A Couple of Real Gems from the "Harvey and Lee" Website

[Sandy Larsen]

On 6/17/2017 at 10:09 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

DISAPPEARING NYC SCHOOL RECORDS

John Pic told the Warren Commission that in 1952 LHO attended a school in the NYC Borough of Manhattan, “located on about 89th, 90th Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue. Lee didn't like this school. I didn't much blame him. “

Robert Oswald wrote that his brother also attended school in Manhattan.  On page 63 of his book LEE, Robert writes: “Lee entered the 8th grade at P.S. 44 on Columbus Ave. at 76th St.”  This address was  in Manhattan, as was the location “on about 89th, 90th Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue” that John Pic described.

Jim,

Tracy dismissed what both John Pic and Robert Oswald said about LHO attending school in Manhattan. He said they were both wrong and that LHO attended school in the Bronx only.

It is hard for me to believe there is nothing to what the brothers said.

Pic lived in Manhattan at the time and visited his mother in the Bronx on at least one occasion. He certainly would have known that a child living in the middle of the Bronx would not attend a school in the middle of Manhattan, and vice versa. They are simply too far away from each other. Besides, the Oswalds were living with the Pics at the time, and that is when LHO attended the school that was near the Pics' apartment. How could John Pic have gotten that wrong? (Unless he was fibbing. There is currently no school near the address he gave, and Armstrong could find none either.)

As for Robert Oswald, it is easier to accept that he could have been mistaken, given that he was there in New York City only when on leave from the marines. But he clearly knew where P.S. 44 in Manhattan was, as opposed to merely looking up the address later. We know that because the address of the school is 100 W 77th St., whereas he was able only to approximate its location as Columbus Ave. at 76th St. Had he gotten the address from some school directory or official, he would have gotten the official address.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

Jim,

I'm having trouble reconciling some things when the Oswalds were living in NYC.

By studying everything, it seemed to me that it was HARVEY who was mostly absent from school in 7th grade, and not LEE. And it seemed that it was FAKE Marguerite who was the unfriendly one who went from job to job. But now I find myself doubting this conclusion, because John Pic's testimony seems to suggest quite the opposite.

John Pic's testimony is here.

I've always thought that Pic was either largely unaware of the Oswald Project, or at least wasn't in a position (or not willing) to play along with it in his WC testimony. However, in hist testimony he talks about his brothers' truancy and psychological problems, and about his mother frequently changing jobs. His testimony tells me that I've got it backwards... that it was really his mother who couldn't hold onto a job, and really his brother LEE who was truant.

Either that or he was fibbing in his testimony and going along with the official story. That is to say, he was really referring to the FAKE Marguerite and HARVEY when speaking of his mother and brother.

What is your take on this?

 

[David Josephs]

Sandy,

With Tracy et al, every single instance of duality must be addressed and explained away.

In so many cases, their only reply is "they got it wrong".. (just like John Ely got it wrong)

The 3 different PS44's for example.  Here is the relevant page along with reports from John Carro, Oswald's school probation officer.

From Robert:  "During the summer Mother looked around for another apartment, so Lee could make a fresh start in a new school in the fall"

This would be the famous "North Dakota summer"... yet the NYC school records do not support Robert's comment.  Lee had already transferred from PS117 to PS44 on Jan 16, 1953.  He doesn't show up until March 23rd.  You can see from the TRUANT REPORT (bottom right of collage) that Oswald and mom had already moved to E179th street by March 1953.  They did not move again before the 53/54 school year so there was no fresh start...   

Unless he was referring to LEE who attended a different PS44 and did very well according to the records...  the 2 mixed into one is truly not that hard to see.

"Mother and Lee" did not look for an apartment during the summer 1953
"Mother and Lee" had moved to E179th street by April 1953
Robert gives us the Manhattan address of PS44 while Pic adds yet another wrinkle

It got toward schooltime and they had their foothold in the house and he was going to enroll in the neighborhood school, and they planned to stay with us, and I didn't much like this. We couldn't afford to have them, and took him up to enroll in this school. 
Mr. JENNER - You did? 
Mr. PIC - No, sir; my mother did. I think this is a public school in New York City located on about 89th, 90th Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue. Lee didn't like this school. I didn't much blame him. 

