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Lizzie Borden : Warps & Wefts

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Lizzie Borden : Warps & Wefts

Tag Archives: The Lizzie Borden Flower

Lizzie’s Flower

12 Friday Feb 2010

Posted by Shelley in "Lizbits", 1890 fashion, Ephemera, Potpourri, Victoriana

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The Lizzie Borden Flower

Over the decades since Lizzie Borden’s death in 1927, the pansy has become the flower associated with her.  She herself never claimed that this was her favorite, and we have only the well-known photograph of her wearing the pansy brooch at her throat as any indication that she liked the flower.  Whether it was a favorite of Lizzie’s or merely a favorite blossom of the era cannot be known with any certainty.  Postcards, other ephemera, jewelry, household decorations, needlework, painted china, and such are all lavished with pansies.  It was a sentimental favorite, probably second only to blue forget-me-nots.  Violets, which signify faithfulness, and rosebuds of varying colors were other flowers most often seen.  The Language of Flowers was a popular code of the times, of which most ladies were very knowledgeable.  Pansies, from the French “pensees” means “thoughts”.  Naturally this was an ideal flower to associate with card sending and gift-giving.  There is a very good possibility that Lizzie’s pansy brooch was a gift given to her by a lady friend of close acquaintance.  Lizzie seemed to have a great many dresses in her closet which featured blue, so perhaps the blue-violet shades of pansies appealed to her for that reason.  Another well-know name for the tiny johnny-jump up, a diminuative pansy cousin, was “heart-ease”.  The motif was very popular in handwork for ladies of the time.  A lady reporter who wrote about Lizzie’s neat bedroom mentions a pale blue coverlet worked in embroidered flowers by Lizzie.  Too bad she did not mention what kind of flowers!  Today a vase of silk pansies is kept in Lizzie’s bedroom on Second Street, a Victorian oil painting of pansies hangs above her bed and pansies are always planted in the garden at #92.

Here is a poem by Louisa Don Carlos, born in 1874, one of many Victorian verses about the beloved pansy.

O give me not red roses,
That early dews have wet!
They speak to me of kisses
That are remembered yet.
 
O bring me not white roses,
That summer winds have drest!
For once I placed white roses
Upon a quiet breast.
 
But bring me purple pansies
If so you wish to please,
For them I have affection;
For pansies are “heart’s ease”.

Lizzie Borden Warps and Wefts

Lizzie Borden Warps and Wefts

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Warps-The threads which run lengthwise in a woven fabric, crossed at right angles to the weft. Wefts-The horizontal threads interlaced through the warp in a woven fabric. In 1876, Fall River had 1/6th of all New England cotton capacity and one-half of all print cloth production. The "Spindle City" as it became known, was second in the world to only Manchester, England.

Carved In Maplecroft’s Mantel

And old time friends and twilight plays, And starry nights and sunny days. Come trooping up the misty ways, When my fires burn low.

Lizzie and those pigeons

Lizzie's Inquest Testimony

Q. Can you tell of the killing of any animal? Or any other operation that would lead to their being cast there, with blood on them?
A. No sir. He killed some pigeons in the barn last May or June.
Q. What with?
A. I don't know, but I thought he wrung their necks.
Q. What made you think so?
A. I think he said so.
Q. Did anything else make you think so?
A. All but three or four had their heads on. That is what made me think so.
Q. Did all of them come into the house?
A. I think so.
Q. Those that came into the house were all headless?
A. Two or three had them on.
Q. Were any with their heads off?
A. Yes sir.
Q. Cut off or twisted off?
A. I don't know which.
Q. How did they look?
A. I don't know, their heads were gone, that is all.
Q. Did you tell anybody they looked as though they were twisted off?
A. I don't remember whether I did or not. The skin, I think, was very tender. I said, "Why are these heads off?" I think I remember of telling somebody that he said they twisted off.
Q. Did they look as if they were cut off?
A. I don't know. I did not look at that particularly.
Q. Is there anything else besides that that would lead, in your opinion so far as you can remember, to the finding of instruments in the cellar with blood on them?
A. I know of nothing else that was done.

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