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]