A Mother in History by Dave Reitzes Based on "Marguerite's Addresses" by John Armstrong
Mr. RANKIN. Can't we get down to -- Mrs. OSWALD. No, sir, we cannot. I am sorry. This is my life. I cannot survive in this world unless I know I have my American way of life and can start from the very beginning. . . . (1) The Warren Report tells us that Edwin and Marguerite Ekdahl and their children moved to 1505 Eighth Avenue the last week of January 1947. Marguerite and Ekdahl lived together until January 1948, when she caught him cheating on her; she kicked him out of the house, and they were divorced on June 24, 1948. "While the divorce suit was pending, Marguerite moved from Eighth Avenue to a house on 3300 Willing Street, next to railroad tracks." This would be around March 19, when Lee transferred from the Lily Clayton School to Clark Elementary School. The older boys "found her there in May when they returned from the military academy." Marguerite had legally changed her name back to Oswald. The family moved to 101 San Saba Street in Benbrook, Texas that summer, and soon moved back to Fort Worth, to 7408 Ewing Street (2). There are some problems here. Mr. and Mrs. Walter H. Bell and Mr. Otis R. Carlton lived across the street from 101 San Saba. The Warren Commission used FBI reports of Mr. Carlton and Georgia (Mrs. Walter) Bell in determining the Oswalds resided there in 1948. This is not what Carlton told the FBI, however: He said the Oswalds lived there in 1947, not 1948 (3). He had been in the Oswald house on several occasions and purchased it when they left Benbrook. Carlton told the FBI the Oswalds had lived there for six to eight months (4). The Warren Commission also used the FBI report of Mrs. Bell (5). That report states the Oswalds lived there for three months during the summer of 1948. Mrs. Bell, who still lives in Texas, told John Armstrong in 1996 that the FBI report does not reflect what she actually told the FBI. Mrs. Bell still lives at 100 San Saba; she is elderly but still very sharp. She insists the Oswalds moved into 101 San Saba in May of 1947, not 1948. How could Mrs. Bell remember so clearly an event that happened fifty years ago? Mrs. Bell said, "Because Walter and I built this house in June and July of 1947, and the Oswalds moved in [101 San Saba] the month before. I have lived in this house since 1947" (6). Armstrong showed Mrs. Bell two photos from the Warren Commission volumes of young Lee with his dog, Blackie, taken at the San Saba house (7), and asked if she knew the year these pictures were taken. Mrs. Bell identified a building in the background as a small motel built in July of 1947 by a Mr. Sells. That motel was under construction when the photographs were taken, and one can see the difference between them; it looks like they were taken just a day or so apart. In addition, Tarrant County tax assessor records show that Marguerite Ekdahl purchased 101 San Saba Street on July 7, 1947. This is six months before the Warren Report tells us she left Ekdahl. The records confirm Otis R. Carlton and Georgia Bell's recollections of the Oswalds living at 101 San Saba in 1947, as do the photos showing Mr. Sells' motel under construction in 1947. Mrs. Bell said the Oswalds moved out just before Thanksgiving of 1947 (8). "The Warren Commission was wrong; Marguerite Oswald lived at 101 San Saba in 1947, not 1948. Now, does this make a difference? It may" (9). At that time in 1947, Marguerite Oswald had retained a job as a nurse -- although according to her own Warren Commission testimony, she never considered becoming a nurse until after Oswald had left for Russia, which was in late 1959 (10). She asked a neighbor, Mrs. Lucille Hubbard, to take her by car to a different house to pick up some of her belongings including her nurse's uniform (11). This would be unremarkable if, say, this second house was the residence of Edwin Ekdahl, and Marguerite relocated to 101 San Saba Street due to her marital difficulties. But this is not the case. Robert Oswald told the Warren Commission that the family was living at 8th Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas when Edwin Ekdahl moved out (12). Perhaps Marguerite had a friend kind enough to store a closet full of her belongings. Armstrong asked Mrs. Bell if she knew where this other house was located. She said yes: Lucille Hubbard told her it was located next to Stripling High School, now