This might have been the East Side Middle School at 91st between 1st and 2nd,  

Mrs. Marge Oswald: I enrolled him in the Lutheran school which took him approximately an hour or longer by subway to get there. It was quite a distance. That is when we first arrived in New York.  I believe that Lee was in that school a very short time, 2 or 3 weeks

The Trinity school he, and then she, speaks of is at 2130 Watson in the Bronx and is indeed quite a trip for a 7th grader, alone, in NY.

 

Ave

 

 

On Sept 14, 1953 they were living in the Bronx at 829 E 179th after having been to 1455 Sheridan after leaving the Pics.

Just below the bottom of this map is where PS44 in Brooklyn is.

You are correct Sandy in questioning EVERYTHING about NYC, and 1952-1954.

Robert appears to have transitioned to Harvey with the zoo photo and his apartment location yet with all the time in the world to be correct, Robert tells us LEE is going to school  at PS44 in Manhattan which was at 100 West 77th.  I believe him.

LEE did go to PS44 in NYC while little Harvey was in the Bronx at the other PS44.  Two records were combined into one... except as usual for the FBI, mistakes were made.(see bottom image) 

These three "permanent records" are supposed to be ONE RECORD with all that occurs to a child recorded within.

Not only are there 3.  But there is no progression, they are of the same data but rewritten each time.   They are net even the same form...

1st and 2nd are the same, yet once the 1st adds info beyond the first year, the 2nd record should no longer exist... unless something out of the ordinary happened between PS117 and PS44 besides the YOUTH HOUSE (Apr/May 1953).  Only the 3rd image is the CE which is written on a form that isn't the same as the first 2.

How many different PERMANENT RECORDS is a child supposed to have?

 

 

 

[Jim Hargrove]

Man, sometimes DJ’s posts make me think I’ve got to run out and do some mental calisthenics and read it again… a couple of times.  One thing that’s clear from his work on NYC, though, is how perfect that city was for mingling the identities of two boys.  An urban jungle with a massive public transportation system for ‘splaining nearly impossible things and, even better, a system of giving schools identical numbers in up to five different boroughs.  It all went swimmingly until the project got caught up in the New York court system, a crisis that made all parties flee to the South.  

Nevertheless, Sandy raises an interesting question about John Pic’s testimony.  I always believed, and I think John does too, that LEE, not HARVEY, stayed briefly at the Pics’ apartment.  I don’t have an immediate explanation for Pic’s testimony about his “brother’s” truancy. Several come to mind, but they seem forced.  I’ll pose the question to John asap, because I’m curious about his take also.  That’s a good catch, Sandy, and I can’t believe I didn’t notice it for all these years.  

On the school mysteries, John used Google maps to determine the distances from Pic’s apartment in Manhattan to a number of the schools under consideration here.  PS 44 in the Bronx was 8 miles away.  It’s hard to imagine a kid traveling that distance every day just to attend school.  Why would he have been enrolled there?  P.S. 44 on Columbus Ave. at 76th St., named by Robert, was 2 1/2 miles from Pic’s apartment, still a long commute in a city like New York, but more conceivable than the Bronx school.  John couldn’t locate a school in the exact location Pic named (“on about 89th, 90th Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue” ) but he found the same school that DJ mentioned, P.S. 66, at 88th Street and First Avenue, which is pretty close to Pic’s recalled location.
 

Edited June 20, 2017 by Jim Hargrove

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, David Josephs said:

It got toward schooltime and they had their foothold in the house and he was going to enroll in the neighborhood school, and they planned to stay with us, and I didn't much like this. We couldn't afford to have them, and took him up to enroll in this school. 

