Lizzie Borden

Yesterday in old Fall River Mr. Andrew Borden died,
And they got his daughter Lizzie on a charge of homicide.
Some folks say she didn't do it and others say of course she did,
L But they all agree Miss Lizzie B. was a problem type of kid.

         Composed by Michael Brown performed by the Chad Mitchell Trio

I have been fascinated by the story of Lizzie Borden since I was a child. It is a mystery that may never be satisfactorily solved.

Andrew Borden was a wealthy man. Still he lived without many of the modern conveniences of that time. His daughters lived at his home as was the custom of the day for unmarried women. Andrew's wife Abby was the stepmother of the girls.

Andrew Borden was not liked by almost everyone who knew him. He did not seem to mind. He and his family lived a reclusive life.

Then on August 4, 1892 Lizzie found Andrew on the sofa in his home. He had been brutally murdered. His head and face were the focus of the injuries. Blood was splattered everywhere. It was not until a little later that they discovered the body of Abby in an upstairs bedroom. She had also been ruthlessly killed.

Emma, the older daughter was not at home that day so she was ruled out as a suspect. She and Lizzie had both gone on vacation but Lizzie returned home earlier.The maid, Bridget, was supposedly outside cleaning windows.

John was the brother of Sarah Borden. Sarah was Lizzie's and Emma's mother who had died. John had spent the previous night at the Borden home. He was seen in downtown Fall River at the time of Andrew's death so he was cleared as a suspect.

That left Lizzie. She was an animal lover. She had adopted the pigeons roosting in the shed behind the house. Her father killed them using a hatchet and she was furious. There were other questionable actions on the part of Lizzie that led police to believe that she had killed her father and stepmother.

Lizzie was tried and acquitted of the murders. The murders remain a mystery to this day. Many believe it was Lizzie. There are other theories about what happened. We will probably never know the truth.

In a college class I was required to critique two plays. One that I chose was about Lizzie Borden.

Two young women in their twenties spent the whole play talking about Lizzie and her family. They discussed the murders. They talked about the lives that Emma and Lizzie lived after the trial. (Neither ever married.)

Then the play ended. Not even the offering of an opinion about who killed the Bordens. I was disappointed.

When my oldest granddaughter was chosen to participate at the Student Athlete Games at Rhode Island University her family decided to vacation there. When they invited me I jumped at the chance.

We stayed in Fall River while my granddaughter stayed on campus. We spent one day at the house where the murders took place.

It is now a bed and breakfast if anyone wants to spend the night. The bedrooms are lovely, clean, and comfortable looking but they are so small in the style of that time. There is a shared bathroom. Andrew would not have approved of the bathroom. An outhouse was what he provided for his family.

There is a little gift shop in a fairly new building out back. The shed that attracted pigeons is long gone. In the gift shop you can sign up for a guided tour of the house.

While we were waiting our turn for the tour a young man of college age came into the shop. He was so excited. While taking the tour earlier in the day he had taken a lot of pictures. One of the pictures showed whar appeared to be a ghost by the window of Lizzie's room.

The young man wanted to know if he could just go back inside to take more pictures. He was hoping for a more clear picture of the ghost.

The guide told him to go ahead. "Alone?" asked the young man. He was terrified. But in he half-bravely went. I do not know what happened with his new pictures because our tour started and we did not see him again.

The tour guide was a nice older gentleman who resembled Andrew Borden. He dressed as Andrew Borden and conducted the tour as Andrew Borden for most of the time.

The house has been preserved much as it was during the late 1800's. It has been updated with electricity and modern heating.

As we went through each room we learned about the room as well as details about the way the family lived. In the bedroom said to be Lizzie's is a dressmaker's dummy. It is wearing a dress worn by Elizabeth Montgomery in the movie she made about Lizzie Borden.

That was also the room where the young man had taken the spooky picture. I immediately spotted what had happened in the picture.

There were men working on the street outside. Obviously the camera was focused on something inside the house. The men working outside were out of focus and seen through a window creating the ghostly sight. I should have been on one of those TV shows debunking things.

