EARLY YEARS
Marguerite Claverie, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, was born in New Orleans in 1907,[A13-1] into a family of French and German extraction.[A13-2] Her mother died a few years after Marguerite was born, leaving her and five other young children in the care of their father, a streetcar conductor.[A13-3] Although Marguerite describes herself as “a child of one parent,” she recalls being “one of the most popular young ladies in the [grammar] school,” and thinks of her childhood as a “very full happy” one.[A13-4] Her older sister, Mrs. Lillian Murret, remembers Marguerite as “a very pretty child, a very beautiful girl,”[A13-5] as does a former acquaintance, Clem H. Sehrt, who knew the Claveries.[A13-6] The family was poor but, according to Mrs. Murret, was a “happy family * * * singing all the time.”[A13-7] Marguerite had 1 year of high school.[A13-8] Shortly before she was 17, she went to work as a receptionist for a law firm in New Orleans.[A13-9]
In August 1929, while she was still working at the law firm, Marguerite married Edward John Pic, Jr.,[A13-10] a quiet man of her own age, who worked as a clerk for T. Smith & Son, a New Orleans stevedoring company.[A13-11] The marriage was not a success, and by the summer of 1931 she and Pic were separated.[A13-12] Marguerite was then 3 months pregnant; she told her family that Pic did not want any children and refused to support her.[A13-13] Pic ascribed the separation simply to their inability to get along together.[A13-14] A boy was born on January 17, 1932, whom Marguerite named John Edward Pic.[A13-15] Pic saw his son occasionally until he was about 1 year old; after that, he did not see the boy again[A13-16] but contributed to his support until he was 18 years old.[A13-17]
During her separation from her first husband, Marguerite saw a great deal of Robert Edward Lee Oswald, an insurance premium collector,[A13-18] who also was married but was separated from his wife.[A13-19] In 1933, Marguerite was divorced from Pic[A13-20] and, Oswald’s wife also having obtained a divorce,[A13-21] they were married in a Lutheran church on July 20.[A13-22] Marguerite has described the period of her marriage to Oswald as “the only happy part” of her life.[A13-23] A son was born on April 7, 1934, who was named for his father;[A13-24] Oswald wanted to adopt John Pic, but his mother objected on the ground that John’s father might cut off the support payments.[A13-25] In 1938, the Oswalds purchased a new house on Alvar Street for $3,900,[A13-26] in what John remembered as “a rather nice neighborhood.”[A13-27] The house was across the street from the William Frantz School,[A13-28] which first John and later both he and Robert, Jr., attended.[A13-29] On August 19, 1939, little more than a year after the Oswalds bought the Alvar Street house, Robert Oswald died suddenly of a heart attack.[A13-30]
Two months later, on October 18, 1939, a second son was born.[A13-31] He was named Lee after his father; Harvey was his paternal grandmother’s maiden name.[A13-32] For a while after her husband’s death, Mrs. Oswald remained in the Alvar Street house without working; she probably lived on life insurance proceeds.[A13-33] Sometime in 1940, she rented the house to Dr. Bruno F. Mancuso, the doctor who had delivered Lee.[A13-34] (Dr. Mancuso continued to rent the house until 1944,[A13-35] when Marguerite obtained a judgment of possession against him.[A13-36] She sold the house for $6,500 to the First Homestead and Savings Association, which resold it to Dr. Mancuso.)[A13-37] She herself moved to a rented house at 1242 Congress Street, where she lived for about half a year.[A13-38] For part of this period after Oswald’s death, the two older boys were placed in the Infant Jesus College, a Catholic boarding school in Algiers, La., a suburb of New Orleans.[A13-39] Neither they nor their mother liked this arrangement,[A13-40] which John thought was intended to save money;[A13-41] it lasted for less than a year, after which the boys returned to the school Frantz and then transferred to the George Washington Elementary School.[A13-42]
On March 5, 1941, Mrs. Oswald purchased a frame[A13-43] house at 1010 Bartholomew Street, for $1,300.[A13-44] According to John’s recollection, the neighborhood was not as pleasant as Alvar Street; the house had a backyard, and the family kept a dog named “Sunshine.”[A13-45] A neighbor, Mrs. Viola Peterman, recalls that Mrs. Oswald kept to herself but appeared to be “a good mother to her children.”[A13-46] She opened a shop in the front room, where she sold things like sewing supplies and small groceries.[A13-47] Oswald’s Notion Shop, as it was called,[A13-48] failed to make money,[A13-49] and on January 16, 1942, Mrs. Oswald sold the house back to the Third District Home Association, from which she had purchased it, for a profit of $800.[A13-50]
