Lizzie Borden. Not Elizabeth. Profession? Well, wouldn’t you like to know? You do know the rhyme, though, and admit it; it’s been running through your head ever since you spotted this article.

“Lizzie Borden took an axe / And gave her mother forty whacks / When the job was nicely done / She gave her father forty-one.”

There are variations on the theme –- The Chad Mitchell Trio had a decent hit with “Lizzie Borden” in the early ’60s, which gave us the line, “They all agreed Miss Lizzie B. was a problem kind of kid.” Good insight. Thanks.

The story is one of the better mostly-unsolved murders in American history. Biography tells us that Lizzie was born in 1860 to Andrew and Sarah Borden of Fall River, Massachusetts, the state that gave us the Salem Witch Trials. (To be fair, we also owe a debt of gratitude to the state as the birthplace of Dunkin’ Donuts. But we digress.) Lizzie had an older sister, Emma. Both daughters resided with their father and stepmother into adulthood -– today’s equivalent of living in your parents’ basement and playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto.

Mother Sarah died not long after Lizzie’s birth. Nobody reports Andrew observing, “You know, Lizzie, you killed your mother,” but it’s way too easy to imagine. In any event, Papa Borden remarried three years later to a woman neither girl warmed to in any sense of a Hallmark Movie “How-Can-I-Win-Over-My-Husband’s-Two-Children?” way. They referred to their stepmother, Abby, as “Mrs. Borden” and had concerns that the woman’s family had its eyes on Andrew’s fortune. As the sisters matured they helped manage Andrew’s rental properties and were devout members –- especially Lizzie –- of the Congregational Church.

Room and Borden

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