 

Mr. JENNER - You did? 
Mr. PIC - No, sir; my mother did. I think this is a public school in New York City located on about 89th, 90th Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue. Lee didn't like this school. I didn't much blame him. 

 

This might have been the East Side Middle School at 91st between 1st and 2nd, 

David,

I believe you are right. The Pic apartment is at 325 E. 92nd Street, whereas East Side Middle School is one block away at 331 E. 91st Street. Pic probably wasn't sure if the school was one or two blocks away in either direction.

 

5 hours ago, David Josephs said:

LEE did go to PS44 in NYC while little Harvey was in the Bronx at the other PS44.  Two records were combined into one... except as usual for the FBI, mistakes were made.(see bottom image) 

I'm having second thoughts about this issue. I think it is probable that people who live in New York City and other big cities give addresses casually by the nearest major crossroads. Robert didn't live in NYC, so he probably had to ask around to get the address of Public School 44. When asked which burrough he might have said Manhattan because he knew Pic lived there. And somebody may have told him it was "Columbus Ave. at 76th St."

I think that it's just a little too "Get Smart"-ish to come up with the idea of both the boys going to different schools with identical numbers. Maybe not, but that's how I feel right now.

In fact, in this New York Times article the following is reported:

"The flea market at Intermediate School 44 on Columbus Avenue at 76th Street began humbly enough: a few fruit and vegetable stands in the early 1980's that gave part of their proceeds to the school."

See what I mean, jellybean? The article gives the exact same address for the school that Robert Oswald gave. (This proves me wrong in a prior post, where I said that by giving an approximate location, this meant Robert must have actually known where the school was.)

I think it's more likely that LEE went to East Side Middle School for his first 7th grade term, and then transferred to P.S. 44 (in Bronx) for his second term. Since HARVEY was truant at that school till the final 1 1/2 months, it was less likely that somebody would notice there were two Lee Harvey Oswalds attending.

 

5 hours ago, David Josephs said:

These three "permanent records" are supposed to be ONE RECORD with all that occurs to a child recorded within.

Not only are there 3.  But there is no progression, they are of the same data but rewritten each time.   They are net even the same form...

1st and 2nd are the same, yet once the 1st adds info beyond the first year, the 2nd record should no longer exist... unless something out of the ordinary happened between PS117 and PS44 besides the YOUTH HOUSE (Apr/May 1953).  Only the 3rd image is the CE which is written on a form that isn't the same as the first 2.

How many different PERMANENT RECORDS is a child supposed to have?

 

 

David,

Do you know if there are any differences between the form on the right and the one of the left? Any changed entries?

I think we need to be careful interpreting hand-duplicated forms. They didn't have photocopy machines back then and they probably had to make a hand copy whenever anybody requested a copy. Back in the 1950s, that is.

The form in the middle may have been the final one kept by P.S. 117 when they sent a copy of it to P.S 44. (P.S. 44 then would have added new entries as Oswald took classes there.) It only goes up to P.S. 117 on the middle form.

But maybe not. There is something interesting about the form in the middle. Take a close look at the grid in the upper left corner, where the days present and absent are recorded for each term.

It struck me as odd that the "117" (for P.S. 117) is missing in the right-most column of the fourth row, like it had been erased. But after studying it for a while, I noticed that the "117" actually is there. It is printed in very tiny print in the lower right-hand part of the box. It is very faint, so you have to look carefully. Even so, the vertical line on the "7" can't be seen. In the box to the right of that one, you can see a tiny "X," where it should be. In the box just to the right of that is where a date is written. You will see that indeed the handwriting in tiny.

So the text for P.S. 117 really is there... as it should be.

Now this is where it gets interesting. In the row just below the one for P.S. 117, there is nothing... right? Well, no. Look at it closely and you will see in tiny print "44" in the left-most box, followed by tiny "X" in the box to its right.