Probably in contemplation of the sale of the house, Mrs. Oswald applied in December 1941 to the Evangelical Lutheran Bethlehem Orphan Asylum Association for the admission of her two older sons to the orphan asylum, known as the Bethlehem Children’s Home; she stated on the application that she could contribute $20 per month to their maintenance and would supply shoes and clothing.[A13-51] She had inquired also about Lee, who was too young to be admitted.[A13-52] John and Robert were accepted and entered the home on January 3, 1942.[A13-53]
Mrs. Oswald moved to an apartment at 831 Pauline Street,[A13-54] and returned to work. In December 1942, she listed her occupation as “telephone operator”;[A13-55] this may be the job she held at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., a company for which she worked at some point during this period.[A13-56] She left Lee for much of this time with his aunt, Mrs. Murret, who thought him a good looking, friendly child, but could not devote a great deal of attention to him because she had five children of her own.[A13-57] In the late spring of 1942, Lee was watched for several weeks by Mrs. Thomas Roach, who lived with her husband in the same house as the Oswalds.[A13-58] Lee evidently did not get along with Mrs. Roach who told the next occupant of the house that Lee was a bad, unmanageable child who threw his toy gun at her.[A13-59] Apparently referring to the Roaches, Mrs. Oswald testified that she had once hired a couple to care for Lee; the couple neglected him, so she “put them out” and cared for Lee herself until Mrs. Murret was able to help her again.[A13-60] Soon after the incident with the Roaches, Mrs. Oswald moved again,[A13-61] this time to 111 Sherwood Forest Drive, near the Murrets.[A13-62]
Mrs. Murret took care of Lee for several months longer. Near Lee’s third birthday, Mrs. Oswald again inquired about his admission into the Bethlehem Children’s Home,[A13-63] perhaps because a disagreement with her sister made it impossible to leave him with her any longer.[A13-64] He was admitted on December 26.[A13-65] On his application, Mrs. Oswald agreed to contribute $10 per month and to supply shoes and clothing, as for the other boys.[A13-66]
Lee remained in the home for about 13 months, but according to John’s testimony, left on several occasions to spend short periods of time with his mother or the Murrets.[A13-67] John and Robert have pleasant memories of the home,[A13-68] which apparently gave the children a good deal of freedom.[A13-69] Robert described it as nondenominational but having “a Christian atmosphere”; “it might have been just a Protestant home.”[A13-70] Mrs. Oswald visited them regularly,[A13-71] and they occasionally left the home to visit her or the Murrets.[A13-72]
In July 1943, Mrs. Oswald was hired to manage a small hosiery store.[A13-73] This is probably the store to which she referred in her testimony as the “Princess Hosiery Shop on Canal Street,” at which, she testified, she was left by herself and “in 6 days’ time * * * hired four girls.”[A13-74] Her employer remembers her as a neat, attractive, and hardworking woman, an aggressive person who would make a good manager.[A13-75] She was not good with figures, however, and after several months he discharged her.[A13-76] At about this same time, she met Edwin A. Ekdahl, an electrical engineer older than herself, who was originally from Boston but was then working in the area.[A13-77] They saw each other often. Ekdahl met the boys[A13-78] and, according to John’s testimony, on at least one occasion, they all spent a weekend at a summer resort area in Covington, La.[A13-79]
By January 1944, Mrs. Oswald and Ekdahl had decided to marry.[A13-80] She withdrew Lee from the Children’s Home[A13-81] and moved with him to Dallas, where Ekdahl expected to be located.[A13-82] They planned to postpone the marriage until the end of the school year so that the older boys could complete the year at the home before they left it.[A13-83] In the meantime, she would care for Ekdahl,[A13-84] who was recovering from a serious illness, probably a heart attack.[A13-85] Mrs. Oswald has testified that when she arrived in Dallas, she decided that she did not want to marry Ekdahl after all.[A13-86] Using part of the proceeds from the sale of the Alvar Street house,[A13-87] she purchased a house at 4801 Victor Street,[A13-88] a portion of which she rented.[A13-89] In June, John and Robert left the Children’s Home and joined their mother in Dallas.[A13-90] They entered the nearby Davy Crockett Elementary School the following September.[A13-91]
Ekdahl visited Mrs. Oswald on weekends and stayed at Victor Street.[A13-92] By the following year she had resolved her doubts about marrying him, influenced in part by his substantial income[A13-93] and perhaps by the visit some time earlier of his sister, who favored the marriage because of his ill health.[A13-94] Explaining that she expected to travel a great deal, Mrs. Oswald tried unsuccessfully to return the older boys to the home in February 1945.[A13-95] She and Ekdahl were married in May.[A13-96] After a brief honeymoon, they returned to Victor Street.[A13-97]