Stripling Junior High. This is the Oswald residence at 1505 Eighth Avenue, precisely where John Pic told the Warren Commission they were living in 1947. The Oswald family seems to have two separate addresses at the exact same time. How does a woman too poor to support her own children full-time have two separate addresses? (13) John Pic told the Warren Commission the family resided at 1505 Eighth Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas in the summer of 1947 (14). He worked at Walgreens for two weeks, and then as assistant manager for Tex-Gold Ice Cream Parlor, which he said was six blocks away from their house -- miles away from Benbrook, Texas. When Pic was asked about living at 101 San Saba, he replied, "I don't know anything about San Saba" (15). But in this author's opinion, he did. At this same point in Pic's testimony, he recognizes the location where the two pictures of Lee and his dog were taken. What was the address? "There was no street address," he said. "That was the first and only house built there" (16).These are the same two photographs Mrs. Bell identified as being taken in front of 101 San Saba. But we know from Mrs. Bell that 100 San Saba was built during June and July of 1947, while the Oswalds moved into 101 at about the same time. Otis Carlton lived next door to Mr. and Mrs. Bell, and there was at least one other building -- a motel -- under construction. Tarrant County records are perfectly clear about the addresses. Is John Pic just confused? Or is he hiding something? Perhaps to cover for Pic's memory lapse, the Warren Report reports that the family lived at "what is now 101 San Saba" (17). John Pic was fifteen at that time. Why doesn't 101 San Saba ring a bell? The Warren Report says, "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. Mrs. Oswald worked at a department store in Fort Worth, and left the three boys home alone" (18). Georgia Bell told Armstrong in 1995 that Marguerite Oswald did not drive a car, and did not work (19). "A neighbor, Mrs. W. H. Bell, has stated that Lee seemed to enjoy being by himself and to resent discipline; another neighbor, Otis R. Carlton, stated that he once saw Lee chase John (who was seven years older) with a knife and throw it at him, an incident which, Carlton said, their mother passed off as a 'little scuffle.' 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" (20). (That certainly was magnanimous of Mr. Carlton.) Carlton bought the house before the Oswalds moved out. In the winter of 1947-48 he rented it to a family named Charbenaur. When they moved out, Carlton and his daughter, Jean, moved in, and resided there in 1948 and 1949 (21). "Curiously, a 1950 letter from Marguerite to John Pic says the Benbrook house was then up for sale with J. Piner Powell real estate (22). An April 1951 letter to Pic says she has good tenants at the Benbrook house (23). John Armstrong has learned that, in fact, Marguerite Oswald sold the house in 1952. What is going on here?" (24) Marguerite did not mention 101 San Saba to the Warren Commission, and they did not ask her about it in her marathon testimony. We can see from a letter mailed to her from the Chamberlain-Hunt Military Academy in July 1947 that her address is 1505 8th Avenue (25). "Robert Oswald also told the Warren Commission they lived on 8th Avenue during the summer of 1947. Robert was stopped from conducting his discussion of 1947 when Commission member and former Director of the CIA Allen Dulles abruptly adjourned the Commission hearing (26). When testimony resumed, Commission counsel Albert Jenner began the session by stating, 'This brought us to the summer of 1948, I believe.' Robert Oswald agreed, and continued his testimony from there (27). Armstrong showed Georgia Bell two photos of Marguerite Oswald without identifying them. One was taken in December 1957 at the Paul Shoe Store where she worked (28). The date of the other, showing Mrs. Oswald in the kitchen, was unknown, except that it was mailed to Lee Oswald in Russia in 1961. Of the latter, Mrs. Bell said, "Yep, that's exactly the way she looked when I knew her in 1947 -- short and fat." In fact, Mrs. Bell pointed out, it was taken inside the house across the street, 101 San Saba. The cabinets in the photo appear to be the same style as those in Mrs. Bell's home; she and her husband Walter built both houses. When Armstrong showed Mrs. Bell the Paul Shoe Store