by W. Tracy Parnell © 2024
All Times Are Local
Monday, August 30, 1880: William Oswald and Mary Harvey, the paternal grandparents of LHO, are married in Mississippi.
Thursday, April 28, 1892: Margaret Emma Keating, first wife of Robert Oswald Sr., is born in New Orleans. Keating died August 6, 1972.
Thursday, September 26, 1895: Edwin Albert Ekdahl, stepfather of LHO, is born in Boston.
Wednesday, March 4, 1896: Robert Edward Lee Oswald Sr., father of LHO, is born in New Orleans.
Thursday, July 8, 1897: John M. Claverie and Dorothea Eva Stucke, maternal grandparents of LHO, are married in New Orleans (New Orleans marriage records obtained by W. Tracy Parnell).
Thursday, May 17, 1900: Lillian Sophie Claverie (Murret), sister of Marguerite Oswald, is born in New Orleans. Murret died June 12, 1989.
Sunday, July 10, 1904: Pearl Claverie (Whitaker), sister of Marguerite Oswald, is born in New Orleans. Whitaker died August 15, 1963.
Friday, July 19, 1907: Marguerite Francis Claverie (Oswald), mother of LHO, is born in New Orleans. Marguerite died January 17, 1981.
Lillian Murret: We were singing all the time and I often say that we were much happier than the children are today, even though we were poor. My father was a very good man. He didn't drink, and he was all for his family. He didn't make much money, but we got along all right.
Marguerite Oswald: At my grammar school graduation, I had the honor of wearing a pink dress instead of a white dress and sang the song "Little Pink Roses." So I had a very happy childhood and a very full childhood.
Wednesday, August 21, 1907: Edward John Pic, first husband of Marguerite Oswald, is born in New Orleans. Pic died January 22, 2002.
Tuesday, April 25, 1911: Jack Ruby (birth name Jacob Rubenstein) is born in Chicago. Ruby died January 3, 1967.
Wednesday, March 27, 1912: Marguerite's mother, Dorothea Stucke Claverie, dies in New Orleans. Marguerite is not yet five years old.
Monday, November 1, 1920: Robert Oswald Sr. marries Margaret Keating.
Saturday, July 14, 1923: William Oswald, father of Robert Oswald Sr., dies in New Orleans.
1924: Marguerite begins work as a receptionist at a New Orleans law firm (Warren Commission Report [hereafter WCR], 669).
Thursday, August 8, 1929: Marguerite marries Edward John Pic Jr. in Harrison County, Mississippi. They would live on Genois Street in New Orleans.
Friday, October 31, 1930: Robert Oswald Sr. and Margaret Keating are legally separated (Armstrong, 13).
Saturday, July 19, 1930: Marguerite's father, John M. Claverie, dies in New Orleans.
Summer, 1931: Marguerite and Edward Pic separate (Armstrong, 14; WCR, 669). According to Claverie family friend Clem Sehrt, Marguerite was unfaithful to Pic and had an affair with a man named V.J. Knoblock who was a car salesman, although Pic himself never made that claim.
Edward John Pic Jr.: Marguerite was a nice girl. We just couldn't get along, you know, so we finally decided to quit trying and call the whole thing off…Our dispositions would not gel.
Sunday, January 17, 1932: Marguerite's first child, John Edward Pic, is born in New Orleans. Pic died April 25, 2000.
Sunday, January 31, 1932: John Pic is baptized.
Tuesday, January 10, 1933: Robert Oswald Sr. and Margaret Keating are divorced.
Wednesday, June 28, 1933: Marguerite and Edward Pic are divorced.
Thursday, July 20, 1933: Robert Oswald Sr. and Marguerite Claverie (Pic) are married in New Orleans.
Marguerite Oswald: Now, Mr. Oswald was a very good man. There was the only happy part of my life.
Lillian Murret: Well, he was a very outward man, a man that smiled a lot… and he seemed aggressive. He was a good worker for Metropolitan [insurance], one of their top salesmen.
December 21, 1933: Margaret Dorothy Fuhrman Pic, wife of John Pic, is born in New York. Pic died November 7, 1994.
1934: Robert and Marguerite are living at 805 Greenwood in New Orleans (Armstrong, 15. Establishing a chronology of the Oswald family is made more difficult by the fact that Marguerite had at least 49 different addresses between 1934 and 1963).
Saturday, April 7, 1934: Robert Oswald Jr. is born in New Orleans. Robert died November 27, 2017.
Sunday, April 29, 1934: Robert Oswald Jr. is baptized.
1935: Robert Sr. and Marguerite are living at 808 Taft Place in New Orleans.
September 16, 1936: John Pic enters the William Franz Elementary School in New Orleans and records show his address as 1661 Paul Morphy.
1937: Robert and Marguerite are living at 2132 Gallier Street in New Orleans.
January, 1938: Robert and Marguerite are living at 1917 Gallier Street in New Orleans.
Tuesday, July 26, 1938: Robert and Marguerite purchase a house at 2109 Alvar in New Orleans.