Then there was a woman on the tour with her daughter. She wanted to brag that she a cousin of Lizzie Borden. Her maiden name was Borden. She was positively beaming with pride.

The tour guide gently broke the news to her. There are no closely related Bordens. There might be distant cousins but none with the Borden name. A quick look to Wikipedia confirms this. Another busted bubble.

It is a beautiful house. The history of it is interesting. There are photos of the Bordens in every room including pictures of them taken before their dead bodies were removed. The tour guides know their stuff. It is a tour I recommend.

Lizzie Borden took an ax
And gave her mother 40 whacks.
And when the job was nicely done,
She gave her father 41

Oscoda

A friend and I decided to take a couple of weeks away from regular life. After much discussion and checking our funds we settled on a cottage north of the thumb of Michigan's mitten.

The cottage was in a small community of cottages just outside of Oscoda. The location was ideal. I could step out of the door of the cottage, turn left and I was standing on the beach of Lake Huron.

I was usually the first one awake in the morning. I could either look out a window at the view or sit on the small landing that served as a sort of porch.

I could look out one window at the serenity of the lake. There is something so soothing and calming about a body of water. I think perhaps it might be a form of meditation because I can just look and not have my mind working.

Another window gave me a view of the picnic area in the midst of all the cottages. There were tables, lots of grass and a few flowers, and bird feeders. Hummingbirds were plentiful at the time we were there and I could spend hours watching them.

I had the same views if I chose to sit outside. The difference was that I also had sounds to accompany the sights.

In the morning there was a very slight sound of surf from the lake. The birds and small animals made all their little noises. Even though the highway was close it seemed very far away so the sounds of travel were muffled. It made for a feeling of well-being as I sat and soaked in the peace.

At night when I looked out over the lake I could see huge waves rolling in to the shore. I had not realized that the lakes enjoyed tides of that magnitude. Watching them roll in is awe inspiring. Again it gave me a feeling of contentment.

We could swim in the lake during the day. The water was warm that time of the year so it was fun to just get in the water and stay there until my skin was pruny.

In the evenings there was a huge fire pit on the beach. The cottage owners provided firewood and anyone staying in the cottages was welcome to sit around the fire. You could roast marshmallows and hot dogs. You could tell ghost stories or tall tales. You could sing songs that everybody knew and if you were lucky someone brought their guitar.

Our cottage was small. We had one living room/kitchen, one bedroom, and one bathroom. However it was comfy. We had to provide our own food but there were dishes and pots and pans. Nothing fancy but it was to provide necessities not luxuries.

They even provided a barbeque grill in case we decided to cook out. It was fun to cook my meals outside as I watched the activity on the lake.

We could see the occasional Great Lakes freighter. They are quite distinctive in shape. There were a lot of boaters. Some were fishing; others were just out for a boat ride in the sun.

As much as we loved being on the lake and in the cottage we did do other things too. Driving through the country is a favorite pastime of mine. Just to look at the trees and houses along a country road is satisfaction enough. But sometimes you make some unexpected finds.

One day we came across a nursery. It was buried out in the country but obviously did a booming business. We were not in a position to buy anything right then because we would not be able to plant right away. But we had a good time looking at all the things they had to offer.

We rented a canoe another day and alternately rowed and coasted along the Au Sable River. At one part of the day a beaver swam along side of us on his way to his dam. He was a cute little critter.

We tried some of the local restaurants too. My favorite was an "all-you-can-eat" buffet place. Most places like this provide you with a bit of meat and a buffet of several types of sides. This one served seafood.

From the buffet you could choose fish, shrimp, roast beef. Then there was mashed potaoes, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti salad, and several other carbohydrate offerings. Vegetables both raw and cooked were plentiful. They even had corn on the cob.

There was a separate salad bar. It had more than the usual lettuce, tomato and a few toppings. All sorts of fresh garden vegetables as well as sprouts, mushrooms, garbanzo beans, with shredded eggs, cheeses, bacon bits, and various nuts for the top.

What we did was each make a salad, and fill a plate with fish and all the sides we could fit on it. Then we took one plate and piled it high with shrimp to share. We piled another plate with crab legs. We not only ate all that but we had another plate of crab legs for good measure.

