Lee Harvey Oswald Timeline:
Childhood and Youth
Source: The Warren Commission Report
Despite much later conjecture, there is little evidence that Lee's childhood was any better or any worse than others. -- Conspiracy author Jim Marrs, in Crossfire, p. 92 |
| Date | Residence | School |
| Born: October 18, 1939 | Alvar Street (New Orleans) | -- |
| 1940 | 1242 Congress Street | -- |
| March 1941 | 1010 Bartholomew Street | -- |
| January 1942 | 831 Pauline Street | -- |
| Late Spring 1942 | 111 Sherwood Forest Drive | -- |
| December 1942 | Bethlehem Children's Home | -- |
| January 1944 | 4801 Victor Street (Dallas) | -- |
| Fall 1945 | Granbury Road (Fort Worth) | Benbrook Common |
| Summer 1946 | 311 Vermont St. (Covington, La.) | Covington Elementary |
| January 1947 | 1505 Eight Avenue (Fort Worth) | Clayton Public School |
| March 1948 | 3300 Willing Street | Clark Elementary |
| Summer 1948 | San Saba Street | -- |
| Fall 1948 | 7408 Ewing | Arlington Heights |
| September 1949 | -- | Ridglea West Elementary |
| August 1952 | 325 East 92nd Street (New York) | Trinity Evangelical Lutheran |
| September 1952 | 1455 Sheridan Avenue (Bronx) | Public School 117 |
| January 1953 | 825 East 179th Street | Public School 44 |
| January 1954 | 757 French Street (New Orleans) | Beauregard Junior High |
| Spring 1954 | 1454 St. Mary Street | -- |
| -- | 1452 St. Mary Street | -- |
| Spring 1955 | 126 Exchange Place | Warren Easton High |
| July 1956 | 4936 Collingwood (Fort Worth) | Arlington Heights High |
This 13 year old well built boy has superior mental resources and functions only slightly below his capacity level in spite of chronic truancy from school which brought him into Youth House. No finding of neurological impairment or psychotic mental changes could be made. Lee has to be diagnosed as "personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and passive--aggressive tendencies." Lee has to be seen as an emotionally, quite disturbed youngster who suffers under the impact of really existing emotional isolation and deprivation, lack of affection, absence of family life and rejection by a self involved and conflicted mother. (Warren Commission Report, p. 380)"Lee Oswald: Troubled Youth" is the Warren Commission's summary of Oswald's stay at Youth House, and the assessments of the staff there.
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Oswald's mother, Marguerite Oswald (right, below), insisted that Lee had had a normal childhood.
Mrs. Oswald : "We must understand that Lee had two brothers, so he was not raised just with a woman alone . . . . He was a happy-go-lucky youngster actually. He studied animals, was often in the zoo, and as we know he was picked up in the Bronx Zoo while in New York playing hooky from school, and I consider that normal also -- playing hooky from school. Many many boys do this." (Source: 1964 CBS documentary)
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Evelyn Siegel, a social worker at Youth House in New York where Oswald was held for three weeks in 1953, has a very different memory of Oswald.
Mrs. Siegel: "I remember him vividly, he was a skinny, unprepossessing kid. He was not a mentally disturbed kid. As a matter of fact, his I.Q. was better than average. He was just emotionally frozen. He was a kid who had never developed a really trusting relationship with anybody. From what I would garner, he really interacted with no one. He made his own meals. His mother left at around seven and came home at seven, and he shifted for himself. You got the feeling of a kid -- nobody gave a darn about him. He was just floating along in the world, with no emotional resources at all." (Source: 1993 Frontline documentary) |
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A grieving Marguerite Oswald, press in tow, visits the grave of her son in Fort Worth's Rose Hill Cemetery.
Mrs. Oswald: "Lee Harvey Oswald my son, even after his death, has done more for his country than any other living human being." (Source: "The Men Who Killed Kennedy," 1988 documentary) |
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