Thursday, September 8, 1938: Robert Jr. enters the Franz School and records show his address as 2109 Alvar (Robert’s School records (but not John’s) show the family moving from 2109 Alvar to 914 Hennessey and back to 2109 Alvar. But there is no other record of this and the FBI was unable to verify it. Since there is no evidence that John and Robert ever lived at different addresses, it must have been an error CD 152, 52; CD 170, 25).
October, 1938: The New Orleans Retail Credit Bureau shows Robert and Marguerite are living on Alvar St. in New Orleans (The street address was listed as 2205 Alvar, but they were probably living at 2109 Alvar. Mrs. Betty Arcenneaux, who lived at 2205 Alvar from 1948 through 1963, stated that the house at 2205 was not built until 1940. Also, Mrs. F. Carleton La Biche remembered the Oswald family, but did not remember them living at 2205).
April, 1939: The New Orleans Retail Credit Bureau shows Robert and Marguerite are living on Alvar St. in New Orleans (The street address was listed as 2123 Alvar, but they were probably living at 2109 Alvar. Mrs. F. Carleton La Biche of 2125 Alvar stated that there was no such address as 2123 Alvar).
Saturday, August 19, 1939, 6:00 AM: Robert Oswald Sr. dies suddenly (Armstrong, 16).
Sunday, August 20, 1939, 4:00 PM: Robert Oswald Sr. is buried at Cypress Grove Cemetery in New Orleans (Armstrong, 16. Marguerite Oswald told Evelyn Strickman at Youth House that she had buried her husband the same day to avoid undue stress and her husband's relatives were so upset by this that they never spoke to her again. Several prominent books have quoted her and understandably assumed this was the last word on the circumstances of Mr. Oswald's demise. But John Armstrong located a death notice from the New Orleans Times-Picayune that showed he was buried the day after he died. This was still quite fast, but apparently not that unusual for the time as Armstrong notes that three of the nine deaths that were published at the same time were also next day burials. Armstrong also points out that Marguerite's assertion that the Oswald family refused to have anything to do with her was not entirely true either since after Robert Sr.'s death, Harvey Oswald not only signed an affidavit attesting to LHO's birth date, but also was a witness at his baptism (Armstrong 16). This seems to be just another example among many of Marguerite lying to gain sympathy).
Deaths: On Saturday morning, August 19, 1939, at 6 o'clock. Robert Lee Oswald, beloved husband of Marguerite Claverie, father of Robert Lee Jr., stepfather of John Edward Pic, brother of Thomas H., William and Harvey F. Oswald, Mrs. A.P. Barre, Mrs. Edmond Carter, Mrs. James Coker of New York City, son of Mary Harvey and the late William Oswald. Funeral services were held from the funeral home of Pat J. McMahon-Coburn Company, 2305 Canal Street, corner of North Miro Street, on Sunday afternoon, August 20, 1939 at 4 o’clock. Interment in Cypress Grove cemetery.
Thursday, September 7, 1939: Robert enters the Franz School for the Fall term.
Wednesday, October 18, 1939: Lee Harvey Oswald (hereafter LHO) is born at the Old French Hospital in New Orleans (WCT Marguerite Oswald; CE 800, 17 H 685; Armstrong, 16; Old French Hospital: CD 152, p. 69. For a complete discussion of the issues regarding LHO’s birth documents see my article The Truth About Oswald’s Birth Certificate).
Lee Harvey Oswald: Lee Harvey Oswald was born in October 1939 in New Orleans, LA the son of an insurance salesmen whose early death left a far mean streak of independence brought on by neglect.
Sunday, November 5, 1939: LHO is baptized.
Tuesday, January 2, 1940: John and Robert are removed from the Franz School in New Orleans and placed in the Infant Jesus College, a catholic school in Algiers, LA (CE 2199, 25 H 79; WCT Robert Edward Lee Oswald; WCT John Edward Pic).
Robert Oswald: The nuns were terribly strict and we were afraid of them. We saw boys who broke the rules beaten with a broomstick. The whole place was gloomy and cold and we felt like outsiders because we were Lutheran.
John Pic: We were constantly reminded we were orphans and there were financial difficulties … both Robert and I, we hated the place … it was a Catholic school, sir. And us not being Catholics they lowered the boom on us.
Wednesday, April 24, 1940: Marguerite obtains a Social Security card and lists her address as 2109 Alvar in New Orleans. Her Social Security number was 435-22-5686 (Armstrong, 17).
Thursday, July 11, 1940: The New Orleans Retail Credit Bureau shows Marguerite is living at 2109 Alvar St. in New Orleans.
September, 1940: Marguerite applies for Aid to Dependent Children (Bugliosi, 515).
Thursday, September 5, 1940: John and Robert are reenrolled at the Franz School.
Sunday, November 10, 1940: Marguerite rents a house at 1242 Congress in New Orleans. Marguerite would rent the Alvar Street house to Dr. Bruno Mancuso who remained there until 1944 (CE 2201, 25 H 80).