It was close to closing time when we arrived at the place. My experience with this type of restaurant is that as closing time draws near they begin to take away the empty containers of food in order to make for a quick cleanup when the customers have gone.

Not this place. They closed and locked the doors to newcomers but kept refilling all the food. A glutton's paradise.

I ate so much there that it is embarrassing to tell you about it. Everything was delicious. When we finally went back to the cottage we moaned and groaned our way in. I have honestly never eaten anywhere close to that much in my life.

My stay at the cottage in Oscoda was one of the happiest times I have spent away from home. I actually cried when it was time for it to end.





canoeing beaver

Rhode Island

My granddaughter is an athlete. She likes most sports but her first love is softball and she excels at it. Because of that she was invited to participate in SAG.

SAG stands for Student Athlete Games. It is an event held every four years I believe. Students are chosen for both athletic and scholastic prowess. Young people from all over the world are invited to take part. It is quite an honor.


My granddaughter's parents decided to take a vacation and tag along. They invited me and I was excited to go. The games were being held at the University of Rhode Island.

My granddaughter would be staying in a dorm with other participants. Of course we needed a place to stay so we reserved a motel room. It was in nearby Fall River, Massachusetts.

The opening ceremonies for SAG were held the morning after we arrived. All of us attended mostly to see my granddaughter march in with the others.

Because the university was built on land from the Indian tribe native to the area they always opened important ceremonies with a blessing from the medicine man of the tribe. He intoned the blessing while inhaling the smoke from his ceremonial pipe and issuing toward the various points of the compass. I have to say that the smell of the smoke was familiar and perhaps had a hint of illegality to it.

After a few speeches the participants left to do what they were there to do leaving us to find something to do.

We decided to visit the home of Lizzie Borden first. You know Lizzie Borden. Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had don, gave her father forty-one.

When we got there a tour was in progress so we visited the gift store to wait. Of course we made a few purchases. Then the tour guide came in to get us ready for our tour.

In rushed a young man in his very early twenties. He was so excited and had a photo he wanted to share.

He had been on the tour the day before and took a few pictures. He picked up what he thought was a ghost in one. I saw the picture. I am not sure what it was.

So he wanted to know if he could go back in just long enough to take some more pictures. They told him to go ahead. He said, "Alone?" Yep

So our tour began. The guide was an older man who looked a lot like Lizzie Borden's father. He accentuated that by dressing like him and delivering the narrative in the first person.

He took us through the whole house. We saw the kitchen and the bedrooms upstairs that are available to rent for a night. Then we saw the rooms where the Bordens slept. We saw where Lizzie's step=mother was killed and her body was discovered. We saw the living room where her father was killed as he napped on his sofa. They even have a dress form standing in one bedroom that is dressed in the dress Elizabeth Montgomery wore when she did the Lizzie Borden movie.

In a question and answer session afterward two women were very proud that they we cousins of the Borden family. Their last name was Borden. They were miffed when the man said that there were no other Borden males in the close family tree. Someone asked if he thought Lizzie was the one who committed the murders. He thought that was the case.

My son knows how much I like lobster and there we were right in the midst of lobsterland. He wanted to treat me to a lobster dinner and maybe try it himself. We went to a seafood restaurant.

My daughter-in-law wanted no part of anything fishy but she went and ordered "normal" food as did my grandson.

My grandson has a real weak stomach. Or should I say a strong gag reflex? The poor thing had to sit with his face to the wall because everyone around us was eating oysters. He suffered through that whole meal just so I could eat my lobster. He is so sweet.

We drove to Boston to spend the day steeped in history. We visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. It is an impressive building on a little point of the ocean. There is a large paved area outside to wander on and look into the water.

The building is classy just as I would expect something designed by Jackie would be. The many exhibits are informative and I learned a lot.

What I liked the most however was the misty rain that was falling when we were looking at the ocean before we left.

We had so many other places we wanted to see. The problem was that we got hopelessly lost. With us not knowing the city and construction and one-way streets we spent literally hours trying to find something/anything we could recognize to get out of there.

