Jim Hargrove: Are these photos of the the tall, attractive Marguerite Oswald, or the short, dumpy Marguerite imposter?

[Alistair Briggs]

4 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Alistair,

Why don't you redo your calculation based on the 5' 11" I have provided and tell us what you find? In inches please though.

If he is 5ft11...

To the top of her hair - 66.5625 inches
To the bottom of her hair - 63.0155 inches

In the photo it seems her hair is (for want of a better word) 'permed up' which would make her look taller. In real terms then of her height I would go for the measurement to the bottom of the hair.

*There are another couple of things about that photo that could make a difference either way imo. She, as it is her wedding day and she is proud, would have stood quite proud (shoulders down, neck up, chin out) and that could 'relatively' add an extra inch to her height. He, because he is taller, could be doing the opposite (neck down, chin in) and that could 'relatively' lose an inch of his height, also he could have his knees slightly bent which would lose some height off him.

Reagards

P.S. If somebody showed me that photo blindly and told me the man was 6ft and asked me to say how tall the woman was I would say she looked about 5ft 7 and I would thus be surprised if they then said, no, she is actually 5ft 3. As surprising as that would be to me, from doing the measurements (however crudely) and considering other aspects that may cause a 'height difference' it is no surprise now to say she is 5ft 3. (Hope that makes sense)

[Alistair Briggs]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Using a height of 5' 11'' for him, I calculated her height to be 5' 4.5" .

 

43 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I'm revising my estimate of Marguerite's height to 5" 5". (1/2" taller.)
 

Just caught this before I headed out...

Quite close measurements to mine then,

to the top of her hair I had 5ft 6 and to bottom of hair 5ft 3, yours is somewhere in the middle.

Good stuff.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

I put the picture in Photoshop and did 3 different calculations:

1. I estimated where the ground was and measured both from that point in inches.

2. I measured Ekdahl from the top of his head to the bottom of his left foot.

3. I measured Marguerite from the top of her head to the bottom of her left foot.

I then took Eldahl's height in inches (71) and divided by the heights in the photo. This provides a multiplication factor and I multiplied that by Marguerite's height in the photo. It didn't make any difference which of the 3 measurements I used, I got the same answer for her-just over 5' 6". Adjusting for her heels, I think this puts her right where I thought she was in 1945 when this photo was taken-about 5' 4". By 1965, she had lost about 1 and a half inches. Sandy used a different method and is in the same ballpark. I think different methods could be used but it is obvious she was not 5' 7". If Ekdahl was shorter (I have a document that says 5' 10 and a half) it would make her shorter as well. Edit-Alistair is in the same ballpark as we are. BTW, I measured to the top of her hair, so my estimate is really closer to 5' 5" and less with heels.

Edited January 27, 2017 by W. Tracy Parnell

[Sandy Larsen]

How tall would younger, taller Marguerite have been in 1963?

I measured younger, taller Marguerite to have been 5' 4.5".

Here is a chart showing how much women shrink with age:

The car in the photo looks like a 1930s car to me, so Marguerite aged by 30 years from then till 1963. [EDIT: Actually it is a 1940s photo. But that makes little difference for this calculation.] She was born in 1907, and so would have been 25 in 1932 and 55 in 1962.

As can be seen in the above chart, a 25 year-old 64.5" woman would shrink to 63.7" by age 55. In other words, she'd shrink by 0.8". (This is from the red curve labeled "50" in the chart.) Let's be conservative and round this off to a full inch.

This chart tells us that 5' 5" younger, taller Marguerite would have shrunk to 5' 3.5".

This is 1" taller than what older, shorter Marguerite has listed for her height in her passport (which is 5' 2.5"). Not as big a difference as we'd like to show that they are different women. But different nonetheless.

Now, my personal belief is that older, shorter Marguerite was 1.5" shorter than Marina in 1963, as I measured in my earlier post. Marina's passport has her at 5" 3". Note that Marina might have been wearing high heels when she got her passport. But to err on the side of caution, let's assume not and that she really was 5' 3".

If I my measurement is right -- that older, shorter Marguerite was really 1.5" shorter than Marina -- that would mean that she was really 5' 1.5" tall, not the 5' 2.5" she has listed on her passport. I believe that this Marguerite was wearing 1 inch heels when she got her passport.

