J Norwood: "Lee Harvey Oswald: The Legend and the Truth"

[Jim Hargrove]

Dr. Norwood has just added the following paragraph to his Legend article, emphasizing how Marguerite's financial situation improved dramatically and inexplicably in the late 1940s....

Between 1947-51, Marguerite purchased three different homes in the Fort Worth area.  By early 1951, she was apparently making payments on and maintaining the three properties concurrently.  During this period, she also experienced a financial setback from a  divorce in which, according to John Pic’s Warren Commission testimony, Marguerite came out on the losing end of the court's decree, despite the alleged philandering and physical abuse of Edwin Eckdahl.  Pic recalled that “I was told by her that she was contesting the divorce so that he would still support her.  She lost, he won.” (WCH, XI, 29)  With no monthly payments from Eckdahl, Marguerite was completely on her own in financing the three homes during this four-year stretch.  This raises the concern about how she could have made the down payments, met monthly financial obligations, and sustained the upkeep of the three properties, while continuing to pay rent at other residences.  The timing of the earliest evidence of the two Oswald boys and the two Marguerites during the pre-New York years begs the question of how Marguerite came into the funds to enable her to play Monopoly on this scale.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

47 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Dr. Norwood has just added the following paragraph to his Legend article, emphasizing how Marguerite's financial situation improved dramatically and inexplicably in the late 1940s....

Between 1947-51, Marguerite purchased three different homes in the Fort Worth area.  By early 1951, she was apparently making payments on and maintaining the three properties concurrently.  During this period, she also experienced a financial setback from a  divorce in which, according to John Pic’s Warren Commission testimony, Marguerite came out on the losing end of the court's decree, despite the alleged philandering and physical abuse of Edwin Eckdahl.  Pic recalled that “I was told by her that she was contesting the divorce so that he would still support her.  She lost, he won.” (WCH, XI, 29)  With no monthly payments from Eckdahl, Marguerite was completely on her own in financing the three homes during this four-year stretch.  This raises the concern about how she could have made the down payments, met monthly financial obligations, and sustained the upkeep of the three properties, while continuing to pay rent at other residences.  The timing of the earliest evidence of the two Oswald boys and the two Marguerites during the pre-New York years begs the question of how Marguerite came into the funds to enable her to play Monopoly on this scale.

 

More Nonsense from Norwood. Marguerite bought San Saba in July, 1947 and was paying $40 a month on that. The next month, she started leasing it out for $50 a month. After that lease ended she moved in and stayed the summer. In August-September, 1948, she bought and moved into 7408 Ewing. She presumably had the ability to rent out San Saba-why would she leave it sitting empty? In November, 1951, she bought 4833 Birchman which she presumably rented out as well. Just because Armstrong doesn’t know who she rented these properties to, we are supposed to believe the only explanation is that she was CIA and she wasn’t capable of simply renting out properties.

I am working on an article about this, but I can tell you that Marguerite made $6500 from her real estate deals up to 1952. Not too bad and goes a long way toward explaining how she “got by.” This doesn’t count the $5000 she got in insurance from Robert Sr., the $40 a month she got from Pic and the $1500 she got from “losing” the divorce settlement to Ekdahl. That’s about $13000 right there and a lot of money in that era.

Edited April 2, 2017 by W. Tracy Parnell

[Michael Walton]

Grrreeat post Tracy. One more nail in the HL farce coffin as told by Jestering, er I  mean John A and his followers.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 hour ago, Michael Walton said:

Grrreeat post Tracy. One more nail in the HL farce coffin as told by Jestering, er I  mean John A and his followers.

Thanks Michael.

[Jim Hargrove]

What utter nonsense from Parnell.  

Marguerite was so destitute in the early 1940s that by late 1942 all three of her children were in orphanages.  On January 3, 1942 Marguerite removed John and Robert from school and placed them in the Evangelical Lutheran Bethleham Orphan Asylum located at 5413 North Peters Street in New Orleans. She tried to place Lee there as well, but the home wouldn't accept him because he was just two years old. On December 26, 1942, after Lee had lived at the Murret's home for 7 months, Marguerite successfully placed him (now at the age of three) in the same Evangelical Lutheran Bethleham Orphan Asylum with John and Robert.

 

Marguerite was too poor to house and feed any of her three children. Robert E. Lee Oswald had died in 1939; the insurance payout Parnell points to with such pride was clearly long gone before Marguerite had to place all her children in an orphanage due to her extreme poverty.