Ekdahl got along well with the boys, on whom he lavished much attention.[A13-98] John testified that Ekdahl treated them as if they were his own children and that Lee seemed to find in Ekdahl “the father he never had”; John recalled that on one occasion he told Lee that Ekdahl and his mother had become reconciled after a separation, and that “this seemed to really elate Lee, this made him really happy that they were getting back together.”[A13-99]
Because Ekdahl’s business required him to make frequent trips, in September, John and Robert were placed in the Chamberlain-Hunt Military Academy at Port Gibson, Miss.;[A13-100] their mother paid the tuition herself, using the proceeds from the sale of the Alvar Street property.[A13-101] They remained at the academy for the next 3 years, returning home only for vacations.[A13-102] Lee accompanied his parents on their travels.[A13-103] Mrs. Myrtle Evans, who had known both Marguerite and Ekdahl before their marriage,[A13-104] testified that Marguerite insisted on keeping Lee with her; Mrs. Evans thought that Marguerite was “too close” to Lee and “spoiled him to death,” which hurt her marriage to Ekdahl.[A13-105]
Sometime in the fall after John and Robert were at boarding school, the Ekdahls moved to Benbrook, a suburb of Fort Worth, where they lived on Granbury Road,[A13-106] in a house of stone or brick, set on a large plot of land.[A13-107] Records of the Benbrook Common School show Lee’s admission into the first grade on October 31; his birth date is incorrectly given as July 9, 1939, his mother presumably having given that date to satisfy the age requirement.[A13-108] On February 8, 1946, he was admitted to the Harris Hospital in Fort Worth with “acute mastoiditis.”[A13-109] A mastoidectomy was performed without complications, and Lee left the hospital in 4 days.[A13-110] (In 1955, Lee indicated on a school form that he had an “abnormal ear drum in left ear,”[A13-111] presumably a reference to the mastoidectomy; but when he entered the Marines 1 year later, physical examination disclosed no physical defects.)[A13-112]
The Ekdahls’ marriage quickly broke down. Before they had been married a year, Marguerite suspected Ekdahl of infidelity.[A13-113] She thought him stingy,[A13-114] and there were frequent arguments about his insistence that she account for her expenditures and his refusal to share his money with her.[A13-115] In the summer of 1946, she left Ekdahl, picked up John and Robert at Chamberlain-Hunt, and moved with the boys to Covington, La.,[A13-116] where they lived for at least part of the time at 311 Vermont Street. [A13-117] Mrs. Evans described them at Covington, possibly during this summer, as “really a happy family”; Lee seemed like a normal boy but “kept to himself” and seemed not “to want to be with any other children.”[A13-118] The separation continued after the two boys returned to boarding school, and in September Lee was enrolled in the Covington Elementary School.[A13-119] His record at Benbrook had been satisfactory—he was present on 82 school days and absent on 15, and received all A’s and B’s[A13-120]—but he had not completed the work of the first grade, in which he was enrolled for a second time.[A13-121]
Lee received no grades at the Covington School, from which he was withdrawn on January 23, 1947,[A13-122] because his parents, now reconciled, were moving to Fort Worth, where they lived at 1505 Eighth Avenue.[A13-123] Four days later, he enrolled in the Clayton Public School; he was still in the first grade, which he completed in May with B’s in every subject except physical education and health, in which he received A’s.[A13-124] In the fall, he entered the second grade in the same school but, relations between his parents having deteriorated again, was withdrawn before any grades were recorded.[A13-125]
After the move to Fort Worth, the Ekdahls continued to argue frequently; according to John, “they would have a fight about every other day and he would leave and come back.”[A13-126] That summer, Marguerite obtained what she regarded as proof that Ekdahl was having some sort of affair. According to her testimony, a neighbor told her that Ekdahl had been living on Eighth Avenue with another woman while she was in Covington.[A13-127] Then, at a time when Ekdahl was supposed to be out of town,[A13-128] she went with John and several of his friends to an apartment in Fort Worth; one of the boys posed as a telegram carrier, and when the door opened she pushed her way into the apartment and found Ekdahl in his shirt sleeves in the company of a woman in a negligee.[A13-129]