Well.... maybe this isn't as interesting as I had initially thought. My frame of mind earlier, when I discovered this, was that it looked like text had been erased. Then when I saw the empty line for P.S. 44 I thought that it had been erased. And I thought that the row in the lower part of the form showing all the scores for P.S. 44 had also been erased. But now I'm thinking that the person wrote the "44" and "X" in just to indicate where the student had transferred to, and where a copy of the record had been sent to. So maybe nothing interesting here after all.

 

 

[David Josephs]

10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

David,

Do you know if there are any differences between the form on the right and the one of the left? Any changed entries?

I think we need to be careful interpreting hand-duplicated forms. They didn't have photocopy machines back then and they probably had to make a hand copy whenever anybody requested a copy. Back in the 1950s, that is.

I was pretty sure there was a way to make photocopies in the late 50's early 60's..  Do you suppose the FBI might have a few of these?

In March of 1960, the first plain-paper office copier was shipped to a paying customer by Haloid Xerox, a little-known photographic-supply company in Rochester, New York. The contraption was the size of two washing machines, weighed 648 pounds and had to be turned on its side to fit through doorways. It also occasionally caught on fire.

But it revolutionized the workplace as we know it. http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/30/xerox.copier.turns.50/index.html

In 1949, Xerox Corporation introduced the first xerographic copier called the Model A.^[1] Xerox became so successful that, in North America, photocopying came to be popularly known as "xeroxing." Xerox has actively fought to prevent "Xerox" from becoming a genericized trademark. While the word "Xerox" has appeared in some dictionaries as a synonym for photocopying, Xerox Corporation typically requests that such entries be modified, and that people not use the term "Xerox" in this way. Some languages include hybrid terms, such as the widely used Polish term kserokopia ("xerocopy"), even though relatively few photocopiers are of the Xerox brand.

In the early 1950s, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) introduced a variation on the process called Electrofax, whereby images are formed directly on specially coated paper and rendered with a toner dispersed in a liquid.

During the 1960s and through the 1980s, Savin Corporation developed and sold a line of liquid-toner copiers that implemented a technology based on patents held by the company.

Before the widespread adoption of xerographic copiers, photo-direct copies produced by machines such as Kodak's Verifax were used. A primary obstacle associated with the pre-xerographic copying technologies was the high cost of supplies: a Verifax print required supplies costing USD $0.15 in 1969, while a Xerox print could be made for USD $0.03 including paper and labor. The coin-operated Photostat machines still found in some public libraries in the late 1960s made letter-size copies for USD $0.25 each, at a time when the minimum wage for a US worker was USD $1.65 per hour; the Xerox machines that replaced them typically charged USD $0.10.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photocopier

The form in the middle may have been the final one kept by P.S. 117 when they sent a copy of it to P.S 44. (P.S. 44 then would have added new entries as Oswald took classes there.) It only goes up to P.S. 117 on the middle form.

But maybe not. There is something interesting about the form in the middle. Take a close look at the grid in the upper left corner, where the days present and absent are recorded for each term.

Again, between what Robert says and what the rest of the evidence shows, something strange is occurring between PS117 and PS44.  The first PS44 starts on March 23, 1953.  He is YOUTH HOUSE from April 15 thru May 7.

Sandy - do we see anything on the permanent record that mentions this stay at the Youth house?  The record claims 15 3/2 days absent yet Youth House alone is 16 days.  It is also mentioned repeated by Carro that in Sept 1953 Oswald went into the 9th grade*

 

It struck me as odd that the "117" (for P.S. 117) is missing in the right-most column of the fourth row, like it had been erased. But after studying it for a while, I noticed that the "117" actually is there. It is printed in very tiny print in the lower right-hand part of the box. It is very faint, so you have to look carefully. Even so, the vertical line on the "7" can't be seen. In the box to the right of that one, you can see a tiny "X," where it should be. In the box just to the right of that is where a date is written. You will see that indeed the handwriting in tiny.

So the text for P.S. 117 really is there... as it should be.

Now this is where it gets interesting. In the row just below the one for P.S. 117, there is nothing... right? Well, no. Look at it closely and you will see in tiny print "44" in the left-most box, followed by tiny "X" in the box to its right.