Her marriage to Ekdahl helped temporarily but soon dissolved; the tiny settlement could have hardly helped her to become so successful she could own three homes in her own name and live at other addresses as well. What bank in the 1940s would give a cash-strapped single mother like her mortgages to buy three homes? What bank would do that today? Marguerite was clearly not a successful businesswoman at any point in her life, but at the start of the Oswald Project she flourished like one.

Parnell has not begun to explain how that happened.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

13 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

What utter nonsense from Parnell.  

I think all you would need to get a loan is a down payment and she had that. And I already said that the orphanage was a convenience for her, no evidence she was destitute other than her false protestations to whoever would listen. What was she making at that time-$2000 a year? $13000 is about six years salary in those days.

[James DiEugenio]

All you need to get a home loan is a down payment?

 Back in those days? You must be a lot younger than you look Tracy.

[Thomas Graves]

12 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

I think all you would need to get a loan is a down payment and she had that. And I already said that the orphanage was a convenience for her, no evidence she was destitute other than her false protestations to whoever would listen. What was she making at that time-$2000 a year? $13000 is about six years salary in those days.

Yes, Tracy.

It's obvious that she was a highly-paid CIA operative.

LOL

--  Tommy

Uhhh ...., which Marguerite are we talking about, here, anyway?

Edited April 4, 2017 by Thomas Graves

[W. Tracy Parnell]

11 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

All you need to get a home loan is a down payment?

 Back in those days? You must be a lot younger than you look Tracy.

Prove that she had bad credit or prove some other reason why she could not get a loan. To the H&L crowd she gets a loan so she must be CIA. No other explanation.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 4/2/2017 at 11:41 AM, W. Tracy Parnell said:

I can tell you that Marguerite made $6500 from her real estate deals up to 1952. Not too bad and goes a long way toward explaining how she “got by.” This doesn’t count the $5000 she got in insurance from Robert Sr., the $40 a month she got from Pic and the $1500 she got from “losing” the divorce settlement to Ekdahl. That’s about $13000 right there and a lot of money in that era.

Tracy,

That $13,000 figure sure got my attention. That would be something like $130,000 in today's dollars. That would go far in making down payments on three houses.

But now I see that you must have counted in that sum the $6500 profit Marguerite made in the real estate deals. Which means she had a considerably lower amount of money for down payments... $6500 instead of $13,000.

Hargrove showed that the $5000 insurance money Marguerite got for Robert Sr.'s death must have been gone in the early 1940s given that she was putting her kids in orphanages. Leaving her, later on, only $1,500 for down payments on three houses.

I suppose she could have used the full $1500 as a down payment of the first house (was that a large enough amount back then?). But wasn't her 2nd purchase just a year later? If she could have made enough profit from rent (after mortgage payments, property taxes, etc.) in just a year or two to make a down payment on another house, I would be very impressed! Was the rental property business that good back then? These days the profits come from appreciation, not from the collection of rent.

I have a really hard time believing that the Marguerite I've seen would be so self-confident that she would play this risky investment game, in particular with two or three kids at home. And especially after being dirt poor just a few years earlier. I think that she would have hung onto that $1500 with both fists.

 

Edited April 4, 2017 by Sandy Larsen

[Jim Hargrove]

In Parnell's post about Dr. Norwood's new paragraph related to Marguerite's finances, he puts his foot in his mouth when he suggests that Marguerite did not "lose" her divorce case.  While he cites the $1,500 court settlement, he clearly has not studied the evidence as presented in the Warren Commission hearings.  If he had studied the transcript, he would have learned that most of the settlement money Marguerite received went toward legal costs for the divorce.  Above all, the court decided against her in awarding monthly payments from Eckdahl.  For the most important issue being litigated, Marguerite was denied the financial stability she had enjoyed with Eckdahl during the marriage.  Yet to examine her business transactions from 1947-51 on the surface, one would never guess that she was experiencing any hardship.  But once again, the documentary record (especially Marguerite's letter to John Pic describing her poverty) makes it abundantly clear that Marguerite did not have the kind of discretionary income implied by Parnell.  