Despite this apparent confirmation of her suspicions, Marguerite continued to live with Ekdahl until January 1948.[A13-130] In January, according to Ekdahl’s allegations in the subsequent divorce proceedings, she “directed * * * [him] to leave the home immediately and never to return,” which he did.[A13-131] Ekdahl filed suit for divorce in March.[A13-132] The complaint alleged that Marguerite constantly nagged Ekdahl and argued “with reference to money matters,” accused him of infidelity, threw things at him, and finally ordered him out of the house; that these acts were unprovoked by Ekdahl’s conduct toward her; that her acts endangered his already impaired health; and that her “excesses, harsh and cruel treatment and outrages” toward him made it impossible for them to live together.[A13-133] She denied all these allegations.[A13-134] After a trial, at which John testified and, he thought, Lee was called to the stand but was excused without testifying,[A13-135] the jury found on special issues that Marguerite was “guilty of excesses, cruel treatment, or outrages” unprovoked by Ekdahl’s conduct.[A13-136] On June 24, the court granted the divorce and approved an agreement between the parties disposing of their property between them and awarding Marguerite $1,500; at her request, the divorce restored to Marguerite her former name, Marguerite C. Oswald.[A13-137]
While the divorce suit was pending, Marguerite moved from Eighth Avenue to a house on 3300 Willing Street, next to railroad tracks.[A13-138] The boys found her there in May when they returned from the military academy; for John, the move signified that they “were back down in the lower class again.”[A13-139] Lee’s withdrawal from the Clayton School on March 18, 1948,[A13-140] probably coincided with the move to Willing Street. He entered the Clark Elementary School on the following day, and in June completed the second grade with a record mostly of B’s and A’s.[A13-141] Philip Vinson, a classmate at the Clayton School, has described Lee at that time as “a quiet type of kid,” who “didn’t make a lot of noise.”[A13-142] Lee was “stocky and well built,” which made other boys look up to him and regard him as the leader of one of their schoolyard “gangs.”[A13-143] Vinson thought that Lee was not a bully and got along with his classmates, but had the impression that he rarely played with them or brought them home after school.[A13-144]
Shortly after the divorce, Mrs. Oswald purchased a small house in Benbrook, on what is now San Saba Street;[A13-145] John has testified that it had a single bedroom, in which Lee slept with his mother, and a screened porch where John and Robert slept.[A13-146] Mrs. Oswald worked at a department store in Fort Worth, and left the three boys home alone.[A13-147] A neighbor, Mrs. W. H. Bell, has stated that Lee seemed to enjoy being by himself and to resent discipline;[A13-148] another neighbor, Otis R. Carlton, stated that he once saw Lee chase John with a knife and throw it at him, an incident which, Carlton said, their mother passed off as a “little scuffle.”[A13-149] At the end of the summer, Carlton purchased the property. He stated that he appraised it at $2,750 at Mrs. Oswald’s request; she then insisted that he had made an offer to purchase at that price, which he finally agreed to do.[A13-150]
After the house was sold, the family returned to Fort Worth, a move necessitated by Mrs. Oswald’s, and now John’s, employment.[A13-151] Mrs. Oswald bought a two-bedroom, frame house at 7408 Ewing, from which Robert and Lee could walk to school.[A13-152] John, who was then 16, obtained a job as a shoe stockboy at Everybody’s Department Store; he testified that he wanted to finish high school at the military academy, but that his mother advised him to leave school and help to support the family.[A13-153] He gave her $15 per week out of his salary of $25.[A13-154] Robert returned to school.[A13-155]
Lee entered the third grade at the Arlington Heights Elementary School.[A13-156] He remained at Arlington Heights for the entire school year, completing the third grade with a satisfactory record, which included A’s in social studies, citizenship, elementary science, art, and music, and a D in spelling.[A13-157] In September 1949, he transferred to the Ridglea West Elementary School, where he remained for the next 3 years.[A13-158] Lee’s record at Ridglea is not remarkable in any respect. In the fourth and fifth grades, he received mostly B’s; in the sixth grade, B’s and C’s predominate.[A13-159] He received D’s in both the fifth and sixth grades in spelling and arithmetic; in the fourth and sixth grades, C’s are recorded for Spanish,[A13-160] which may account for his rudimentary familiarity with that language later on.[A13-161] In the fourth grade his IQ was recorded at 103; on achievement tests in each of the 3 years, he twice did best in reading and twice did worst in spelling.[A13-162]
