Ruth Paine
2515 West Fifth Street, Irving, Texas
As far as secondary characters go, Ruth Paine is a fascinating one. Without Paine's good deeds, Oswald never would have gotten the Book Depository job and would not have had the opportunity to shoot the president. Without Paine's generosity, Marina might have returned to the Soviet Union out of dissatisfaction with her living conditions, her rocky marriage and her general experience in the U.S. Paine twice took in Marina(pregnant with her second daughter no less) and her young first daughter. She also unwittingly stored Oswald's mail-order rifle in her garage. And finally, without Paine, investigators may never have learned about Oswald's link to the attempted assassination of Gen. Edwin Walker.
A 34-year-old Quaker and separated mother of two, Ruth Paine was an unlikely character to be living in suburban Irving in 1963 -- educated at Antioch College, a liberal and a pacifist. Paine was interested in learning the Russian language as part of the Quaker's international good will efforts, and she met Marina through the Russian emigre community living in Dallas in early 1963, shortly after Oswald had returned from his short-lived defection to the USSR with Marina, his Russian bride.
The Oswald's marriage was rocky from the start, and many in the emigre community took pity on Marina. While Marina was pregnant with their second child (in April/May 1963) she and baby June moved in with Ruth while Lee was in New Orleans presumably looking for a job but also stirring up trouble with his one-man Fair Play for Cuba group. Later in 1963, Ruth drove to New Orleans to pick up then-pregnant Marina and baby June and bring them back to Irving. They returned to Paine's little house on West Fifth Street in Irving in September 1963 and continued living there through Nov. 22, 1963. And though he was permitted to store some items in the garage (including the mail-order rifle that was used to kill the president), Lee was only allowed to visit her on weekends.
2515 West Fifth Street, Irving, Texas
As far as secondary characters go, Ruth Paine is a fascinating one. Without Paine's good deeds, Oswald never would have gotten the Book Depository job and would not have had the opportunity to shoot the president. Without Paine's generosity, Marina might have returned to the Soviet Union out of dissatisfaction with her living conditions, her rocky marriage and her general experience in the U.S. Paine twice took in Marina(pregnant with her second daughter no less) and her young first daughter. She also unwittingly stored Oswald's mail-order rifle in her garage. And finally, without Paine, investigators may never have learned about Oswald's link to the attempted assassination of Gen. Edwin Walker.
A 34-year-old Quaker and separated mother of two, Ruth Paine was an unlikely character to be living in suburban Irving in 1963 -- educated at Antioch College, a liberal and a pacifist. Paine was interested in learning the Russian language as part of the Quaker's international good will efforts, and she met Marina through the Russian emigre community living in Dallas in early 1963, shortly after Oswald had returned from his short-lived defection to the USSR with Marina, his Russian bride.
The Oswald's marriage was rocky from the start, and many in the emigre community took pity on Marina. While Marina was pregnant with their second child (in April/May 1963) she and baby June moved in with Ruth while Lee was in New Orleans presumably looking for a job but also stirring up trouble with his one-man Fair Play for Cuba group. Later in 1963, Ruth drove to New Orleans to pick up then-pregnant Marina and baby June and bring them back to Irving. They returned to Paine's little house on West Fifth Street in Irving in September 1963 and continued living there through Nov. 22, 1963. And though he was permitted to store some items in the garage (including the mail-order rifle that was used to kill the president), Lee was only allowed to visit her on weekends.
It was Paine who secured the Texas Book
Depository job for Oswald after he returned to Dallas and was living solo at
the Beckley boarding house. She learned of the job opening from neighbor Buell
Wesley Frazier and secured him a job interview.
Contrary to their visiting arrangement that allowed him to sleep over on weekends, Lee showed up at the house unexpectedly on Thursday, November 21, explaining he was anxious to patch things up with Marina. He overslept that morning but still managed to catch a ride in with neighbor Buell Wesley Frazier. With him that morning was a long bundle wrapped in paper that he carried under his arm. Curtain rods, he would say.