Parnell also makes the unsubstantiated claim that Marguerite reaped tremendous profits on shrewd property investments.  But he provides no documentation for the enormous proceeds that he alleges Marguerite received.  Nor does he explain how Marguerite could sell properties so fast while "flipping" her home purchases and earning capital gains on homes like Birchman for which she had overpaid at the time of purchase.  The evidence points to quick sales and, in the case of the transaction with San Saba, Marguerite incurred a substantial loss.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

18 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

In Parnell's post about Dr. Norwood's new paragraph related to Marguerite's finances, he puts his foot in his mouth when he suggests that Marguerite did not "lose" her divorce case.  While he cites the $1,500 court settlement, he clearly has not studied the evidence as presented in the Warren Commission hearings.  If he had studied the transcript, he would have learned that most of the settlement money Marguerite received went toward legal costs for the divorce.  Above all, the court decided against her in awarding monthly payments from Eckdahl.  For the most important issue being litigated, Marguerite was denied the financial stability she had enjoyed with Eckdahl during the marriage.  Yet to examine her business transactions from 1947-51 on the surface, one would never guess that she was experiencing any hardship.  But once again, the documentary record (especially Marguerite's letter to John Pic describing her poverty) makes it abundantly clear that Marguerite did not have the kind of discretionary income implied by Parnell.  

Parnell also makes the unsubstantiated claim that Marguerite reaped tremendous profits on shrewd property investments.  But he provides no documentation for the enormous proceeds that he alleges Marguerite received.  Nor does he explain how Marguerite could sell properties so fast while "flipping" her home purchases and earning capital gains on homes like Birchman for which she had overpaid at the time of purchase.  The evidence points to quick sales and, in the case of the transaction with San Saba, Marguerite incurred a substantial loss.

Jim-Yes she lost the case, but made $1500. Her legal fees in those days would probably have been around $500 at most. She wanted everyone to think she was broke. The figures I arrived at regarding her real estate deals come from Armstrong, I just added them up. San Saba was the only home where she had a demonstrable loss. She probably needed cash and decided to sell. Birchman she basically sold for what she had in it.  Any idea what kind of money she was making in those days? I am going to check but as I said doubtful if it was any more than $2500 or so a year. In later years she was making $60 a week. So that money helps to  explain how she got by. I'll have a report eventually that breaks it down but I'm swamped now.

Sandy, yes $1500 was enough for a down payment. Marguerite had what I think of as unjustified self-confidence.

[Michael Walton]

I really don't see what the big deal is here.  Take a look at this:

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1953.html

My mother, who cleaned a realtor's office two nights a week to make extra money, told me that my Dad only made $1.50 an hour back then. They managed to buy a home and sell it and buy another one through the years. This was the midwest (Kentucky). But things were cheap back then.

And she told me too that she could go down to the bank and get a loan with pretty much a hand shake, not like today.

But to think this woman couldn't have done this and only would have been able to do is if some secret agency was behind it all to support her is silly.  It's a huge leap of fath to think that.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

57 minutes ago, Michael Walton said:

I really don't see what the big deal is here.  Take a look at this:

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1953.html

My mother, who cleaned a realtor's office two nights a week to make extra money, told me that my Dad only made $1.50 an hour back then. They managed to buy a home and sell it and buy another one through the years. This was the midwest (Kentucky). But things were cheap back then.

And she told me too that she could go down to the bank and get a loan with pretty much a hand shake, not like today.

But to think this woman couldn't have done this and only would have been able to do is if some secret agency was behind it all to support her is silly.  It's a huge leap of fath to think that.

Excellent points Michael. I was looking at H&L (painful as that is) and noticed that for 101 San Saba she put $1500 down on a $3900 purchase which is 38%. I think that would get you a loan every time.

[Jim Hargrove]

2 hours ago, Michael Walton said:

I really don't see what the big deal is here.  Take a look at this:

http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1953.html

My mother, who cleaned a realtor's office two nights a week to make extra money, told me that my Dad only made $1.50 an hour back then. They managed to buy a home and sell it and buy another one through the years. This was the midwest (Kentucky). But things were cheap back then.

And she told me too that she could go down to the bank and get a loan with pretty much a hand shake, not like today.

But to think this woman couldn't have done this and only would have been able to do is if some secret agency was behind it all to support her is silly.  It's a huge leap of fath to think that.

A perfect example, Michael… except for a couple of details.

Your mother had a husband when they bought a house together.  Marguerite was a single mom. Did your mother and father own two or three homes simultaneously, and live in a different place?  That’s what Marguerite did.

Had your mother placed you and all your siblings in an orphanage just a few years before?  Is that the type of family bankers are seeking to make “handshake” agreements to purchase three different homes?