FAMILY BACKGROUND
Jack Ruby, born Jacob Rubenstein, was the fifth of his parents’ eight living children. There is much confusion about his exact birth date. School records report it as June 23, April 25,[A16-1] March 13, and, possibly, March 3, 1911.[A16-2] Other early official records list his date of birth as April 21 and April 26, 1911.[A16-3] During his adult life the date Ruby used most frequently was March 25, 1911.[A16-4] His driver’s license, seized following his arrest, and his statements to the FBI on November 24, 1963, listed this date.[A16-5] However, the police arrest report for November 24 gave his birth date as March 19, 1911.[A16-6] Since the recording of births was not required in Chicago prior to 1915, Ruby’s birth may never have been officially recorded.[A16-7] No substantial conflict exists, however, about whether Jack Ruby was born in 1911.[A16-8]
Ruby has one older brother and three older sisters. The oldest children, Hyman and Ann, were born shortly after the turn of the century,[A16-9] before their parents arrived in the United States.[A16-10] The other children were born in Chicago. Ruby’s sister Marion was born in June 1906[A16-11] and his sister Eva in March 1909.[A16-12] Ruby also has two younger brothers and a younger sister. Sam was born in December 1912,[A16-13] Earl in April 1915.[A16-14] The youngest child, Eileen, was born in July 1917.[A16-15] At least one and possibly two other children died during infancy.[A16-16]
Jack Ruby’s father, Joseph Rubenstein, was born in 1871 in Sokolov, a small town near Warsaw, Poland, then under the rule of Czarist Russia.[A16-17] He entered the Russian artillery in 1893.[A16-18] There he learned the carpentry trade, which had been practiced by his father and at least one brother[A16-19] and he picked up the habit of excessive drinking that was to plague him for the rest of his life.[A16-20] While in the army,[A16-21] he married Jack’s mother, Fannie Turek Rutkowski;[A16-22] the marriage was arranged, as was customary, by a professional matchmaker.[A16-23] According to his oldest son, Joseph Rubenstein served in China, Korea, and Siberia, detesting these places and army life. Eventually, in 1898, he simply “walked away” from it and about 4 years later he went to England and Canada, entering the United States in 1903.[A16-24]
Settling in Chicago, Joseph Rubenstein joined the carpenters union in 1904 and remained a member until his death in 1958.[A16-25] Although he worked fairly steadily until 1928, he was unemployed during the last 30 years of his life.[A16-26] The only other group which Joseph Rubenstein joined consisted of fellow immigrants from Sokolov. His daughter Eva described this group as purely social and completely nonpolitical.[A16-27]
Jack Ruby’s mother, Fannie Rubenstein, was probably born in 1875 near Warsaw, Poland.[A16-28] She followed her husband to the United States in 1904 or 1905, accompanied by her children Hyman and Ann.[A16-29] An illiterate woman, she went to night school in about 1920 to learn how to sign her name.[A16-30] She apparently failed in this endeavor, however, for an alien registration form, filed after about 35 years in the United States, was signed by an “X”.[A16-31] Although she apparently learned some English, her speech was predominantly Yiddish, the primary language of the Rubenstein household.[A16-32] Still, Mrs. Rubenstein felt strongly that her children required an education in order to better themselves. She frequently argued about this with her husband, who had received little, if any, formal education and firmly believed that grammar school training was sufficient for his children.[A16-33]