Church and Charity

It must not have been easy for District Attorney Hosea Knowlton to make the decision to charge Lizzie Borden for the murder of her father and stepmother; after all, Lizzie Borden was well-known in Fall River for her church-going and tireless volunteer work for different charities. Not surprisingly, the prosecution immediately address Lizzie’s reputation for benevolence when presenting their case against her in court, with William Moody telling the jury in his opening arguments, “Today a woman of good social position, of hitherto unquestioned character, a member of a Christian church and active in its good works, the own daughter of one of the victims, is at the bar of this Court, accused by the Grand Jury of this County of these crimes.”

News of her charitable efforts show up in newspaper stories both before the murders and after. The December 26, 1889, edition of Fall River Daily Herald announced that the Fruit and Flower Mission would be holding their fourth annual dinner for poor children just after New Year’s Day. The paper described the event as “an effort to give a pleasant opening to the new year to some who might otherwise not have it to enjoy.” The article then asked the public for donations of money and food items, whether cooked or uncooked. “Notice of intention to give aid in any way will be thankfully received in advance by secretary Lizzie Borden of 92 Second Street.”

Reporter Kate McGuirk, who had once worked with Lizzie in the Fruit and Flower Mission, recalled in print how Lizzie had “heaped up the plates of vigorous young boys and poor children at the annual turkey dinner … and [took] delight in their healthy appetites.”

In the Fall River Evening News of August 10th, 1892, Mrs. Susan Handy, a longtime friend who said she’d been a “frequent visitor at the Borden home during the last fifteen years,” told the reporter, “Lizzie is kindhearted and has done much for the poor. For three winters she did sewing for the needy at home, and she frequently acknowledged Mrs. Borden’s assistance in the work.”

Further, Lizzie volunteered at the Central Congregational Church itself, which she typically attended twice a week, on Sunday mornings and Thursday evenings. She helped decorate the vestry and helped organize and clean up after church dinners, which a few months before the murders led to her arms being crushed by a dumbwaiter full of dishes. She even taught Sunday school to help Reverend Edwin Buck, the church’s City Missionary, in his outreach to immigrants. As reported by the Boston Globe of August 7th, 1892, Lizzie “was given a class of rough, untutored boys and labored with them until her courage was almost gone and then she was given some girls to teach. Also connected with the church is a Chinese Sunday school and Miss Lizzie took one of the men to instruct and had good success, and her pupil has since left Fall River.”

In Parallel Lives, the social history published by the Fall River Historical Society, we find the following: “Remarking on Lizzie’s diligence in her church work, [Charles H. Wells] believed that in ‘the entire membership of the Christian Endeavor Society there was not one who had seemed a more devoted member.’ Having occupied the room next to hers at the Mission School, Wells stated that her regular attendance as instructor there was not without notice … Other members of the church community also noted the fact that Lizzie possessed a pious and benevolent nature, commenting on her kindness in dealing with mission school students and the various deeds, such as sewing for the poor, that she selflessly performed.”  

It also appeared to be well-known in Fall River that Lizzie would give her own money to the charities that inspired her to donate her time. Both Edward Radin and Victoria Lincoln, in their 1960s books on Lizzie, wrote that Lizzie would often make up the shortfall in fundraising efforts from her own funds, with Lincoln even suggesting that Lizzie influenced her father to keep her purse full for just such occasions. If that is true, perhaps it was Lizzie that inspired her father—a man never known to give to charity—to think about donating land to an old folk’s home, as he told Lizzie’s uncle, John Morse, he was considering doing in the months before his death.

So munificent was Lizzie in her efforts to make her little part of the world a better place that her charitable bent featured in the famous short story about the murders by Angelea Carter in the 1980s. Carter, writing with dark and biting humor, described “the account books of various organizations” which sat on the desk in Lizzie’s room. “The Fruit and Flower Mission, under whose auspices she visits the indigent old in the hospital with gifts; the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, for whom she extracts signatures for petitions against the Demon Drink; Christian Endeavor, whatever that is—this is the golden age of good works and she flings herself into committees with a vengeance. What would the daughters of the rich do with themselves if the poor ceased to exist? Then there is the Newsboys Thanksgiving Dinner Fund; and the Horse Trough Association; and the Chinese Conversion Association—no class nor kind is safe from her merciless charity.”

Whatever else one might say of Lizzie Borden, she took seriously her Christian obligation to help those less fortunate than herself. How sad for Fall River, then, that after she was acquitted of the charge of murder, the city and its citizens shunned her. Worse, and probably most painful to Lizzie, her church did not welcome her back with open arms. According to her closest friend Helen Leighton, speaking to the Fall River Herald after her Lizzie’s death, Lizzie eagerly attended a church service for the first time about a month after her acquittal, but “women drew their skirts about them and turned away from her and men whom she had known for years passed her without a word of greeting.” The authors of Parallel Lives discovered an account of witness, Marion Fuller Holman, who had actually been in the church on the July day Lizzie first went back and “vividly remembered that Sunday, seeing row after row, usually ‘filled with the familiar faces of those who gathered to worship evey week,’ now vacant.” The stark image had a “powerful impact” on young Marion, said the authors, a clear “physical manifestation of the judgement” passed on Lizzie that day.

Leighton claimed Lizzie did not return to the church again; however, the Boston Advertiser had reported in June 1894, that Lizzie and Emma did show up to sit in the Borden pew on occasional Sundays, joining “devoutly and quietly in the services.” And Lizzie did continue to pay dues at the church. So, perhaps she tried, at least for awhile, to step into her previous role in the church, but eventually realized she would not be allowed. Regrettably, by casting Lizzie Borden out of their polite society, the Central Congregational church lost the efforts of its most dedicated volunteer, who by then was wealthy enough in her own right to have been able to make a difference in many lives.