Well.... maybe this isn't as interesting as I had initially thought. My frame of mind earlier, when I discovered this, was that it looked like text had been erased. Then when I saw the empty line for P.S. 44 I thought that it had been erased. And I thought that the row in the lower part of the form showing all the scores for P.S. 44 had also been erased. But now I'm thinking that the person wrote the "44" and "X" in just to indicate where the student had transferred to, and where a copy of the record had been sent to. So maybe nothing interesting here after all.

Sandy,

Your curiosity and persistence is greatly appreciated.  I do believe it most likely the FBI had the ability to recreate documents and had access to the earliest machines.

That really isn't the point.   A "PERMANENT CUMULATIVE RECORD" is a singular item added to over time and would follow the child as they moved to different schools.

The item in the center should not exist at all, unless that boy simply stopped going to NYC schools.

*If it was only one mention that would be one thing, yet between Robert and Carro LEE was in PS44 and doing well.  The record for PS44 is all LEE's I believe.  That way Marge is able to tell us how he changed and was not class president and attending as expected...  Little Harvey was not part of this miraculous change.

 

One thing that never gets tired for me is the inability to add by those trying to prove these records legit.

Look closely - from March 23 thru the end of the semester June 29, this boy was supposed to have attended 109 3/2 days of school.

This is important because it is very hard to imagine an actual school administrator filling out this form and showing 109 3/2 + 15 3/2 = 127 days of school

Here are all the school days from March 23 on.  You want to help show them how 127 days of school fits between March 23 and Sept 14.

and no, Oswald did not go to summer school.  Summer 1953 is North Dakota time...  And as shown, he returns and enters 9th grade in Sept 1953...  That's Lee, not Harvey.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 21, 2017 by David Josephs

[David Josephs]

10 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Now this is where it gets interesting. In the row just below the one for P.S. 117, there is nothing... right? Well, no. Look at it closely and you will see in tiny print "44" in the left-most box, followed by tiny "X" in the box to its right.

"X" = Bronx under the heading "Borough"

I grew up in the borough of Queens.  There's also Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island

In the row below 117 the record of the xfer is shown.  On 1/16/53 this boy is moved to PS44  in the Bronx as shown on the map I posted.  I don't think the record for PS44 relates to the same child as from PS117.  (edit: I see you meant the middle incomplete record. Yet since these are "Pupil Perm Record in JR High School" he is transferring within the same Boro...  this record would not start over or end... and if it did, we'd not see any info prior to PS44 on the form...

There is simply no reason for this middle copy to exist.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2017 by David Josephs

[Jim Hargrove]

Sandy,

I sent your post to John and he wrote back with the following (your comments in black, John's in red):

Jim,

I'm having trouble reconciling some things when the Oswalds were
living in NYC.

By studying everything, it seemed to me that it was HARVEY who was
mostly absent from school in 7th grade, and not LEE. YES, ABSOLUTELY !! And it seemed
that it was FAKE Marguerite who was the unfriendly one who went from
job to job. OF COURSE. But now I find myself doubting this conclusion, because
John Pic's testimony seems to suggest quite the opposite.

John Pic's testimony is here.

I've always thought that Pic was either largely unaware of the
Oswald Project, or at least wasn't in a position (or not willing) to
play along with it in his WC testimony. However, in hist testimony
he talks about his brothers' truancy and psychological problems, and
about his mother frequently changing jobs. His testimony tells me
that I've got it backwards... that it was really his mother who
couldn't hold onto a job, and really his brother LEE who was truant.
NO, PIC KNEW HIS BROTHER LEE. HE TOLD THE WC THAT HIS
BROTHER ATTENDED A JHS AT 89TH/90TH BETWEEN 2ND &
3RD AVENUE (BUT THIS IS MANHATTAN, NOT THE BRONX).
PIC ALSO FAILED TO IDENTIFY THE BRONX ZOO PHOTO AS HIS
BROTHER.