Lee is generally characterized as an unexceptional but rather solitary boy during these years. His mother worked in a variety of jobs,[A13-163] and, according to her own testimony, told Lee not to contact her at work except in an emergency.[A13-164] He ordinarily returned home alone directly after school, in obedience to his mother’s instructions.[A13-165] A fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Clyde I. Livingston, described him as a lonely boy, quiet and shy, who did not easily form friendships with other students.[A13-166] But Richard W. Garrett has stated that he was a classmate of Lee in the fourth or fifth grade and found him easy to get along with; he recalled playing with Lee often at school and sometimes walking home together with him.[A13-167] Mrs. Livingston recalled that at Christmas 1949, Lee gave her a puppy and afterward came to her home to see the puppy and talk to her and her family.[A13-168]
Lee’s relationship with his brothers was good but limited by the difference in their ages.[A13-169] He still had a dog,[A13-170] but there were few children of his age in the neighborhood, and he appears to have been by himself after school most of the time.[A13-171] He read a lot,[A13-172] had a stamp collection, and played chess and Monopoly with his brothers.[A13-173] Mrs. Murret remembered that on a visit to her home in New Orleans, Lee refused to play with other children or even to leave the house; he preferred to stay indoors and read (mostly “funnybooks”) or listen to the radio.[A13-174] After several weeks with the Murrets, Lee wrote to his mother and asked her to come for him.[A13-175] Hiram Conway, a neighbor on Ewing Street, thought Lee was an intelligent child, who picked things up easily; although he did not recall many specific incidents to support his impressions, Conway regarded Lee as “a bad kid,” who was “quick to anger” and “mean when he was angry, just ornery.”[A13-176] John’s general picture of Lee in these years is that of “a normal healthy robust boy who would get in fights and still have his serious moments.”[A13-177]
John returned to high school in January 1949, but continued to work part time.[A13-178] Early in 1950, he entered the Coast Guard.[A13-179] Robert left school soon after John’s departure and went to work full time, contributing most of his earnings to the support of his family.[A13-180] He returned to school in 1951-52, and after completing his junior year in high school, joined the Marines in July 1952.[A13-181] In August, Mrs. Oswald and Lee moved to New York, where John was living with his wife and a very young baby in an apartment at 325 East 92d Street; the apartment belonged to John’s mother-in-law, who was temporarily away.[A13-182] Mrs. Oswald has explained that with Robert gone she did not want Lee to be alone while she worked and that she went to New York City “not as a venture,” but because she “had family” there.[A13-183]
The visit began well. John testified of his meeting with Lee: “We met in the street and I was real glad to see him and he was real glad to see me. We were real good friends.”[A13-184] He took about a week of leave and showed Lee the city; he remembered trips to the Museum of Natural History and Polk’s Hobby Shop, and a ride on the Staten Island ferry.[A13-185] But when it became obvious that his mother intended to stay, the atmosphere changed. Mrs. Oswald did not get along with John’s wife, with whom she quarreled frequently.[A13-186] There was difficulty about her failure to contribute anything towards her own and Lee’s support.[A13-187] According to John, his wife liked Lee and would have been glad to have him alone stay with them but felt that his mother set Lee against her; they never suggested that Lee remain with them since they knew that it would not work out.[A13-188] The visit ended when Lee threatened Mrs. Pic with a pocket knife during a quarrel,[A13-189] and she asked Mrs. Oswald to leave.[A13-190] John testified that during this same quarrel Lee hit his mother, who appeared to have lost all control over him.[A13-191] The incident permanently destroyed the good relationship between Lee and his brother.[A13-192]
Mrs. Oswald and Lee moved uptown to a one-room basement apartment[A13-193] in the Bronx, at 1455 Sheridan Avenue.[A13-194] While they were still at the Pics, he had been enrolled at the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran School on Watson Avenue.[A13-195] He was withdrawn on September 26, after several weeks of irregular attendance, and 4 days later enrolled in the seventh grade of Public School 117, a junior high school.[A13-196] Mrs. Oswald found a job at one of the Lerner Shops, a chain of dress shops for which she had worked briefly in Fort Worth several years before.[A13-197] In January, they moved again, to 825 East 179th Street,[A13-198] and a few weeks later, she left the employ of Lerner Shops.[A13-199] In April, she was working at Martin’s Department Store in Brooklyn, where she earned $45 per week;[A13-200] in May, she went to work for a chain of hosiery shops, with which she remained until December.[A13-201] Lee was registered at Public School 117 until January 16, 1953,[A13-202] although the move to 179th Street, which took him out of that school district, probably took place before that date.[A13-203] He had been at Public School 117 for 64 schooldays, out of which he had been present on 15 full and 2 half days;[A13-204] he had received failing grades in most of his courses.[A13-205]