photo, taken just ten years later, she said, "I don't know who that is" (29). No wonder -- the two women bear no resemblance to each other. The 1957 photograph, which very clearly is the same woman photographed with Edwin Ekdahl on their wedding day in 1945: She is slim, fairly tall, dressed nicely, with a pleasant face and a pronounced nose (30); unlike the woman Mrs. Bell couldn't identify, who is very short, overweight, with a high forehead, a smallish nose, and wearing thick round glasses; this would appear to be the woman the world knows as Marguerite Oswald. But it is not the woman who married Edwin Ekdahl, Robert E. Lee Oswald, and presumably Edward John Pic, Jr., the woman apparently born Marguerite Frances Claverie in 1907. The woman known as Marguerite Oswald is -- if appearances can be credited -- NOT the mother of the Lee Harvey Oswald born in New Orleans in 1939, and may or may not be the mother of the Harvey Oswald from New York. For the remainder of this article, I will be arbitrarily referring to the woman who apparently mothered Lee Harvey Oswald of New Orleans and Texas by her birth name, Marguerite Claverie. To minimize confusion I will refer to the woman who testified before the Warren Commission by the name she is known -- Marguerite Oswald. Both women were living in Texas in 1947, and they apparently knew each other; one reportedly had belongings stored in the closet of the other's house. Lee Oswald was photographed twice in front of the house at 101 San Saba, where Marguerite Oswald, who was not his mother, lived. John Pic had been there and recognized the photos of Lee, but said the house had no identifiable street address at the time. Otis Carlton remembered John Pic fighting with Lee at the San Saba house. It's not clear if Mr. Carlton and Mrs. Bell remembered Robert Oswald. It cannot be resolved at this time why Lee Oswald, John Pic, and probably Robert Oswald were living at 101 San Saba with a woman who was not their mother, while Marguerite Claverie lived at 1505 Eighth Avenue with Edwin Ekdahl. It cannot be resolved at this time why 1505 Eighth Avenue is the address that Robert Oswald and John Pic recall. "If Lee Oswald lived at 101 San Saba in the fall of 1947, as Otis Carlton and Georgia Bell remember, and as at least two photographs attest, he should have attended the second grade at Benbrook Elementary School, which was only a block away. The Warren Commission, of course, places Lee's address at 1505 Eighth Avenue. The FBI obtained some of Lee's grade school records from the principal of Ridglea West Elementary School, Mrs. Llewellyn Merritt. As published, these records are missing the 1947-48 school year. Mrs. Merritt advised that her records do not indicate where Oswald attended the second grade. The FBI summary of Oswald's schooling written several months later is still missing the 1947-48 school year (31). "Eventually, another attendance form was given to the Warren Commission that listed Oswald's address for this missing period. The Commission published it exactly as they received it. It is entirely handwritten. You could have written it; I could have written it; anyone could have written it. I obtained the original among other records from Ralph Waller at the Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas. Oswald attended Lily Clayton Elementary School from January of 1947 to March of 1948. Oswald could not possibly have attended Lily Clayton while living on San Saba -- it is near downtown Fort Worth, about ten miles away, consistent with the 1505 Eighth Avenue address. I cannot say why the FBI was unable to locate this document when I could do it 30 years later; nor can I explain why the Warren Commission would publish a handwritten copy instead of the original" (32). "To sum up, Tarrant County records, FBI statements, photographs of Lee and Marguerite Oswald -- two of them identified by John Pic -- and testimony from Mrs. Oswald's neighbors place her at 101 San Saba in the summer and fall of 1947. Yet Lee's school records, postmarked letters of Mrs. [Claverie] Oswald's, and testimony from John Pic and Robert Oswald place the family at 1505 8th Avenue in the summer and fall of 1947 -- two different addresses at the exact same time (33). What about 3300 Willing Street, where the Warren Commission says the family moved around March 19, 1948? John Pic remembered this house very well, stating it was their first