Either that or he was fibbing in his testimony and going along with
the official story. That is to say, he was really referring to the
FAKE Marguerite and HARVEY when speaking of his mother and brother.

What is your take on this? PIC FAILED TO IDENTIFY SEVERAL OF
HARVEY'S PHOTOS AS HIS BROTHER, INCLUDING A PHOTO OF
HARVEY HANDING OUT FPCC LITERATURE IN NEW ORLEANS.
PIC KNEW, ABSOLUTELY, BUT WAS NOT WILLING TO DISCLOSE
MUCH.

NOW, LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING INTERESTING. ROBERT OSWALD
TOLD THE WC THAT HIS "BROTHER" ATTENDED STRIPLING JHS IN
FT WORTH. BUT THIS WAS HARVEY, NOT LEE. ROBERT'S TESTIMONY
LEAD ME TO STRIPLING, AND STUDENTS WHO REMEMBERED HARVEY
IN THE 9TH GRADE (WHILE LEE WAS ATTENDING BEAUREGARD JHS IN
NEW ORLEANS. NOW, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO THINK WHEN ROBERT
WROTE IN HIS BOOK (LEE, BY ROBERT OSWALD) THAT HIS BROTHER
ATTENDED A JHS NEAR 68TH & COLUMBUS (SORRY, NOT SURE OF THE
EXACT ADDRESS, BUT IT IS IN HIS BOOK). NOW, GUESS WHAT JUNIOR 
HIGH SCHOOL IS NEAR THIS ADDRESS?? 

LEE WAS ATTENDING PS 44 IN THE BRONX, WITH A GOOD ATTENDANCE
RECORD. HARVEY MAY HAVE BEEN ATTENDING A JHS NEAR 68TH &
COLUMBUS (OR COLUMBIA) IN MANHATTAN. CAN YOU GUESS THE 
NAME OF THIS SCHOOL ?????

IT IS PS 44 (IN MANHATTAN). THERE WAS A PS 44 IN ALL 5 NEW YORK 
BURROUGHS IN THE 1950'S.

SANDY, YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. JUST KEEP FOLLOWING
THE EVIDENCE. AND LOOK AT THE YOUTUBE VIDEO OF DR. MILTON
KURIAN, A PSYCHIATRIST WHO INTERVIEWED HARVEY IN APRIL,
1953. HARVEY TOLD DR. KURIAN THAT HIS "BROTHER" WOULD
OFTEN SUBSTITUTE FOR HIM IN SCHOOL. NOW, AT THIS TIME 18
YEAR ROBERT OSWALD WAS IN THE MARINES AND PIC WAS IN
THE COAST GUARD AND MARRIED. WHO WAS HARVEY'S "BROTHER?"
I THINK YOU KNOW THE ANSWER.
 

Edited June 21, 2017 by Jim Hargrove

[Jim Hargrove]

17 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I think that it's just a little too "Get Smart"-ish to come up with the idea of both the boys going to different schools with identical numbers. Maybe not, but that's how I feel right now.

In fact, in this New York Times article the following is reported:

"The flea market at Intermediate School 44 on Columbus Avenue at 76th Street began humbly enough: a few fruit and vegetable stands in the early 1980's that gave part of their proceeds to the school."

See what I mean, jellybean? The article gives the exact same address for the school that Robert Oswald gave.

Fabulous find, Sandy!  It gives Robert's recollection of the Manhattan school attendance far more credibility.  Thank you!

Looking forward to hearing reactions to John's point about Harvey telling Dr. Kurian about his "brother" substituting for him in the NYC school.  I'd forgotten all about it.

[Sandy Larsen]

10 hours ago, David Josephs said:

I was pretty sure there was a way to make photocopies in the late 50's early 60's..  Do you suppose the FBI might have a few of these?

I wasn't talking about FBI copies. My point was that copies of school records were probably made by hand in the early 1950s. When Oswald transferred from one school to another, his record was likely copied by hand.