Lee’s truancy increased after he moved; he was now located in the school district of Public School 44 but refused to go to school there.[A13-206] On one occasion that spring, an attendance officer located Lee at the Bronx Zoo; the officer testified that Lee was clean and well dressed, but was surly and referred to the officer as a “damned Yankee.”[A13-207] Several truancy hearings were held in January, at the first of which at least, both Mrs. Oswald and Lee evidently failed to appear.[A13-208] At a hearing on January 27, by which time it was known that Lee was living in the Public School 44 district, it was decided to commence judicial proceedings if his truancy continued.[A13-209] Meanwhile, on January 16, his mother called the Community Service Society, to which she had been referred by the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, and asked for an appointment to discuss the problem.[A13-210] She mentioned that a truancy hearing had been held and said that Lee would not attend school despite the threat of official action; she thought that his behavior was due to difficulty in adjusting to his new environment.[A13-211] An appointment was scheduled for January 30, but she failed to appear, and the case was closed.[A13-212] Sometime in February, the Pics visited the Oswalds. John testified that his mother told him about Lee’s truancy and asked how she could get Lee to accept psychiatric aid. Nothing came of these discussions.[A13-213]
On March 12, the attendance officer in charge of Lee’s case filed a petition in court which alleged that Lee had been “excessively absent from school” between October and January, that he had refused to register at Public School 44 or to attend school there, and that he was “beyond the control of his mother insofar as school attendance is concerned.”[A13-214] On the same day, Mrs. Oswald appeared in court alone and informed the presiding judge that Lee refused to appear in court.[A13-215] Evidently impressed by the proceedings, however, Lee did register at Public School 44 on March 23.[A13-216] Nevertheless, on April 16, Justice Delany declared him a truant, and remanded him to Youth House until May 7 for psychiatric study.[A13-217]
In accordance with the regular procedures at Youth House, Lee took a series of tests and was interviewed by a staff social worker and a probation officer, both of whom interviewed Mrs. Oswald as well.[A13-218] Their findings, discussed more fully in chapter VII of the Commission’s report, indicated that Lee was a withdrawn, socially maladjusted boy, whose mother did not interest herself sufficiently in his welfare and had failed to establish a close relationship with him.[A13-219] Mrs. Oswald visited Lee at Youth House and came away with a highly unfavorable impression; she regarded it as unfit for her son.[A13-220] On the basis of all the test results and reports and his own interview with Lee, Dr. Renatus Hartogs, the chief staff psychiatrist, recommended that Lee be placed on probation with a requirement that he seek help from a child guidance clinic, and that his mother be urged to contact a family agency for help; he recommended that Lee not be placed in an institution unless treatment during probation was unsuccessful.[A13-221]
Lee returned to court on May 7. He and his mother appeared before Justice McClancy, who discussed the Youth House reports with them.[A13-222] He released Lee on parole until September 24, and requested that a referral be made to the Community Service Society for treatment.[A13-223] The probation officer called the society on the same day but was told that it would probably not be able to take the case because of its already full case load and the intensive treatment which Lee was likely to require;[A13-224] it confirmed this position 1 week later and closed the case on May 31.[A13-225] An application was made to the Salvation Army also, which turned it down because it could not provide the needed services.[A13-226]
During the few weeks of school which remained, Lee attended school regularly, and completed the seventh grade with low but passing marks in all his academic subjects.[A13-227] (He received a failing mark in a home economics course.)[A13-228] His conduct was generally satisfactory and he was rated outstanding in “Social-Participation”; the record indicates that he belonged to a model airplane club and had a special interest in horseback riding.[A13-229] Robert Oswald visited New York that summer, while he was on leave from the Marines.[A13-230] Lee did not appear to him to be unhappy or to be acting abnormally, nor did Robert observe that relations between Lee and his mother were strained.[A13-231] Lee’s truancy the previous fall and winter was apparently discussed only in passing, when Mrs. Oswald mentioned that Lee had had to appear before a judge.[A13-232]
