Lizzie Borden - Subsequent Life

Subsequent Life

After the trial the sisters moved to a large, modern house—which Lizzie christened Maplecroft—where their staff included live-in maids, housekeeper and coachman (or later, chauffeur). Because Abby was ruled to have died before Andrew, her estate went first to Andrew and then, at his death, passed to his daughters as part of his estate; a considerable settlement, however, was paid to settle claims by Abby's family (especially Abby's two sisters).

Despite the acquittal, Lizzie was ostracized by Fall River society. Lizzie Borden's name was again brought into the public eye when she was accused of shoplifting in 1897 in Providence, Rhode Island.

In 1905, shortly after an argument over a party Lizzie had given for actress Nance O'Neil, Emma moved out of the house. Soon after, Lizzie began using the name Lizbeth A. Borden.

Lizzie was ill in her last year following the removal of her gallbladder; she died of pneumonia on June 1, 1927 in Fall River. Funeral details were not published and few attended. On June 10, 1927, at age 76, nine days later, Emma died from chronic nephritis in a nursing home in Newmarket, New Hampshire. Having moved to this location in 1923 both for health reasons, and to get away from the public eye, which had renewed interest in the sisters at the publication of another book about the murders. The sisters, never married, were buried side by side in the family plot in Oak Grove Cemetery.

Lizzie left $30,000 to the Fall River Animal Rescue League and $500 in trust for perpetual care of her father's grave; her closest friend and a cousin each received $6,000—substantial sums at the estate's distribution in 1933, during the Great Depression. Books from Maplecroft's library, stamped and signed by the sisters, are valuable collectors' items.