A Cupboard, Some Blood and a Key That Does Not Explain Anything
When I was enrolled in Robert College in 2014, its 150th anniversary was still being celebrated a year after the actual date. It was a big deal; I remember huge blue flags with 150 written on them dangling from the school’s front. It was definitely an eccentric feeling to be enrolled in a school so old, almost 15 times my age. As astonishing as it sounds, I was just one more drop added to the lake of people this extraordinary school has had relationships with over the years. There have been donors, headmasters, teachers, students… Maybe an infamous murderer? That was the question planted in my mind after my discovery in prep year in Robert College.
First, let me address the murderer in question: Lizzie Borden. Born on July 19, 1860, in Fall River, Massachusetts, she lived with her sister, Emma, father, Andrew Borden, and her stepmother Abby Borden, until on August 4, 1892, when Andrew and Abby were found brutally murdered in their home, and Lizzie was arrested for it. Although the case was actually never solved, she was acquitted in 1893 and continued to live in Fall River until her death, on June 1, 1927. However, Lizzie was never free of the guilt that many of her neighbours inflicted on her, and her reputation was going down. In 1905, her own sister, Emma Borden, all of a sudden decided to move out of the house the two shared, and they never spoke again (“Lizzie”). Even after her death, her soul was not peaceful as her tale- that was highly exaggerated- was bandied around:
Lizzie Borden took an ax
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one. (Latson)
Lizzie would turn in her grave, if she ever heard of such a rhyme. Or maybe she already did and was so uncomfortable that she decided to get out of it. All that anger built inside her all these years… There must be a lot of places that she would like to project her anger to in a “haunting” fashion. Probably ones that remind her of her family name. Talking about which she shares with the other significant person in this story: Caroline Borden.


On the top floor of Feyyaz Berker, Robert College’s science building, across from Clement McDonnell’s classroom, there is an antiquated and empty cupboard which has the name “Caroline Borden” scripted on a piece of metal on its top drawer. The cupboard was locked when I tried to open it being the inquisitive student I was. I had to ask Mr. McDonell, of course, why there was an empty yet locked cupboard across from his classroom. He told me that the top floor of Feyyaz Berker was used as a taxidermy museum years ago and that this cupboard used to contain butterflies in its drawers. Apparently, the school couldn’t take good care of what was there and donated them to Saint Joseph High School Museum in İstanbul. When I asked him why the name “Caroline Borden” was there, he started laughing: “Oh, yeah? Let me tell you a fun story.” He told me that Caroline Borden was one of the people who donated their furniture to our school and that she was the sister of Lizzie Borden (McDonell). That was when I heard the infamous murderer’s name for the first time. I was astonished by the possibility of our school actually being connected to a cruel killer. However, I needed evidence.
Luckily, I had a science period ahead of me for which Mr. McDonell had planned to let the class free. For eighty minutes, he and I tried to find tangible evidence as much as we could to establish the connection between Lizzie Borden and Caroline Borden. We found almost nothing. The only information we had about Caroline Borden was that she was one of our school’s donors: “Borden donated her entire fortune, possessions, and books to the Girls’ College” (Yüksel)- Robert College was called The American College for Girls at the time. We had tons of information about the death of Lizzie Borden’s father and stepmother and about Lizzie Borden herself, but there was no visible connection between Caroline and Lizzie. Mr. McDonell even called the people who were responsible keeping records in our school, but again there was no connection, no evidence of Caroline being related to Lizzie, let alone being her sister as Mr. McDonell once believed she was.
The following year, in 9th grade, when I was walking in the Faralyalı Trail, which goes behind Feyyaz Berker, I found a key half buried into the soil. A cupboard key. My mind was blown by the slightest possibility of this key fitting that mysterious cupboard from a year earlier. The unsatisfying result was that it didn’t; I tried. However, it wasn’t as important as what I found later: a pattern.
Mr. McDonell assumed that Caroline Borden and Lizzie Borden were sisters before searching for any evidence simply because they shared the same surname. Then, I assumed that the key I found would fit Caroline’s cupboard just because the location I found it in was really close to Feyyaz Berker. We both tried to connect two objects or people to each other because we were annoyed by the unknown. We could sense a connection, therefore we thought there must be one. The reason is that people dislike loose ends. We want to find a solution to everything or leave nothing out of the bigger picture. It’s our common sense.
It’s almost the end of 2016*, and I still try to make a connection between Caroline Borden and Lizzie Borden. I didn’t find anything new other than, according to Robert College Records in Columbia University, “The papers of Caroline Borden, one of the most active of the trustees, constitute a significant segment of the trustees’ records” (Robert). If Caroline Borden greatly contributed to the records of our school, is it possible that that means she could’ve found the power to erase some information from the records? Maybe an unwanted sister? Or maybe they were really not sisters, but Lizzie got so mad at her family that after her death, she found everything which had “Borden” on it- like Caroline’s cupboard- and haunted them.
It’s not a question of what the connection is between the two anymore but rather which connection is the most compelling, despite its possibility of being true. The reason is that putting aside our explicit desire to find out the truth, our hidden desire is to write the endings of these stories that we encounter as how we want them to be. Since it’s no secret that we are drawn to the unusual, it’s only logical if Mr. McDonell and I wanted to connect a murderer to our school; it was just a matter of adding some spice to the mundane history of an old school like ours has. However, maybe there is yet some anomaly in this story. After two years, I realize that Mr. McDonell did not answer my question that day; I got stalled off. It is still not known why there is an empty yet locked cupboard on the top floor of Feyyaz Berker, across Mr. McDonell’s classroom, and I intend to find out.
*This piece of creative nonfiction was written by me on Nov. 29th, 2016.
Bibliography
Latson, Jennifer. “How Lizzie Borden Was Punished Despite Her Acquittal.” Time, 4 Aug. 2015. Time.com, time.com/3977000/lizzie-borden-history. Accessed 27 Nov. 2016.
“Lizzie Borden Biography.” Biography.com, A&E Television Networks, www.biography.com/people/lizzie-borden-9219858. Accessed 27 Nov. 2016.
McDonell, Clement. Personal interview. 2015.
Robert College Records, 1858–1986. www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/inside/projects/findingaids/scans/pdfs/Robert_College.pdf. Accessed 27 Nov. 2016.
Yüksel-Durukan, Ayşe. “The Robert College Library History & Today.” Robert College, rcwww.robcol.k12.tr/Library/History/Pages/default.aspx. Accessed 27 Nov. 2016.