On September 14, Lee entered the eighth grade at Public School 44.[A13-233] His parole was due to end 10 days later. On September 24, however, Mrs. Oswald telephoned the probation officer and advised that she could not appear in court; she added that there was no need for her to do so, since Lee was attending school regularly and was now well adjusted.[A13-234] The parole was extended until October 29, before which date the school was to submit a progress report.[A13-235] The report was highly unfavorable. Although Lee was attending school regularly, his conduct was unsatisfactory; teachers reported that he refused to salute the flag, did little work, and seemed to spend most of his time “sailing paper planes around the room.”[A13-236] On October 29, Mrs. Oswald again telephoned to say that she would be unable to appear. Justice Sicher continued Lee’s parole until November 19 and directed the probation officer to make a referral to the Berkshire Industrial Farm or Children’s Village.[A13-237]
Before the next hearing, Mrs. Oswald discussed Lee’s behavior with the school authorities, who indicated to the probation officer that Lee’s behavior improved considerably after her visit to the school.[A13-238] He did, in fact, receive passing grades in most of his subjects in the first marking period. His report also contains notations by his teachers that he was “quick-tempered,” “constantly losing control,” and “getting into battles with others.”[A13-239] Both Lee and his mother appeared in court on November 19. Despite Mrs. Oswald’s request that Lee be discharged, Justice Sicher stated his belief that Lee needed treatment, and continued his parole until January 28, 1954; the probation officer was directed to contact the Big Brothers counseling service in the meantime.[A13-240]
At the request of the probation officer, the Big Brothers office contacted Mrs. Oswald in December, and on January 4 a caseworker visited her and Lee at home.[A13-241] The caseworker reported that he was cordially received but was told by Mrs. Oswald that continued counseling was unnecessary; she pointed out to him that Lee now belonged to the West Side YMCA, which he attended every Saturday. The caseworker reported, however, that Lee was plainly “displeased with the idea of being forced to join various ‘Y’ organizations about which he cared little.” Mrs. Oswald declared her intention to return to New Orleans and was advised to obtain Lee’s release from the court’s jurisdiction before she left.[A13-242] On the following day, she called the probation officer, who was away on vacation, and was advised by his office again not to take Lee out of the jurisdiction without the court’s consent.[A13-243] The same advice was repeated to her by the Big Brothers caseworker on January 6. [A13-244] Through all these contacts, Mrs. Oswald had evidenced reluctance to bring Lee into court, prompted probably by fear that he would be retained in some sort of custody as he had been at the time of the commitment to Youth House.[A13-245] Without further communication to the court, Mrs. Oswald and Lee returned to New Orleans sometime before January 10.[A13-246] On March 11, the court dismissed the case.[A13-247]
In New Orleans, Lee and his mother stayed with the Murrets at 757 French Street while they looked for an apartment.[A13-248] Lee enrolled in the eighth grade at Beauregard Junior High School on January 13[A13-249] and completed the school year without apparent difficulty.[A13-250] He entered the ninth grade in September and again received mediocre but acceptable marks.[A13-251] In October 1954, Lee took a series of achievement tests, on which he did well in reading and vocabulary, badly in mathematics.[A13-252] At the end of the school year, on June 2, 1955, he filled out a “personal history.” He indicated that the subjects which he liked best were civics, science, and mathematics; those he liked least were English and art. His vocational preferences were listed as biology and mechanical drawing; his plans after high school, however, were noted as “military service” and “undecided.” He said that reading and outdoor sports were his recreational activities and that he liked football in particular. In response to the question whether he had “any close friends in this school,” he wrote, “no.”[A13-253]
Lee is remembered by those who knew him in New Orleans as a quiet, solitary boy who made few friends.[A13-254] He was briefly a member of the Civil Air Patrol,[A13-255] and considered joining an organization of high school students interested in astronomy;[A13-256] occasionally, he played pool or darts with his friend, Edward Voebel.[A13-257] Beyond this, he seems to have had few contacts with other people. He read a lot, starting at some point to read Communist literature which he found at the public library;[A13-258] he walked or rode a bicycle, sometimes visiting a museum.[A13-259] Except in his relations with his mother, he was not unusually argumentative or belligerent, but he seems not to have avoided fights if they came; they did come fairly frequently, perhaps in part because of his aloofness from his fellows and the traces of a northern accent in his speech.[A13-260] His only close friendship, with Voebel, arose when Voebel helped him tend his wounds after a fight.[A13-261] Friends of Mrs. Oswald thought that he was demanding and insolent toward her and that she had no control over him.[A13-262]
