago in the work of the Fall River Fruit and Flower Mission, had changed her character and become a monster since the days when she used to load up the plates of vigorous young newsboys and poor children at the annual turkey dinner provided during the holidays for them and take delight in their healthy appetites. ..."

And this from Radin's book:

"... Her interest in children included more than allowing a group of neighborhood boys to pick unwanted pears from the ground. With a group of friends she organized annual Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners for poor children and newsboys and she was an active worker in the kitchen, cooking and loading their plates. ..."

Way to go, Lizbeth!!!

I'm glad she found something to do with her self.I'm with Lizbeth on this one-- don't think I'd want Lizzie carving up my turkey!! LOL!

Cry all day.

I was wondering if she was lonely. You know, everybody going over to friends houses enjoying themselves and she's alone.

This is nice!

Yes, it is. Remember, even when she was older, after Emma had left, she made muffins for the newsboy who came to her house. I imagine that after Emma left she would have shared her Thanksgivings and Christmasses with friends at their houses.

In about 1896 there were news articles predicting she was going to marry Orrin Gardiner. Spurious as that may have been, she did have friendship with the Gardiners and I am sure there were others. Lizbeth lived out her life fairly quiet. We have good ideas about who didn't like her or shunned her but very little idea of those who remained loyal or became friends. The many comments about her being lonely with only servants for companions may mostly have been wishful thinking on the part of those who didn't like her and believed she got away with old blooded murder for money.

I thought the Gardiner family were cousins?

I always get confused about the Gardiner connection. Emma was very close to them, Lizzie perhaps less so.

As I understand it there were two sisters, named Mason. Ann Mason married Sarah Borden's brother William and they moved away to Minnesota. Caroline Mason married Henry Gardiner (or Gardner) and they became matriarch and patriarch of the branch of the Gardiner clan that our Bordens were close to. I think!

The eldest of Henry and Caroline's sons was Orrin Augustus, who was born in 1867 and must be the 'fiance' mentioned. Orrin didn't marry but raised his brother William's boy, Hamilton, after William died quite young. I think Emma left quite a lot of money, possessions etc to Orrin, of whom she was very fond, and they came down through the Gardiner family due to Hamilton. I don't think Lizzie left much to the Gardiners.

Genealogy is intensely confusing to me. I lived in a place where there was a lot of inbreeding and sometimes incest and we had a lot of jokes about family trees that don't branch. So when I see several families heavily intermarried my mind tends to get a bit raunchy.

That said, Lizzie and Orrin probably were some degree of cousins. The little news articles had to do with Orrin building a new house in I think 1896 and it was assumed he would marry Lizzie sometime around Christmas.

Wasn't Orrin mixed up in that mess with Lizzie being accused of shoplifting the plates about that same year? I wonder if there was something between them and if stress caused her to shoplift? In the end I believe the Tilden Thurber shoplifting incident was heavily tainted so I feel I have to discount it. Too many things came into the story to make it believable for me. It seems that if it wasn't a set up the best value to the store would have been to make sure Lizzie paid her way out of the scrape instead of creating all the nasty publicity and possibly attempting extortion.

Orrin Gardner was a cousin to Emma and Lizzie. It was Emma who was particularly fond of and close to Orrin, so much so that she left a lot of her estate, including personal property to Orrin.

Last Will and Testament of Emma L. Borden

http://tinyurl.com/lyslhom

Having childhood memories of grabbing a chicken for Sunday dinner and laying her head across the chopping block, I close my eyes and see Lizzie with hatchet in hand, dispatching the Thanksgiving turkey with one blow to the neck followed by another 18 just to make sure.

Ha, ha, ha!!! She might wait until it was snoozing!

That's funny!

I think she'd do John Morse.


:-)