757 French Street, New Orleans
Wednesday, January 13, 1954: LHO enrolls at Beauregard Junior High School in New Orleans. He and Marguerite would stay at 757 French Street with Dutz and Lillian Murret for a few weeks while they looked for their own place (1 H 231, WCT Marguerite Oswald; 8 H 122-23, WCT Lillian Murret). The address was later changed to 809 French.
Tuesday, January 26, 1954: John Carro's office receives a letter from Marguerite stating she has moved to New Orleans.
Thursday, January 28, 1954: The court reviews the letter from Marguerite and adjourns the case until March 11 when the whereabouts of LHO could be determined.
1454 and 1452 Saint Mary Street, New Orleans
Friday, February 19, 1954: Marguerite starts work at Burt's Shoe Store on Canal Street and lists her address as 1454 St. Mary Street (CD 156, 6). This is an apartment she rented from an old friend, Myrtle Evans. Later, she and LHO would move to 1452 St. Mary in the same building.
Myrtle Evans: … he [LHO] was more spoiled… he had gotten older, and he wanted his way, and he was a teenager then, and like all teenagers, he was very difficult… Margie would be downstairs maybe, talking to me or something, and he would come to the head of the stairs… and yell, "Maw, how about fixing me something to eat?" and she would jump up right away and go running upstairs to get something for him… he would lock himself up in his bedroom sometimes and play these records, and listen to the radio, and read. He was a hard one to try to figure out.
Tuesday, March 9, 1954: The National Banker's Life Insurance Company of Texas lists Marguerite's address as 1454 St. Mary Street.
Thursday, March 11, 1954: The New York court case on LHO is closed.
Monday, May 10, 1954: Marguerite writes a letter to John discussing the "ordeal in New York."
Monday, June 14, 1954: Marguerite writes to John and discusses the impending birth of his second child and her job at Burt's.
Tuesday, September 7, 1954: LHO enters the ninth grade at Beauregard (Armstrong, 91). During this school year he would make friends with Edward Voebel whom he met when Voebel assisted him in the aftermath of a fight. According to the WCT of Bennierita Smith, Robin Riley, who went on to have a brief career in Hollywood, was the boy who hit LHO. His film debut was Attack of the Crab Monster in 1957 (Parker vol. 2, p. 24, Kindle Version).
Edward Voebel: He was in a fight with John Neumeyer. The fight, I think started on the school ground, and it sort of wandered down the street in the direction naturally in which I was going… across lawns and sidewalks, and people would run them off, and they would only run to the next place, and it continued that way from block to block, and as people would run them off of one block, they would go on to the next…Well, I think Oswald was getting the best of John, and the little brother sticking by his brother, stepped in too, and then it was two against one, so with that Oswald just seemed to give one good punch to the little brother's [Mike Neumeyer] jaw, and his mouth started bleeding…and when that happened, the whole sympathy of the crowd turned against Oswald for some reason, which I didn't understand, because it was two against one, and Oswald had a right to defend himself… but I think I just went on home and everybody went their way, and then the next day or a couple of days later we were coming out of school in the evening, and Oswald I think, was a little in front of me and I was a couple of paces behind him... Some big guy, probably from a high school--he looked like a tremendous football player--punched Lee right square in the mouth, and without him really knowing or seeing really who did it. I don't know who he was, and he ran off. That's when we ran after Lee to see if we could help him.
Lillian Murret: … they were coming out of school at 3 o’clock, and there were boys in back of him and one of them called his name… and when he turned around, this boy punched him in the mouth and ran, and it ran his tooth through the lip, so she had to go over to the school and take him to the dentist, and I paid for the dentist bill myself, and that’s all I know about that…
October 1954: LHO takes a series of Achievement Tests in which he scores well in Reading and Vocabulary and badly in Math (WCR, 679).
Saturday, October 9, 1954: Marguerite is fired from Burt's Shoe Store.
Thursday, October 14, 1954: Marguerite writes to John and again discusses the baby as well as LHO's coming birthday.
Monday, October 18, 1954: John and Margaret Pic's second child, Janet, is born.
Monday, November 15, 1954: Marguerite starts work at Chandler's Shoe on Canal Street and lists her address as 1454 St. Mary Street.
Friday, January 7, 1955: Marguerite is fired from Chandler's Shoe Store.