We did stop a couple of times to ask directions but no one else seemed to know where we were either. It was such a disappointing day.

Across the river from where we were staying was a naval museum. My father served in the Navy in World War II. I was very interested.

There were five vessels I think. Daddy was on a battleship so I really wanted to see that one.

We were able to go on all the ships there. We could climb around and explore what the sailors experienced. Up and down steps that are little more than stationary ladders. Below deck smelled horrible.

In the movies they always show the sailors sleeping in bunks. Ha! The sailors on these ships slept in hammocks. Unless they were of an elevated position of course. They get bunks.

We climbed on the guns and took pictures pretending to operate them. It was great fun and I felt close to my father that day.

In between all the sight-seeing we were doing we attended the softball games my granddaughter played. Her coach was a very young man from Australia. All the girls had crushes on him. My granddaughter simply told me, "He;s kinda cute."

She also went to other sporting events when she was not involved in other things. And there were the inevitable pizza parties in the dorm. She had a great time too. Although she was upset that we went to Lizzie Borden's house without her.

Former President of the United States Bill Clinton was the closing speaker for SAG. We certainly did not want to miss that.

As we were walking across the campus to the building where he would be speaking we spotted my granddaughter with a group of her peers. They were playing some sort of game similar to soccer but it was not that. My daughter-in-law immediately wanted to join. My son stayed to watch. My son and daughter-in-law were very young when they had the children so they fit in well most of the time.

My grandson and I continued on to the building. He looked at me and said, "I wish they wouldn't do that." Of course I wondered what he did not want them to do.

He said that they tended to forget that they were the parents. It embarrassed him.

That was when I told him that the hardest thing a parent has to do is to let go. It is so difficult to see your babies grow up to be not babies. I told him to try to give them some slack. Now that he has a little girl I am anxious to see how long it takes him to understand what I meant.

Bill Clinton is a hypnotic speaker. Even though you know he is speaking to hundreds of people you feel that he is speaking just to you. It is a gift.

After his speech he answered questions. He sat in a comfortable chair and seemed totally at ease as he fully answered each question. He was not hurried in his comments and often added even more. No wonder he was elected president.

It was a wonderful trip. I think everyone had an exceptional time.

Family Vacation

Usually when we took a vacation, we went to visit family. Most of the time my paternal grandmother lived far from us so we went there several times. But in the 1950's vacations were something that wealthier people took. So there were not that many vacations.

When I was about 12 years old we took a vacation. It was to visit family. But these were family members we rarely saw because they lived so far away.

Daddy had a station wagon. We needed a lot of room because there were six of us kids then and we were also taking my grandmother.

We put the largest part of the luggage on top of the car and put the back seat down so there was one big area in the back. It was easier for us to sleep as we rode but at times uncomfortable for riding.

Daddy drove, Mom rode in the middle holding my baby sister, and Grandma was on the passenger's side. We were indeed crowded. We took the baby in the back with us when we could but rambunctious behavior sometimes made it hard.

So we set off from Nebraska to West Virginia. As he always did, Daddy pointed the car and drove at top speed in order to get where we wanted to be. Bathroom breaks were expected to be quickly taken care of when we stopped to refuel the car. Most of the time we ate sandwiches in the car but we might stop at a rest area and eat at a picnic table there. Other than that we drove right on through.

My mother's sister and her family lived in West Virginia. The only cousins my age lived there. All the rest were quite a bit older or quite a bit younger.

My aunt has a large family also. We had a real house full of children. I believe there were 15 of us. But we had a great time.

It was during the school year so my cousins had to go to school. One day I went to visit with my cousin who is my age. The wild ride in the school bus along the side of the mountain scared me to death. There was mountain on one side and nothing on the other. It seemed like the driver was trying to break the sound barrier with his speed. I can understand that because all the kids were up, yelling and screaming and horsing around the whole way.

I was greeted with the popularity that any novelty enjoys. I was not going to be there long so most of the students wanted to know what someone from another part of the world was like. They had a juke box in the room where they could go after they ate lunch. A lot of the kids did the latest dances. This was before American bandstand was popular so it was interesting to see the way they danced.