new address since Marguerite's divorce: "for John, the move signified that they 'were back down in the lower class again'" (34). The Oswalds left 101 San Saba Street in Benbrook, Texas, in November 1947. But the Warren Report says that Edwin and Marguerite Ekdahl lived at 1505 Eighth Avenue from about January 24, 1947 until January 1948, when Marguerite kicked Ekdahl out; she herself remained until about March 19, 1948. John Pic told the Warren Commission they lived at 1505 Eighth Avenue in Fort Worth in the summer of 1947, where he worked at Walgreens for two weeks, and then as assistant manager for the nearby Tex-Gold Ice Cream Parlor. But Pic also identified the pictures taken at 101 San Saba in the summer or fall of 1947 (35). Marguerite and Lee moved to 3300 Willing Street in March 1948, where John and Robert joined them at the end of the school year in May. This run-down house by the railroad tracks made a large impression on John Pic, signifying that the family was "back down in the lower class." Yet if the Warren Commission is correct, the family immediately purchased the two-bedroom frame house at 7408 Ewing Street in Fort Worth (36). Only in America. Skipping ahead slightly, Tarrant County land records show that Marguerite Oswald purchased a house at 4833 Birchman Street on November 15, 1951, while Marguerite, Robert and Lee continued to reside at 7408 Ewing Street. 4833 Birchman was six blocks away from W. C. Stripling Junior High School in Fort Worth; there is now a vacant lot where it used to be. Oddly, the record shows that Marguerite had just sold the house at 101 San Saba nine days before; a copy of the deed, obtained from Tarrant County, Texas, shows that's when the original deed was recorded and returned to Marguerite Oswald at 4833 Birchman. The house at 7408 Ewing was presumably sold when Marguerite and Lee moved to New York in August of 1952. But the house at 4833 Birchman remained in Marguerite Oswald's name until it was sold at the end of April 1953, while Marguerite and Lee were still in New York (37). The census for the 1951-52 school year, which Armstrong also received from the Forth Worth Independent School District, lists a Harvey Oswald residing at 7408 Ewing in Fort Worth. Robert Oswald mentions 7408 Ewing in his testimony before the Warren Commission (38), as does John Pic (39). It gives Oswald's birthday as October 19, 1939. Lee's birthday is October 18, not 19. His mother is listed as Marguerite Ekdahl, although Marguerite Claverie Oswald had divorced four years earlier, and had never used the name Ekdahl since. Interestingly, this census roll also lists his brother Robert Oswald with a birth date April 7, 1934, as well as a "Robert Oswalt" with a birth date of one day's difference (40). Another coincidence: In October 1959, when Lee Harvey Oswald was aboard the SS Marion Lykes sailing to Europe on the first leg of his journey to Russia, Mrs. George B. Church -- whose attempts at conversation Oswald had been politely resisting during the trip -- asked him for his address so she could send him a Christmas card, he gave her Marguerite's address in Fort Worth, and spelled his name for her: "Oswalt" (41). The census roll isn't the only place a question arises as to Lee's birth date. When Warren Commission counsel Albert Jenner showed John Pic a handwritten form from the Bethlehem Orphans Home in New Orleans (42), Pic noted, "They even have his birthday wrong there." It showed a birth date of October 19, 1939. Jenner said, "As a matter of fact, your mother on one of her papers fixes it on the 19th." "So does one of the letters," Pic replied (43). John Armstrong and I have each independently noted that the discrepancies surrounding Marguerite seem to begin with her marriage to Edwin Ekdahl, and it makes me wonder if Ekdahl, the well-traveled electrical engineer from Boston, might not be worth looking into. There are indications in the Warren Commission volumes, however, that Marguerite's strange plethora of addresses may reach back further. When John Pic testified before counsel Albert Jenner and staff member John Hart Ely, two of the three attorneys in charge of the investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald's background (Wesley Liebeler was the third), Jenner questioned him at length about numerous addresses, all of which the staff had turned up somewhere, but details of which are almost entirely left out of the record. The testimony is well represented by the following exchange: Mr. JENNER. In those early years, did your family reside somewhere near the Murrets? . . . Mr. PIC. As I recollect, the house was where Mr. Oswald died, all I know is that it was on the corner of Alvez [sic] and Galvez. Mr. JENNER. 