Lizzie Borden's cemetery

I’ve always been interested in cemeteries, and the one in Fall River, Massachusetts, holding Lizzie Borden’s body is no exception.

After my visit to the Lizzie Borden B&B, my friend and I walked to the Oak Grove Cemetery to see if we could locate Lizzie’s grave, as well as her family members’.

It turns out it wasn’t rocket science. There are literally arrows painted on the ground directing you straight to the Borden plot. Perhaps cemetery staffers were tired of answering the same question over and over and decided to permanently answer it with paint. It was helpful given it was a very hot day in August (as was that fateful day in 1892, when Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered) to not have to meander and find the plot ourselves, but it did seem strange…I wondered if others buried there were miffed they didn’t warrant arrows. 

This-a-way, please

There’s one Borden monolith for all in this nuclear family, including both wives of Andrew (Sarah died when Lizzie, the youngest, was a toddler).

The side that talks about the “Children of Andrew and Sarah” is interesting and listed in order of death date. Alice comes first, the middle child who died in infancy. Interestingly enough, although Lizzie and Emma lived together for years after the murders, they had become estranged by the time of their deaths. They died days apart in 1927.

Each person also gets an individual stone embedded in the earth, and these are scattered with coins by visitors. Please take note that Lizzie is termed “Lizbeth” on this stone and the monolith. That is the name she took for herself after the murders.

Andrew is buried between his two wives.

The monumental gates of the cemetery, from the living side…

And the dead side.

Do you have a cemetery you particularly liked visiting? Please post it (and links!) in the comments.

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