While Lee was in the eighth and ninth grades, Mrs. Oswald worked first at Burt’s Shoestore[A13-263] and then at the Dolly Shoe Co.[A13-264] One of her employers at Dolly, where she worked as a cashier and salesclerk, remembered her as a pleasant person and a good worker.[A13-265] At her request, the company hired Lee to work part time; he worked there, mostly on Saturdays, for about 10 weeks in 1955.[A13-266] On the “personal history” record which he filled out in school, he stated that he had been a “retail shoesalesman”;[A13-267] but his employer recalled that they had tried to train him as a salesman without success and that he had in fact been a stockboy.[A13-268]
After a short period with the Murrets, Mrs. Oswald and Lee had moved to an apartment owned by Myrtle Evans at 1454 Saint Mary Street, which she and Mrs. Murret helped to furnish; later they moved to a less expensive apartment in the same building, the address of which was 1452 Saint Mary Street.[A13-269] Relations between Mrs. Oswald and Mrs. Evans became strained,[A13-270] and in the spring of 1955 the Oswalds moved to a new apartment at 126 Exchange Place in the French Quarter.[A13-271] Although Lee gave the Exchange Place address on a school form at the end of the ninth grade,[A13-272] the school authorities had apparently not been advised of these moves earlier, because Mrs. Oswald did not want Lee to be transferred from Beauregard, which she considered a good school.[A13-273] During the summer of 1955, Robert left the Marine Corps and spent a week with his mother and Lee in New Orleans before moving to Fort Worth; he found Lee unchanged.[A13-274]
That fall, Lee entered the 10th grade at Warren Easton High School.[A13-275] He had been there for about a month when he presented to the school authorities a note written by himself to which he had signed his mother’s name. It was dated October 7, 1955, and read:
To whom it may concern,
Becaus we are moving to San Diego in the middle of this month Lee must quit school now. Also, please send by him any papers such as his birth certificate that you may have. Thank you.
Sincirely
Mrs. M. Oswald[A13-276]
He dropped out of school a few days later, shortly before his 16th birthday.[A13-277] After his birthday, he tried to enlist in the Marines, using a false affidavit from his mother that he was 17.[A13-278] (Some years before, John Pic had joined the Marine Corps Reserve by means of his mother’s false affidavit that he was 17.)[A13-279] The attempt failed, and, according to his mother’s testimony, Lee spent the next year reading and memorizing the “Marine Manual,” which he had obtained from Robert and “living to when he is age 17 to join the Marines.”[A13-280] He worked for the rest of the school year. Between November 10 and January 14, he was a messenger boy for Gerald F. Tujague, Inc., a shipping company, where he earned $130 per month.[A13-281] His employer remembers him as a quiet, withdrawn person.[A13-282] In January he worked briefly as an office boy for J. R. Michels, Inc.[A13-283] For several months thereafter, he was a messenger for the Pfisterer Dental Laboratory.[A13-284] His military record subsequently described his prior civilian jobs as follows:
Performed various clerical duties such as distributing mail, delivering messages & answering telephone. Helped file records & operated ditto, letter opening & sealing machines.[A13-285]
Anticipating that Lee would join the Marines as soon as he was 17, Mrs. Oswald moved in July 1956 to Fort Worth,[A13-286] where she took an apartment at 4936 Collinswood for herself, Lee, and Robert.[A13-287] In September, Lee enrolled in the 10th grade at the Arlington Heights High School[A13-288] but attended classes for only a few weeks. He dropped out of school on September 28.[A13-289] A few days later, he wrote the following letter to the Socialist Party of America:
October 3, 1956
Dear Sirs;
I am sixteen years of age and would like more information about your youth League, I would like to know if there is a branch in my area, how to join, ect., I am a Marxist, and have been studying socialist principles for well over fifteen months I am very interested in your Y.P.S.L.
Sincerely
/s/ Lee Oswald[A13-290]
Accompanying the letter was an advertisement coupon, on which he had checked the box requesting information about the Socialist Party.[A13-291]
Lee became 17 on October 18. He enlisted in the Marines on October 24.[A13-292]