2109 Alvar? Mr. PIC. There you go. I think the street that ran next to it was Galvez. Mr. JENNER. You are correct. Mr. PIC. This is the first real -- I remember a first real house prior to this to this; where it was, sir, I don't know. I was about five at the time. Mr. JENNER. . . . Do any of these addresses refresh your recollection? 2205 Alvar? Mr. PIC. It may be the address of the house on Alvez [sic] and Galvez, I don't know. Mr. JENNER. No? Mr. PIC. I don't know, sir. No, sir. Mr. JENNER. 2123 Alvar? Mr. PIC. No, sir. Mr. JENNER. 1661 Paul Morphy? Mr. PIC. No, sir. Mr. JENNER. 2132 Gallier? Mr. PIC. The name, the street sounds -- I may have heard it before. Mr. JENNER. 1917 Gallier? Mr. PIC. Only the street sounds familiar. Mr. JENNER. 805 Greenwood? Mr. PIC. No, sir. Mr. JENNER. 220 North -- my pronunciation will be bad -- Telemachus? Mr. PIC. No. Mr. JENNER. 123 South Cortez? Mr. PIC. No, sir (44). At this point, Mr. Jenner decided -- an estimated twenty minutes into Pic's testimony to explain what the Warren Commission was and what rights witnesses had, and asked Pic if he desired a lawyer. At least he'd remembered to administer the oath at the beginning. John Hart Ely then requests the chance to ask about a few addresses. Mr. ELY. 914 Hennesey, do you remember that? Mr. PIC. No, sir. Mr. ELY. What about Taft Place? Mr. PIC. No, sir (45). The Warren Report states that the Oswald family lived at 1242 Congress Street at some point in 1940, when John Pic was eight, between the Alvar Street address and 1010 Bartholomew Street (46). Despite persistent questioning, Pic could not help the Commission confirm this fact. Mr. JENNER. When you moved from the house in which you had been living at the time of the death of your stepfather, do you recall moving to 1242 Congress Street? Mr. PIC. No, sir. I remember moving to a Bartholomew Street. Mr. JENNER. That Bartholomew Street, I will get to that in a moment, perhaps to refresh your recollection, was a little a little house that your mother purchased on contract. Mr. PIC. What, Bartolomew? Mr. JENNER. Yes. Mr. PIC. I remember that house. Mr. JENNER. 1010 Bartholomew. Mr. PIC. That could be it, sir. Mr. JENNER. Before you moved to 1010 Bartholomew you lived, did you not, at 1242 Congress? Mr. PIC. I don't remember, sir. Mr. JENNER. Your mother didn't sell the Alvar Street house until January of 1944. Mr. PIC. I thought it was sold the day we moved out. Mr. JENNER. It was rented by Dr. Mancuso the day you moved out [in 1940?], and ultimately your mother regained possession in January 1944, and then he purchased that house substantially contemporaneously, in January of 1944 (47). This goes on for a while (48). Jenner initially skips over 831 Pauline Street, where Marguerite was supposed to have lived for a brief time in early 1942. Pic volunteers, "If there was anything between Bartholomew and Sherwood Forest Drive, I don't remember, sir" (49). Marguerite is supposed to have moved into 111 Sherwood Forest Drive in the late spring of 1942. The house at 1010 Bartholomew was sold on January 16, 1942 (50). Jenner points out that the form Marguerite filled out when placing Robert into the Bethlehem Orphanage on January 3, 1942 (51) lists her address as 1010 Bartholomew, then added overtop is the notation, "831 Pauline Street -- January 28" (52). Mr. JENNER. Do you recall your mother moving with Lee to a place on Pauline Street in January of 1942? Mr. PIC. No, sir. Mr. JENNER. All you recall is that she and Lee did move to a place, another place from the 1010 Bartholomew address? Mr. PIC. Well, it shows it there [in Pic Exhibit No. 3]. I thought it was Sherwood Forest, I don't know. Mr. JENNER. It might have been shortly after that? Mr. PIC. This is not familiar at all, sir. Mr. JENNER. That is the 831 Pauline Street address is not at all familiar? Mr. PIC. No, sir. Mr. JENNER. Is any of this application blank, that is any of the longhand on it, in the hand of your mother other than her signature? Mr. PIC. I wouldn't know, sir (53). Some of these discrepancies are surely honest mistakes. But enough inconsistencies