Postscript

Lizzie Borden died on June 1, 1927, of complications resulting from her gallbladder operation. She slipped away quietly in her sleep; her heart simply stopped beating. She was sixty-six years old. Though she had spent lavishly, she still left a sizable fortune, the bulk of which was bequeathed to various animal charities, “because their need is great and so few care for them.” The Animal Rescue League of Fall River was the largest beneficiary. She left nothing to Emma “as she had her share of our father’s estate and is supposed to have enough to make her comfortable.”

Per Lizzie’s instructions, there was no funeral. Dressed in a white lace gown with a bouquet of pink verbena, Lizzie Borden lay in state in her black coffin alone in the parlor at Maplecroft.

As the sun set, Vida Pearson Turner, the soloist from the Central Congregationalist Church, came in and sang “My Ain Countrie” in her rich contralto voice to the empty room, then quietly collected her fee from the undertaker and was told to go home and tell no one about the service she had just rendered for the deceased.

After nightfall, six Negro pallbearers in black suits carried Lizzie Borden to her final rest. She was laid at her father’s feet in Oak Grove Cemetery.

After reading about Lizzie’s death in a newspaper, Emma suffered a dizzy spell and fell down the basement steps of the Connor sisters’ farm and shattered her hip. She never recovered and died nine days later on June 10, 1927. Orrin Gardner was at her bedside, holding her hand when she died.

Emma had been frugal with her inheritance and lived simply and reclusively, in a manner that would have made her father proud. Through thrift alone, rather than shrewd management and investments, she had nearly doubled her fortune by the time of her death. She left funds for a business scholarship to be established in her father’s name, with Orrin Gardner to act as administrator; the rest was divided amongst various charities, including numerous old-age homes, hospitals, orphanages, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and the YMCA. The lone personal bequest was $10,000 to Orrin Gardner. Her body was taken by train back to Fall River and she was buried beside Lizzie in Oak Grove Cemetery.

Orrin Gardner never married. He continued teaching and eventually became a high school principal. He died in a convalescent home in 1944.

Nance O’Neil capriciously abandoned the stage, determined to replicate her success on the screen. But her vibrant stage presence failed to translate to the new medium; on film her gestures seemed too broad and histrionic. Exciting new stars, like exotic vamp Theda Bara and Mary Pickford, with her plucky personality and long golden curls, had captured the public’s imagination, and Nance O’Neil was soon forgotten. Her roles diminished in both quality and quantity until the former great lady of the stage was reduced to playing bit parts, often glimpsed fleetingly as a face in the crowd, for $5 a day and a boxed lunch. She died forgotten, penniless, and alone in an old-age home in 1965 surrounded by souvenirs of her former glory. To her chagrin, whenever the occasional reporter came to interview her they were always more interested in her relationship with Lizzie Borden than hearing Nance reminisce about her life upon the stage.

 

In 1943 when she thought she was dying, Bridget Sullivan summoned a trusted friend, Minnie Green, to her bedside to hear a secret she longed to be unburdened of. Before Minnie arrived, Bridget recovered, and reconsidered. She died on March 26, 1948, at her Montana home surrounded by her children and grandchildren. She was eighty-two years old. Whatever her secret was, this time there was no attempt at a deathbed confession; Bridget took it with her to the grave.

The house at 92 Second Street still stands. Restored to appear as it did at the time of the Borden murders and rumored to be haunted by unquiet spirits that figured in the tragedy, today it is a popular bed-and-breakfast.

 

A note regarding Edwin H. Porter: Mr. Porter was a journalist for The Fall River Globe and the author of the first full-length book about the Borden murders, which Lizzie Borden is rumored to have bought up and burned en masse, with only a few copies escaping the bonfire. In this novel he appears as a composite character to personalize Lizzie’s enmity for the intrusive press coverage that dogged her from the time of the murders to the end of her life. This portrayal should not be taken as a true indication of his actions or character.