126 Exchange Place, New Orleans
Saturday, February 5, 1955: Marguerite is hired by the Dolly Shoe Company as Store Manager (CD 6, 4; CE 2238, 25 H 138). At Marguerite's request, LHO is also hired part time by Dolly Shoe as a stock boy, his first job.
Sunday, February 6, 1955: LHO's application for a Social Security account number is processed and lists his address as 126 Exchange and his employer as Dolly Shoe Co.
Wednesday, March 16, 1955: The National Banker's Life Insurance Company of Texas lists Marguerite's address as 126 Exchange.
Thursday, June 2, 1955: At the end of the school year at Beauregard, LHO fills out a personal history form. For the question, “Do you have any close friends in this school?” LHO had written something and erased it and wrote “no”. The FBI investigated and found that he had originally written “Edward Vogel”, a misspelling of his friend Edward Vobel’s name and “Arthor Abear”, a likely reference to Arthur Hebert, a classmate who stated he did not know LHO well (WCR 383).
At about this time, an incident occurred that was later related to the Warren Commission by LHO’s friend Edward Voebel.
Edward Voebel: … I think this was when he revealed the plan for stealing this pistol from a place on Rampart Street… it was maybe the following week that I was up at his house, and he came out with a glasscutter and a box with this plastic pistol in it, and I think he had a plan as to how he was going to try to get in there and get this pistol… but finally he told me his complete plans and how he was going to cut the glass out of the window and everything, and I didn't know what to tell him, so he said, "Why don't you come over and look at this pistol and tell me what kind it is, and what you think of my plan?" So I said all right, and so we walked over there to this store and we looked at this pistol in the window, and like I said, I don't remember what kind it was. He said, "Well, what do you think?" and I didn't know what to tell him. I didn't know how to talk him out of it, so then I happened to notice this band around the window, a metal tape that they use for burglar alarms, and I got to working on that idea in the hope that I could talk him out of trying it, and I told him, I said, "Well, I don't think that's a good idea, because if you cut that window, it might crack that tape, and the burglar alarm will go off," and I don't think he believed me, but I told him, "Let's go in the store and look at it from the inside," and so I convinced him that it would be too dangerous to try it, that this was a burglar alarm that would go off, and so anyway, he finally gave up the idea… he finally changed his mind about trying to rob the store, and that was the end of that.
Monday, July 11, 1955: Robert is discharged from the Marine Corps after three years of duty (Oswald with Land and Land, 70-71).
Thursday, July 14, 1955: Robert arrives at Exchange Place in New Orleans for a visit with Marguerite and LHO which would last about a week (Oswald with Land and Land, 71).
Wednesday, July 27, 1955: LHO joins the Moisant squadron of the Civil Air Patrol. His serial number is 084965. A photograph emerged in 1993 showing LHO and David Ferrie, a perennial favorite in conspiracy theories (starting with the Jim Garrison investigation), at the same CAP event. But Ferrie denied knowing LHO and the HSCA was unable to confirm any contact between the two outside of the CAP meetings.
Thursday, September 8, 1955: LHO enters the tenth grade at Warren Easton.
Friday, October 7, 1955: LHO brings a note to school that is ostensibly signed by Marguerite, but which he actually wrote as part of an abortive plan to join the Marine Corps.
LHO: To Whom it may concern: Because 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. Sincerely, Mrs. M. Oswald
A few days later, Marguerite, who was then working at Kreeger's Specialty Shop on Canal Street, would falsify an affidavit saying LHO was born in 1938 which was ultimately rejected by the Marines (1 H 196–198, WCT Marguerite Oswald; 8 H 130–131, WCT Lillian Murret).
Monday, October 10, 1955: LHO drops out of Warren Easton.
Thursday, November 10, 1955: LHO begins work for the Gerald Tujague Company as a messenger boy and lists his address as 126 Exchange.
Saturday, January 14, 1956: LHO ends his employment with the Gerald Tujague Company (CE 2227, 25 H 128–129).