Looking at all the photos, I really do believe that older, shorter Marguerite was shorter than Marina by more than the 1/2" indicated by their respective passport heights. And that is why I'm going with my estimate stated in the prior paragraph.

In this case, there is a 2" difference in height between the taller Marguerite who had shrunken down to 5' 3.5", and the shorter Marguerite who I measured to be 5' 1.5".  That 2" difference is significant.

Summary

If older, shorter Marguerite's passport height is correct, then:

The younger, taller Marguerite would have been 1" taller than the older, shorter Marguerite after she had shrunk due to age.

If my measurement of older, shorter Marguerite versus Marina is correct, then:

The younger, taller Marguerite would have been 2" taller than the older, shorter Marguerite after she had shrunk due to age.

 

EDIT: I have changed my height measurement of tall, younger Marguerite from 5' 5" to 5' 4.5". I revised the above to account for that.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

BTW Tracy, you made some great finds in that document and the passports!

 

[Sandy Larsen]

48 minutes ago, Alistair Briggs said:

If he is 5ft11...

To the top of her hair - 66.5625 inches
To the bottom of her hair - 63.0155 inches

In the photo it seems her hair is (for want of a better word) 'permed up' which would make her look taller. In real terms then of her height I would go for the measurement to the bottom of the hair.

You do know, don't you, that a person's scalp rises a little above their hairline?

Even so, I don't know how you got such a small measurement.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

45 minutes ago, Alistair Briggs said:

 

Just caught this before I headed out...

Quite close measurements to mine then,

to the top of her hair I had 5ft 6 and to bottom of hair 5ft 3, yours is somewhere in the middle.

Good stuff.

 

Just so there is no misunderstanding, my measurements are all from the bottom of the feet (no shoes) to the tops of the heads (no hair).

[W. Tracy Parnell]

10 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

BTW Tracy, you made some great finds in that document and the passports!

 

Thanks Sandy, but I think Greg Parker was the first one to find the Ekdahl documents. Parker researched Ekdahl for his book and there is no doubt these documents refer to him. The other stuff has been out there for a while.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 minute ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Just so there is no misunderstanding, my measurements are all from the bottom of the feet (no shoes) to the tops of the heads (no hair).

I found that it didn't matter where I measured from as far as the feet as long as you use the same reference point for both. What you are really measuring is the difference between the top of their heads.

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Alistair Briggs said:

*There are another couple of things about that photo that could make a difference either way imo.

She, as it is her wedding day and she is proud, would have stood quite proud (shoulders down, neck up, chin out) and that could 'relatively' add an extra inch to her height.

But from the photo it is evident that she is actually slouching a little. (Note the horizontal wrinkle in the front of her vest.) I assume so he can get his arm over her shoulder.

He, because he is taller, could be doing the opposite (neck down, chin in) and that could 'relatively' lose an inch of his height, also he could have his knees slightly bent which would lose some height off him.

But from the photo it is evident that he is standing quite erect.

 

 

 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Sandy,

This points out the fact that you can never take all the variables into consideration to everyone's satisfaction unless the photo is taken under controlled conditions. But I think we can get to a point where one can see it is quite possible that this is the same Marguerite at least as far as the height issue is concerned. 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

43 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

If Older, Shorter Marguerite's Passport Height is Correct, then:

The younger, taller Marguerite would have been 1.5" taller than the older, shorter Marguerite after she had shrunk due to age.

 

Exactly what I came up with-5 ' 4".

[Sandy Larsen]

3 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Sandy,

This points out the fact that you can never take all the variables into consideration to everyone's satisfaction unless the photo is taken under controlled conditions. But I think we can get to a point where one can see it is quite possible that this is the same Marguerite at least as far as the height issue is concerned. 

 

Well, so far I am satisfied with my measurements. Unless Marguerite has osteoporosis, it looks to me like there are two of her.

My nose and teeth analyses add to my belief. As does her difficulty in giving testimony.

If it can be shown that she lived in two places simultaneously, that will be the final nail.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Just when I thought we were making progress!

[Sandy Larsen]

6 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

 

51 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

If Older, Shorter Marguerite's Passport Height is Correct, then:

The younger, taller Marguerite would have been 1.5" taller than the older, shorter Marguerite after she had shrunk due to age.

 

Exactly what I came up with-5 ' 4".

Well that's encouraging. As far as getting to the truth.

Alistair's number will be a couple inches shorter, from what I've seen of his results so far.