The xerographic Model A Copier was introduced in 1949, but it was an expensive device that was expensive to operate. It required multiple manual steps to make a single copy. And it was a new technology that certainly would not have been a standard office machine by 1952 / 1953.

Xerox copiers weren't widely used till Model 914 was released in 1959. It was much more economical to operate than the Model A, and was fully automated. But its high cost ($27,500, or $232,000 in today's dollars) prevented most entities from owning one.

A Varifax or Thermo-Fax machine might have been used in 1952. But I suspect not because it was known that those machines produced copies that faded over time. School records were meant to last for a long time.

The easiest, most economical solution to the problem of making long-lasting copies was to make the copies by hand. Heck, they didn't even bother typing the records. They were okay with handwritten ones.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

15 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The easiest, most economical solution to the problem of making long-lasting copies was to make the copies by hand.

Even if I'm wrong and the schools did in fact use Verifax or Thermo-Fax for school records, absent  that knowledge it would be prudent to accept the real possibility that hand copies were made. And that that might explain the two copies of the same record written by different individuals.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

12 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Again, between what Robert says and what the rest of the evidence shows, something strange is occurring between PS117 and PS44.  The first PS44 starts on March 23, 1953.  He is YOUTH HOUSE from April 15 thru May 7.

David,

I absolutely agree with you regarding records of the spring term at P.S. 44. There is no way Oswald could have gotten the grades we see on the record given that he was in Youth House. And given all his truancy hearings, etc. And he couldn't have gotten so many days of attendance as noted on the Record.

My only point is that LEE may have gone to some school other than P.S. 44 in Manhattan. He may have attended East Side in Manhattan for example, or P.S. 44 in Bronx, or any other school in the area. Sure, he may have gone to P.S. 44 in Manhattan according to what Robert said. I just don't have much confidence in what he said given that he didn't even live there at the time. And because it would be an easy mistake for Robert to make. (That is, if I understand the situation correctly. If I don't, then tell me what I have wrong.)
 

12 hours ago, David Josephs said:

Sandy - do we see anything on the permanent record that mentions this stay at the Youth house?  The record claims 15 3/2 days absent yet Youth House alone is 16 days.

It is also mentioned repeated by Carro that in Sept 1953 Oswald went into the 9th grade*

Both Oswalds were supposed to have begun 8th grade at that time, right? So I don't understand why anyone would think he entered 9th grade. Couldn't Carro have just have been wrong? (BTW I haven't studied this issue... yet.)

 

[Sandy Larsen]

12 hours ago, David Josephs said:

The item in the center should not exist at all, unless that boy simply stopped going to NYC schools.

David,

For a moment, pretend that the school records in the collage below were for, say, my dad... not Oswald. (That way your conceptions regarding Oswald won't interfere with what I'm about to explain.) I want to explain how these records could have come about in the natural course of events.

(The following is all pretend.)

My dad went to schools in Texas and then moved to the Bronx in 1952. He attended the Lutheran school for a short period and then transferred to P.S. 117. The administrators at P.S. 117 filled out the middle form below. Dad skipped a lot of classes there and failed some of them. Administrators recorded dad's scores on the middle form.

Dad then transferred to P.S. 44. The administrators there requested school records from P.S. 117. An employee at P.S. 117 hand copied the form in the middle and took the copy to P.S. 44.  P.S. 117 kept the original, which (again) is the one in the middle.

The form on the left is what P.S. 44 got from P.S. 117. Dad took classes at P.S. 44  and the administrators updated the form on the left accordingly.

Dad later transferred to another school. Let's call it Next School. (I'm making up the school name because I don't know where Oswald went next.) Next School requested a copy of dad's records from P.S. 44. An employee at P.S.44 manually copied the form on the left, and that copy is the form on the right. P.S. 44 sent the copy to Next School.

So what we see in the photo below is the FINAL P.S. 117 record in the middle, the FINAL P.S.44 record on the left, and the INITIAL New School record on the right.