Then there was the wild ride home. I was ready to kiss the ground.

Their house was on the side of a barren mountain. My uncle was a coal miner and they lived in a company house. They shopped at the company store. My aunt wanted to show Mom what the company store was like so all the adults were going site-seeing. My uncle's sister was going to keep an eye on us. The only children not there were my baby sister and my aunt's baby daughter.

Aunt Goldie was a gem. She decided to lay down the law as soon as our parents left. That was not the wisest course when she was outnumbered 13 to 1. Actually we were pretty good. We went to the kitchen to make some toast and cocoa.

Aunt Goldie was sure we were up to no good so she was spying on us from outside through the kitchen window. The oldest of my cousins got up and closed the window. We considered locking her out of the house but did not. We all laughed as Aunt Goldie tried to open the window from outside but my cousin held it down. He was not going to allow her to open that window. She started to bang on the window. It broke. Of course we got the blame for it when our parents got Aunt Goldie's report.

Aunt Goldie loved the Lawrence Welk Show. We were banished from the living room so she could watch it. We were in hysterics as we peered around the corner to see her dancing (including up and over the furniture) to her favorite songs.

We went from West Virginia to Tennessee. My father's younger brother lived there with his family. At that time he had a son and a daughter. He was a barber.

My aunt was funny. She was very pretty. But she could not cook worth a lick! One evening she made us these treats before bed. Actually they were delicious. They were sweet and gooey. I kept telling Mom she should learn how to make them. When I asked my aunt what they were called, she said they were donuts. Mom took me aside and told me to go to bed and shut my mouth.

It turns out that what they were was made by taking canned biscuits and stretching a hole in them (I never saw a hole). Then they were deep fried and dipped in frosting. My aunt did not fully cook them so we were basically eating warm raw biscuit dough with frosting that kind of melted from the heat. That was her best dish.

My uncle wanted to show Daddy around town. Off they went. My aunt was frantic after about twenty minutes. She was going to find them and bring my uncle home. Grandma watched us while Mom went with her.

Daddy and my uncle came home after an hour or two. Much later Mom and my aunt came in. When my aunt was out of hearing range Mom said that she must have seen every moonshine still in the state. My aunt was certain that they had gone drinking.

My cousins were spoiled. We laughed at the way they would say, "Wanna dollar, Momma, wanna dollar." with their southern drawls.

While we were there I spotted a pair of shoes in the store window. I was in love with those shoes. I had saved my money from odd jobs I did like pulling weeds, delivering papers, and my job setting pins at the bowling alley. I really wanted those shoes.

So I had Mom go with me to see if she would approve. She was a bit unsure but it was my money. If I really wanted them I could buy them. I bought my first pair of high heels.

The next stop was my aunt's house in Cleveland, Ohio, to see my father's sister. My aunt had been married but divorced after a period of time. She had never had children. Being a converted catholic she did not believe in remarrying so she lived alone.

She had a very good job and was quite comfortable; not rich but comfortable. She was not thrilled that we were there I think. She did not take time from work to spend with us. She had a very ordered way of life.

Her apartment was lovely. It had a corner window of the building. I loved being able to sit at the window and watch the things going on in a big city.

We only stayed there a couple of days and we were on our way home. I think she was happy to see us go.

On the way home we passed through the Ozark Mountains. They are beautiful. What I remember most was the pipes coming out of the sides of the mountains. They had spring water coming from them. At that time people were welcome to stop and use the water for drinking or whatever. It was so sweet and cold. Now they have to put up signs stating that it is not for human consumption.

By now everyone was tired of traveling and even a little irritable at times. We had stopped for gas. When Grandma was getting in the car she became indignant and told my father that my mother had tried to hit her.

I do not know exactly what happened. All I saw was Grandma getting in the car in a huffy mood. Mom was sitting in the middle again. Mom grabbed the baby's blanket and jerked it out of Grandma's way. Grandma thought Mom was trying to hit her. I know that neither of them was happy.

All in all it was a good vacation. I got to see people and places that I had not seen before. And I know we were all glad to be home.