Ruth and Marina were together doing housework when news broke of the assassination. Writes Thomas Mallon in "Marina and Ruth: The assassin's wife and the Quaker woman who took her in": "Even as Kennedy lay in Parkland Hospital, work went on. Marina hung laundry in the back yard. Ruth soon joined her there with further news: the shots fired at the motorcade were now thought to have come from the Texas School Book Depository. Lee, presumably, would have quite a story to tell when he arrived home.
Without explanation, Marina left Ruth to finish hanging the clothes, while she went back into the house and then the garage. She wanted to make sure that Lee's blanket containing his rifle was where she'd last seen it, a few weeks before. To her relief, the bundle appeared to be in the same place
Soon afterward, while the two women sat on the couch in front of the TV, Ruth had to translate the news that Kennedy had died. She and Marina talked about the awful fate that had just befallen Jacqueline Kennedy and her two children , so close in age to Ruth's own. Marina apologized for not crying, a reticence that Ruth attributed to her personality.
Someone knocked on the door. Ruth answered it and was confronted by a group of law-enforcement officers...She thought they were there to serve papers in connection with her divorce, until one of them announced that Lee was in custody, charged with shooting a policeman. When the officers said they wanted to come in, she managed to ask if they had a warrant. They assured her they could get one right away. "That's O.K.," she told them. "We're all upset. Come on in."
To Ruth's surprise, Marina immediately became estranged from her following the assassination. She tried several times to contact her without success. On Nov. 30, 1963 -- one week after the assassination -- Ruth sent a package to Marina via Dallas police. The package contained a Russian-language book on housekeeping that Lee had given to Marina. Ruth thought having the book would comfort her. Unbeknownst to Ruth, inside the book was a folded up note that Lee had written to Marina that implicated him the attempted assassination of General Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963. If I am alive and taken prisoner, Oswald wrote before unsuccessful attempt to assassination the crackpot general, the city jail is at the end of the bridge we always used to cross when we went to town. Until then, that crime had gone unsolved.
Contrary to their visiting arrangement that allowed him to sleep over on weekends, Lee showed up at the house unexpectedly on Thursday, November 21, explaining he was anxious to patch things up with Marina. He overslept that morning but still managed to catch a ride in with neighbor Buell Wesley Frazier. With him that morning was a long bundle wrapped in paper that he carried under his arm. Curtain rods, he would say.
Ruth and Marina were together doing housework when news broke of the assassination. Writes Thomas Mallon in "Marina and Ruth: The assassin's wife and the Quaker woman who took her in": "Even as Kennedy lay in Parkland Hospital, work went on. Marina hung laundry in the back yard. Ruth soon joined her there with further news: the shots fired at the motorcade were now thought to have come from the Texas School Book Depository. Lee, presumably, would have quite a story to tell when he arrived home.
Without explanation, Marina left Ruth to finish hanging the clothes, while she went back into the house and then the garage. She wanted to make sure that Lee's blanket containing his rifle was where she'd last seen it, a few weeks before. To her relief, the bundle appeared to be in the same place
Soon afterward, while the two women sat on the couch in front of the TV, Ruth had to translate the news that Kennedy had died. She and Marina talked about the awful fate that had just befallen Jacqueline Kennedy and her two children , so close in age to Ruth's own. Marina apologized for not crying, a reticence that Ruth attributed to her personality.
Someone knocked on the door. Ruth answered it and was confronted by a group of law-enforcement officers...She thought they were there to serve papers in connection with her divorce, until one of them announced that Lee was in custody, charged with shooting a policeman. When the officers said they wanted to come in, she managed to ask if they had a warrant. They assured her they could get one right away. "That's O.K.," she told them. "We're all upset. Come on in."
To Ruth's surprise, Marina immediately became estranged from her following the assassination. She tried several times to contact her without success. On Nov. 30, 1963 -- one week after the assassination -- Ruth sent a package to Marina via Dallas police. The package contained a Russian-language book on housekeeping that Lee had given to Marina. Ruth thought having the book would comfort her. Unbeknownst to Ruth, inside the book was a folded up note that Lee had written to Marina that implicated him the attempted assassination of General Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963. If I am alive and taken prisoner, Oswald wrote before unsuccessful attempt to assassination the crackpot general, the city jail is at the end of the bridge we always used to cross when we went to town. Until then, that crime had gone unsolved.