and unexplained incidents exist that, when dealt with as a whole, one seeks a more comprehensive and consistent explanation. Things begin to make sense once we accept that there was more than one woman living under the name of Marguerite Oswald in the 1940s and '50s. "You Wouldn't Have Recognized Her" One of Lee Harvey Oswald's teachers at Beauregard Junior High School, Myra DaRouse, recalls Oswald living on "Exchange Alley," actually 126 Exchange Place, although other New Orleans witnesses also know it as Exchange Alley. While living at 126 Exchange Place, Mrs. Oswald wrote several letters to John Pic in the fall of 1954. One is dated October 14, 1954, and shows the Exchange Place return address (54). But the Warren Commission tells us that when Marguerite and Lee Harvey Oswald left New York in January 1954 and moved to New Orleans, they rented an apartment from Julian and Myrtle Evans at 1454 St. Mary's Place in New Orleans (55). "Mr. and Mrs. Evans are important witnesses; they knew Marguerite since 1930. They knew her first husband, Edward John Pic; her second husband, Robert E. Lee Oswald; and her third husband, Edwin Ekdahl. Mr. and Mrs. Evans described Lee as a headstrong, boisterous individual who frequently hollered at his mother. He was so loud that Myrtle was relieved when the Oswalds finally moved. They told the FBI and the Warren Commission they rented Marguerite an apartment on St. Mary's Place from May 1954 through May 1955," first 1454 St. Mary's Place, then a cheaper one at 1452 (56). If these dates are correct, they conflict with Marguerite living on Exchange Place at exactly the same time. If Lee Oswald lived at St. Mary's and attended Beauregard Junior High School with Ed Voebel in Myra DaRouse's homeroom, he had a long way to travel: In 1955 he would have been two school districts removed and 55 blocks away from Beauregard (57). While the Warren Commission tells us that Marguerite and Lee moved to New Orleans from New York; her longtime neighbor, landlady, and friend who she saw everyday testified that Marguerite came to New Orleans from Texas (58). We will soon examine evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald had somehow gone to junior high school in Texas before moving to New Orleans. In 1963, following the assassination of President Kennedy, Julian and Myrtle Evans could not recognize Marguerite Oswald. Myrtle told the Warren Commission, "When I saw her on TV, after all of this happened, she looked so old and haggard, and I said, 'That couldn't be Margie'" (59). Julian Evans testified, "I think she's a fine woman myself, a fine woman; intelligent, very soft spoken -- a beautiful woman, with black hair streaked with a little gray; but when you saw her on television since this thing happened, she really looked awful; nothing at all like she used to look. She has really aged. She looked like a charwoman compared to what she used to look like. She used to be a fashion plate. She dressed beautifully, but when we saw her on television just recently, after all this happened, she looked awful. There's no other way to describe it, the change that has come over her. You wouldn't have recognized her if they hadn't told you who she was; she looked that different. Where her hair used to be black, now it's entirely gray, and she really looks old" (60). Commission attorney Albert Jenner said, "Well, she's 57, I believe" (61). Evans replied, "That's right; she's the same age as my wife, but she looks about 70 now. That's about all I can remember about her, and then I saw this thing on television when the President was assassinated, and when it showed her picture, we just couldn't believe it was Marguerite" (62). Oswald's only friend in New Orleans, Edward Voebel, recalled Marguerite to the Warren Commission this way: "I think I met her one time, and for some reason I had a picture in my mind which was different from when I saw her in the paper after all of this happened. I didn't recognize her. She was a lot thinner, and her hair wasn't so gray, as I can recall it, when I met her. Of course, this was about 8 years ago, but I can remember she had a black dress on, and she was sitting down smoking a cigarette; now, maybe she wasn't smoking, but this is a picture that comes to my mind as I recall that" (63). With all due respect to Mrs. Oswald, one has to wonder if the "intelligent, soft-spoken, beautiful woman" the Evans couple