Pears

Why are pears so strongly associated with the murders? Because of the pear tree in the Borden back yard, which was heavy with ripe fruit on the morning of August 4th, 1892. It seemed the Borden family was fairly tripping over those pears all morning.

• Early that morning, Andrew Borden, went out into the backyard to empty his “slop pail” under the pear tree, and then gathered some ripe pears into a basket and brought them into the kitchen.
• Bridget herself went out to the pear tree when she felt ill and needed a private place to be sick.
• Pears were clearly part of the Andrew and Abby’s breakfast and final meal, as pear matter and pear skins were found in their stomachs, and a piece of the pear skin from Abby’s stomach was pressed between glass and introduced as an exhibit at trial. (These stomach contents were vital in establishing the 90-minute time gap between Andrew and Abby’s murders.)
• Lizzie said at one point during her inquest testimony that she was eating a pear in the kitchen when her father returned home.
• As part of her alibi, Lizzie reported heading up into the barn loft after first stopping under the pear tree to gather three ripe pears. She described standing at the window of the barn loft and eating those pears.
• When Lizzie’s uncle, John Morse, who had slept the night before in the guest room, returned to the house after being away in the morning, he first went to the pear tree to pick up a ripe pear and was eating it when he headed into the house and learned of the murders.
• A witness in one of the surrounding houses had seen a man leaning over the Borden fence on the morning of the murders, picking pears from the Borden tree. That man turned out to be Patrick McGowan, working in the Crowe yard, cater-corner from the Borden yard, who said he had been standing on a “wood horse” on the other side of the fence.
• The “Chagnon Orchard” behind the Borden fence was full of pear trees, and for those who lean toward Lizzie’s innocence, this orchard is often considered the most likely escape path of the intruder they believe killed the Bordens.

Clearly, there was no getting away from pears making their presence known that fateful morning. The fact that there is no account of any police officer looking through the barn loft and noting cores from the pears Lizzie said she was eating while her father was being murdered frustrates many students of the case today. The police weren’t looking specifically for pear cores on the day of the murders (or during subsequent searches), as Lizzie didn’t tell anyone this part of her “alibi” until the inquest five days later, and no one asked her what she did with them anyway. But did any officer notice pear cores and not think it meaningful at that moment? If they had been seen in that loft, that might have confirmed her alibi, while the lack of them might have helped to disprove it, and not knowing for sure feels a maddeningly lost possibility.

One of the more charming accounts about pears and the Borden family appears in Edward Radin’s book, Lizzie Borden: The Untold Story, published in 1961. At the time Radin was researching his book, he found several people in Fall River who had actually known Lizzie in their youth and were eager to share their memories. He spoke to a man named James Kirby, who was a 12-year-old schoolboy in Fall River at the time of the murders. Kirby first told Radin that Lizzie “was friendly and had a wonderful sense of humor” before relating the following story:

I was attending St. Mary’s School on the same block, and the Bordens had a small pear orchard alongside the house and around the back. You know how young boys are; they haven’t got stomachs; they’ve got bottomless pits. Fresh fruit was a treat for us … One day I got up my courage, opened the gate and knocked on the side door, while my scared friends waited safely out on the street. Lizzie answered, and I managed to get out my request. She told me that my friends could come in and that we could pick up the fruit that had fallen to the ground but said we must not climb the trees. We were small kids then, and I suppose she was afraid we might fall and hurt ourselves. We soon found a way to beat that. We would sneak into the yard, shake a big pile of pears off the trees and then I would knock and ask for permission. I’ll never forget the first time we did it. Lizzie gave a start when she saw that big mound of pears on the ground; it would have taken a hurricane to blow off that many. She caught on immediately. Her eyes danced, her lips quirked up, and you could see she wanted to laugh out loud. After that it became a game. I know she watched us through the window shaking the trees first but always went through the same act [and] she gave me a merry look that let me know we weren’t fooling her, but she never spoiled the game for us by telling us outright that she knew.

This went on for several years, almost up to the day of the murders. We went there twice a week, sometimes more, but she never acted as if we were pests or said a cross or angry word to us. The only times she turned us down were when we came around too early in the season and then always explained why. “No, they’re not ripe,” she would say and you could tell from the tone of her voice that she really was sorry. Mostly it was Lizzie who came to the door. Emma came once or twice but Mrs. Borden never did. If the maid answered she always grumped and would ask somebody inside … A few times when we made too much noise in the yard Mr. Borden came out yelling, and we got out of there fast … You can tell when a person comes to the door whether they are friendly or stiff. Lizzie didn’t say much to us, but her attitude always made us feel welcome.

Lizzie and her gift of pears to Kirby and his friends is a lovely story of Lizzie’s generosity to children and in keeping with the many stories of Lizzie’s obvious enjoyment of children in her later life.

It also seems she had a particular enjoyment of those pear trees in her backyard. During her inquest testimony, she described the minutes before discovering her father dead, telling the district attorney that she headed out to the barn, and on her way, “I stopped under the pear tree and took up some pears … I think I was there very nearly four or five minutes. I stood looking around.” If that is indeed what she did, standing beneath that pear tree was one of her last normal moments in a life that was about to become tragically upended.