Tuesday, November 12, 1940: John and Robert transfer to George Washington Elementary School.
Wednesday, March 5, 1941: Marguerite buys a house at 1010 Bartholomew in New Orleans where she runs a home business called "Oswald's Notion Shop".
John Pic: …it wasn't new. I guess it had about a minimum of two bedrooms, rather large back yard. We had a dog, and the dog's name was Sunshine. There was a fence ran down it …digging back in my sociology courses, I would say it was upper-lower class…
Thursday, July 17, 1941: Marina Nikolayevna Prusakova, future wife of LHO, is born in Severodvinsk, Russia (McMillan, 13-14).
Tuesday, October 14, 1941: Dr. Cuthbert Brown treats Marguerite who lists her address as 1010 Bartholomew (CE 1938, 23 H 733).
Saturday, January 3, 1942: John and Robert transfer from George Washington Elementary to the Evangelical Lutheran Bethlehem Orphan Asylum (hereafter Bethlehem) in New Orleans.
John Pic: Robert and I enjoyed Bethlehem. I mean we were all there with the kids with the same problems, same age groups, and everything … We would sneak out of the place at night and do all kinds of childish things …
Friday, January 16, 1942: Marguerite sells the Bartholomew Street house and shortly thereafter moves to 831 Pauline Street. (Armstrong, 18; WCR, 670. It appears she moved in by January 28, as there is a notation to that effect on her application to transfer John and Robert to Bethlehem of January 3, 1942.)
An older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Roach, who also live at the Pauline Street house, look after LHO while Marguerite works, but the arrangement does not last. According to a friend, Mrs. Roach said LHO was a bad child who threw toys at her. Marguerite would later say that she fired the Roaches after finding welts on LHO’s legs (WCT Marguerite Oswald, 1 H 254; WCT Mrs. Myrtle Evans, 8 H 47).
May, 1942: Marguerite moves to 111 Sherwood Forest Drive in New Orleans near her sister, Lillian Murret who would help to care for LHO. (Armstrong, 19; Bugliosi, 517; WCR, 671; date: WCT Anne Boudreaux, 8 H 36).
Lillian Murret: …he was a very beautiful child… and so I kept him and I would take him to town, and when I would he would have on one of these little sailor suits, and he really looked cute, and he would holler, "Hi," to everybody, and people in town would stop me and say, "What an adorable child he is," and so forth, and he was always so friendly, and, of course, I did the best I could with him.
Monday, August 17, 1942: LHO is treated by Dr. Cuthbert Brown for impetigo, a skin disease.
Thursday, September 10, 1942: Dr. Brown again treats Marguerite and she lists her address as 227 Atlantic Avenue, Algiers (CE 1938, 23 H 733). She apparently moved there to be close to a job she had obtained at the naval base. Marguerite would soon lose that job and return to New Orleans (Armstrong, 19; Stafford, 60-62). Even though the FBI could not verify her presence there through interviews with neighbors, it seems likely that Marguerite did live at 227 Atlantic in Algiers. She described her job at the Naval base in detail for author Jean Stafford in A Mother in History (60-62), and furthermore the address is documented by Dr. Brown. A simple explanation is that she was just a border (which is what she told Stafford) and was there for such a brief time that the neighbors who the FBI interviewed never saw her.)
Saturday, December 26, 1942: LHO joins his brothers at Bethlehem while Marguerite is possibly working at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company and again living at 111 Sherwood Forest Drive (WR, p.670; CE 1807, 23 H 447; WCT Myrtle Evans, 8 H 46; WCT John Edward Pic, 11 H 18).
Friday, July 9, 1943: After working previously at Jean's Hosiery, Marguerite begins work at Princess Hosiery on Canal Street. She lists her address as 2136 Broadway in New Orleans. She would meet her future husband, Edwin Ekdahl, while working here (Armstrong, 19; WCR, 671. The exact date of Marguerite's acquaintance of Ekdahl remains unknown. John Pic told the Warren Commission it was right after he had an appendectomy, but the date of that operation was apparently never determined. Edward Aizer, who owned the hosiery store where Marguerite worked, remembered that she dated a "gentleman from New Orleans with a heart condition" who was "reportedly well to do" and that description matches Ekdahl perfectly. Aizer thought that Marguerite only worked for him for two months and if true, that would pinpoint their meeting to July or August of 1943. However, an FBI interview with Oris Duane, who worked with Marguerite, reports that she remembered Marguerite working at the store for three to six months. If Duane is correct, this means the meeting could have been anywhere from July, 1943 through January, 1944, although it was probably in the summer since they first decided to marry in January, 1944.)
John Pic: He was an electrical engineer. His home was in Boston, Mass., somewhere around there. He had white hair, wore glasses, very nice man …I think Lee found in him the father he never had. He had treated him real good and I am sure that Lee felt the same way, I know he did. He felt the same way about it, because Mr. Ekdahl treated all of us like his own children.
Monday, July 12, 1943: LHO has a wart removed by Dr. Cuthbert Brown and Marguerite lists their address as 2136 Broadway.
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