Now, New School used a different, but similar, form for its records. So an employee there copied the information from the form on the right onto their own form. They filed away the form on the right, and recorded my dad's New School scores on their own form. (Which we don't see below.)

Years later the FBI did a background check on my dad. And that is the reason they have the records shown below. The records show that dad did better after transferring to P.S. 44.

Does that make sense David? Are there any problems in my thinking?

Now, back to the real world. Clearly there was some fudging of Oswald's records. My only goal here was to show how the three documents could have come about. Why the middle record is incomplete. And why the right and left records hold identical information, but in different people's handwriting.

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

[deleted]

Edited June 22, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

 

As can be seen on the left (or right) school record, Oswald entered P.S. 44 late, on March 23. Using David's chart below, I count that there were 65 days available for Oswald to attend spring semester. However, he was dismissed 17 of those days to attend Youth House. That leaves 48 days available to him to attend. Therefore, had he not missed a single day, his records would have shown he attended 48 days.

However -- AND THIS IS REALLY AMAZING -- Oswalds records show that he attended an astonishing 110.5 days! That is more days than are available in a whole term!!

But it's worse than that. Oswald did miss some days... 16.5 days according to the school record above. So he really attended only 48 - 16.5 = 31.5 days.

So Oswald attended only 31.5 days but got credit for 110.5 days! Where did that extra 79 days come from??

 

I have a working hypothesis, one that is very similar to what happened in the Beauregard Junior High School case, where HARVEY's records were apparently merged with LEE's.

Here's what may have happened. HARVEY attended P.S. 117, missed more days than he attended, and got failing grades. He transferred to P.S. 44, was truant, went to Youth House, and finished out the spring term with several absences. In all he was in attendance for only 31.5 days, as David's chart shows. He then disappeared from P.S. 44. Perhaps he attended a different school in the fall of 1953. But he did not attend P.S. 44.

See that middle school record above? HARVEY's final record at P.S. 44 would have looked almost like that. The only difference is that it would show the number of days present at P.S. 44 as 31.5 and the number of days absent as 16.5, as discussed above. There would be no scores for P.S. 44 classes written in, as HARVEY attended so few days. Now try to visualize this record so that you'll be able to see how it will later be merged with LEE's record.

LEE also attended P.S. 44 in the spring of 1953, as well as in the fall. However, he didn't transfer in from P.S. 11 7like HARVEY did. As a result he got a school record sheet that begins at P.S. 44. It looked very little like HARVEY's record sheet. It contained only the two columns of P.S. 44 passing grades we see in the left (or right) record above. Now try to visualize LEE's record.

Now, later on somebody (the FBI?) discovered that there were two records for the same person, our LHO. The person decided to copy the scores over from one of the records to the other so that there would be a single, complete record. If you visualize the two records, it will become obvious why the person decided to transfer the data from LEE's record over to HARVEY's and not vice versa. It's because, to that person, it looked as though somebody had accidentally created a new record (LEE's) for Oswald rather than appending the new P.S. 44 data onto the prior (HARVEY's) record, as should be done.So the person proceeded to do just that. He copied LEE's data over to HARVEY's record.

There was only one problem in doing this. And that is that there were TWO FIELDS that both had data, and they conflicted. Those were the Days Present and the Days Absent fields. Not understanding why there would be any such numbers at all on HARVEY's  record, and seeing that the number on HARVEY's record was rather small anyway (only 31.5), he decided to just add the numbers together.

As a good student, LEE had only a few absences. To make this work out, let's say that his record showed 79 days of attendance. This is not too far from a full term. Adding that to the 31.5 on HARVEY's record gives a total of 110.5 days of attendance. So the guy erased the 31.5 and replaced it with 110.5. Which is what we see on the merged record, above.

And that is the reason we see a school record that radically conflicts with HARVEY's known truancy problem, and why we see an impossibly large number for days attended in the spring of 1953. That is, according to this hypothesis.