knew for 30 years was the same Marguerite they saw on television in 1963 (64). Marguerite and Lee worked for the Dolly Shoe Company; her W-4 forms were signed on February 5, 1955, and show a 126 Exchange Place address. The store owner, Maury Goodman, remembered Oswald as a very small kid who was extremely quiet (65). Goodman also remembered Marguerite. John Armstrong sent Goodman a photograph of Marguerite Oswald taken in 1957, a year and a half after she worked for him. He wrote back, saying, "Dear John, I don't recognize her at all from this photo. She looks like she cut off all of her hair. This woman looks happy and I never remember Marguerite looking happy" (66). He did not know Marguerite Claverie, whose disposition may well have been cheerful; he knew the same Marguerite Oswald as the rest of us. Mr. Goodman said that when Marguerite left Dolly Shoe Company she then went to work as a barmaid. Myra DaRouse also recalled Harvey Oswald's mother working as a barmaid (67). There is no reference by members of her family, the Warren Commission, or any government agency that Marguerite ever worked as a barmaid (68). Perhaps this explains why Marguerite, when interviewed in New York by probation officer John Carro, couldn't remember the correct name of her second husband, his correct age when he died, the correct year of her marriage to him, whether he was right handed or left, and perhaps this is why she often confused his name with that of her third husband; why she couldn't remember the correct married name of her own sister, the correct name of the city in Texas she'd lived in, the correct birth date of her third and youngest child, or the correct name of the church where he was baptized (69). Perhaps this is also why the short, chubby, bespectacled Marguerite Oswald known to the American public bears such a faint resemblance -- if any at all -- to the tall, trim, dark-haired, smartly-dressed Marguerite Oswald photographed with Edwin Ekdahl on their 1945 wedding day (70), and who was photographed in 1957 by a co-worker at Paul Shore Store, her hair now gray, but clearly the same woman standing next to Edwin Ekdahl in the 1945 photo (71). Perhaps the late Marguerite Oswald, long-suffering mother of the accused assassin, should now be viewed with a great deal of skepticism (72). For more information on John Armstrong's research and theory concerning Lee and Marguerite Oswald, please click here for "Constructing the Assassin," my adaptation of John Armstrong's "Harvey and Lee." Link 1 NOTES: 1. 1 H 195. 2. WR 674. 3. CE 1874; John Armstrong, 1996 Fourth Decade presentation; reported by Joe Backes, "The Fourth Decade Conference, Part2," *Fair Play,* No. 12 (hereafter JA 3), available on-line at:LINK 2 This researcher possesses a copy of this manuscript with numerous corrections made personally by John Armstrong. We regret that this corrected version cannot be posted on-line without the author's permission. 4. JA 3. 5. CE 2219. 6. JA 3. 7. John Pic Exhibit No. 54; JA 3. 8. JA 3. 9. JA 3. 10. 1 H 137, 230. 11. JA 3. 12. 1 H 281. 13. JA 3. 14. 11 H 26; JA 3. 15. 11 H 29; JA 3. 16. 11 H 29. 17. WR 674. 18. WR 674. 19. JA 3. 20. WR 674. 21. JA 3. 22. Pic Exhibit 32B; John Armstrong, "Marguerite's Addresses," *PROBE*, Vol. 3, No. 5, July-August 1996 (hereafter JA 7),26. 23. Pic Exhibit 16; JA 7, 26. 24. JA 7, 26. 25. JA 7, 26. 26. 1 H 282; JA 3. 27. Ibid. 28. Photograph from the collection of Maury Goodman. Posted on-line here 29. JA 3. 30. Lillian Murret Exhibit No. 1. Posted on-line at: LINK 4 of 4 31. JA 3. 32. JA 3. 33. JA 3. 34. WR 674. 35. JA 3. 36. WR 674. 37. JA 7, 26; JA 3. 38. 1 H 292; JA 3. 39. 2 H 30; JA 3. 40. JA 3. 41. Edward Jay Epstein, *The Assassination Chronicles,* 380. 42. 11 H 16; John Pic Exhibit No. 5. 43. Ibid. 44. 11 H 6. 45. 11 H 7. 46. WR 671-2. 47. 11 H8. 48. 11 H 8-12. 49. 11 H 13. 50. 11 H 13. 51. Pic Exhibit No. 3. 52. 11H 14. 53. 11 H 14. 54. Pic Exhibit No. 24-A; JA 7, 27. 55. WR 679; JA 3. 56. JA 3; JA 7, 27. 57. JA 3. 58. 8 H 45; JA 3. 59. 8 H 51; JA 3. 60. 8 H 51; JA 3; JA 7, 27. 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid. 63. 8 H 4; JA 3. 64. JA 3. 65. CE2238; JA 3. 66. JA 3. 67. Interviews with Myra DaRouse by the author and John Armstrong. 68. JA 3. 69. John Armstrong, "Harvey and Lee: The Case for Two Oswalds, Part 1," *PROBE,* Vol. 4, No. 6, September-October 1997,21. 70. See citation #30. 71. See citation #28.