Tuesday, January 17, 1956: LHO starts work with J.R. Michaels where he would work for only two weeks (CE 2227, 25 H 129). Shortly thereafter, he starts work at Pfisterer Dental Laboratory (1 H 198–199, WCT Marguerite Oswald; CD 353, 2) where he would befriend Palmer McBride who later reported his remembrances to the FBI. While McBride’s recollections provide important confirmation regarding LHO’s willingness to consider violence against a prominent individual, he had his dates all wrong. LHO joined the Marines in October, 1956 and in late 1957 and early 1958, when McBride thought his experiences with LHO occurred, he was overseas. All of McBride’s experiences with LHO, as well as the incident at William Wulf’s house, undoubtedly happened in the first half of 1956 since LHO had moved to Fort Worth by July 1 (see Bugliosi, 546-47). McBride’s mistaken recollections would later form the basis for the “Harvey and Lee” conspiracy theory (Armstrong, 6). For a complete discussion see: Palmer McBride.
Palmer McBride: … Because we both enjoyed classical music I invited him [LHO] to my home and he did visit… perhaps two or three times… and during his visits we would listen to records in my room. During his first visit to my home in late 1957 or early 1958 [sic], the discussion turned to politics and to the possibility of war. At this time, I made a statement to the effect that President Dwight Eisenhower was doing a pretty good job for a man of his age and background, but that I did feel more emphasis should be placed on the space program in view of Russian successes. Oswald was very anti-Eisenhower, and stated that President Eisenhower was exploiting the working people. He then made a statement to the effect that he would like to kill President Eisenhower because he was exploiting the working class. This statement was not made in jest, and Oswald was in a serious frame of mind when this statement was made.
Lee Oswald was very serious about the virtues of Communism, and discussed those virtues at every opportunity. He would say that the capitalists were exploiting the working class and his central theme seemed to be that the workers in the world would one day rise up and throw off their chains. He praised Khrushchev’s sincerity in improving the lot of the worker… I went with him to his room on one occasion, and he showed me copies of Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto. Oswald stated he had received these books from the public library, and seemed quite proud to have them.
In early 1958 [sic] I took Oswald with me to a meeting of the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association at the home of Walter Geherke, 208 Hector Ave., Metairie, Louisiana. This meeting was presided over by the Association president, William Eugene Wulf, Jr., 2107 Annunciation Street, New Orleans. At this meeting I recall that Mr. Wulf told Oswald that if he liked Russia so damn much why didn't he go over there. I do not know what Oswald had said to bring forth this remark from Wulf.
On one occasion I took Oswald to the Wulf residence. Oswald and Mr. William Eugene Wulf, Sr., a naturalized citizen of German origin, argued because Oswald was telling him of the glories of the Workers State and saying that the United States Government was not telling the truth about Soviet Russia.
William Wulf related what happened next in his 1964 Warren Commission testimony.
William Wulf: … my father came in and we were kind of arguing back and forth about the situation, and my father came in the room, heard what we were arguing on communism, and that this boy was loud-mouthed, boisterous, and my father asked him to leave the house and politely put him out of the house, and that is the last I have seen or spoken with Oswald.
Friday, March 16, 1956: Marguerite starts work at Goldring's on Canal Street. She lists her address as 126 Exchange. CD 170, p. 18 also states that Marguerite left Goldring's on July 31, 1956, but that can't be right as she moved to Fort Worth on July 1. it is possible that she was simply listed as an employee through that month for record keeping purposes.
4936 Collinwood, Fort Worth
Sunday, July 1, 1956: Marguerite, LHO and Robert move to 4936 Collinwood in Fort Worth (CD 8, 2; CE 2239, 25 H 139; CE 1873-I, 23 H 670).
Tuesday, July 3, 1956: The First National Bank of Fort Worth lists Marguerite’s address as 4936 Collinwood, Fort Worth.
Wednesday, July 25, 1956: The National Banker's Life Insurance Company of Texas lists Marguerite's address as 4936 Collinwood, Fort Worth.
Wednesday, September 5, 1956: LHO enters the 10th grade at Arlington Heights High School.
Friday, September 28, 1956: LHO drops out of Arlington.
Wednesday, October 3, 1956: LHO writes to the Socialist Party of America in New York.
LHO: 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, etc. I am a Marxist, and have been studying socialist principles for well over fifteen months I am very interested in your YPSL [Young Peoples Socialist League]. Sincerely, Lee Oswald Send to: Lee Oswald 4936 Collinwood, Fort Worth, Tex.
0 comments:
Post a Comment