POLICE CAR IN THE ALLEY? NOPE.

[Tony Krome]

42 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

Question, do you know if Dallas also did their city directory canvassing in December? 

Wrong thread, can you add this to the Randle thread

[Tom Gram]

9 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Wrong thread, can you add this to the Randle thread

It’s actually the right thread. Sorry for not clarifying I was falling asleep. Doris Holan’s address in the ‘64 city directory is listed as 113.5 S. Patton St.; and Dale Myers uses that as evidence that the family moved from 409 E 10th prior to the Tippit murder: 

The listings for R.L. Polk & Company’s Greater Dallas City Directory were compiled between late September and mid-December the year prior to publication. Persons were hired to canvas residential areas door-to-door. Two attempts were made to contact residents and then a card was left to be filled out and mailed back. The directory was then published and distributed about 7 months later. Consequently, the Greater Dallas 1964 directory listings were gathered in September-December of 1963 and published in early June, 1964.

If Myers is correct that the canvassing started in September, it doesn’t really prove anything since most people plan to move months in advance - and we have no idea when the Holans were actually canvassed anyway. 

If the canvassing occurred only or even just primarily in December though, it bumps up the low but non-zero probability of a post-assassination move down the street.

The only actual evidence Myers has is a letter addressed to Patton St. around Christmas time, so the Holans moved down the street by mid-late December.

However, the exact date of the move has not been established. The only “evidence” of a pre-assassination move is the 58-year old highly questionable memory of Doris Holan’s son, reported in an unreleased 2021 interview by Myers.

Basically, given the current evidence, there is a roughly 3-4 week window where the Holans could have moved to Patton and still lived on 10th St. on Nov. 22nd. 3-4 weeks out of several months is not the best odds, but it’s worth pointing out at least, IMO. 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Tony Krome]

3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

It’s actually the right thread. Sorry for not clarifying I was falling asleep. Doris Holan’s address in the ‘64 city directory is listed as 113.5 S. Patton St.; and Dale Myers uses that as evidence that the family moved from 409 E 10th prior to the Tippit murder: 

The listings for R.L. Polk & Company’s Greater Dallas City Directory were compiled between late September and mid-December the year prior to publication. Persons were hired to canvas residential areas door-to-door. Two attempts were made to contact residents and then a card was left to be filled out and mailed back. The directory was then published and distributed about 7 months later. Consequently, the Greater Dallas 1964 directory listings were gathered in September-December of 1963 and published in early June, 1964.

If Myers is correct that the canvassing started in September, it doesn’t really prove anything since most people plan to move months in advance - and we have no idea when the Holans were actually canvassed anyway. 

If the canvassing occurred only or even just primarily in December though, it bumps up the low but non-zero probability of a post-assassination move down the street.

The only actual evidence Myers has is a letter addressed to Patton St. around Christmas time, so the Holans moved down the street by mid-late December.

However, the exact date of the move has not been established. The only “evidence” of a pre-assassination move is the 58-year old highly questionable memory of Doris Holan’s son, reported in an unreleased 2021 interview by Myers.

Basically, given the current evidence, there is a roughly 3-4 week window where the Holans could have moved to Patton and still lived on 10th St. on Nov. 22nd. 3-4 weeks out of several months is not the best odds, but it’s worth pointing out at least, IMO. 

The 1964 Dallas Directory canvassing was initiated in DECEMBER 1963, and was completed in mid-MARCH 1964. It was delivered to customers in JUNE 1964. I'm not sure about the "Greater Dallas Directory" but there seems to be a MAY 1964 edition.

Having said that, Myers refers to the edition that was delivered in JUNE, so that indicates that it may not be the MAY Greater Dallas edition he was referring to.

In other words, present the Greater Dallas canvassing months, and read from the Dallas Directory that was delivered in June.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Tony Krome

[Tom Gram]

42 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

The 1964 Dallas Directory canvassing was initiated in DECEMBER 1963, and was completed in mid-MARCH 1964. It was delivered to customers in JUNE 1964. I'm not sure about the "Greater Dallas Directory" but there seems to be a MAY 1964 edition.

Having said that, Myers refers to the edition that was delivered in JUNE, so that indicates that it may not be the MAY Greater Dallas edition he was referring to.

In other words, present the Greater Dallas canvassing months, and read from the Dallas Directory that was delivered in June.

Thanks Tony. Here’s the passage from Myers’ article. It appears to refer to the June edition Dallas city directory: 

Questions about the Holan family’s residency arose almost immediately when it was discovered that the 1964 Dallas City Directory (which covered the period of the assassination) [117]showed that Doris E. Holan lived at 113 ½ S. Patton Avenue – around the corner from the Tippit shooting scene.

This passage references footnote 117, which is the paragraph I posted in my previous comment. Here’s the link to the article: 

http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2020/11/doris-e-holan-and-tippit-murder.html?m=1

A screenshot of the entry for Doris Holan is in the article. 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Tony Krome]

25 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

Questions about the Holan family’s residency arose almost immediately when it was discovered that the 1964 Dallas City Directory (which covered the period of the assassination) 

The JUNE delivered 1964 Dallas Directory DID NOT cover the assassination period.

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Tony Krome said:

The JUNE delivered 1964 Dallas Directory DID NOT cover the assassination period.

I guess the question then is if Holan’s Patton St. address in Oak Cliff was listed in the Greater Dallas Directory, the June edition Dallas directory, or both. 

Myers’ article isn’t exactly clear on this. He says “1964 R.L. Polk city directory”, or “1964 Dallas City Directory” regarding the Patton St. Holan entry, but only mentions the “Greater Dallas” directory in the endnotes. Here’s another one: 

[27]…Like the listings for R.L. Polk & Company’s Greater Dallas City Directory, listings for Cole’s Criss-Cross Directory were compiled between late September and mid-December the year prior to publication. The directory was then published and distributed about 7 months later. Consequently, the 1963 Cole’s Criss-Cross Directory listings were gathered in September-December of 1962 and published on July 25, 1963. There were no listings for Doris Holan in either the 1962 (for fall 1961) or the 1964 (for fall 1963) Cole directories, despite the fact that Mrs. Holan – according to her son Lad – kept the same phone number during that period.]

And here’s the complete endnote 117. Myers doesn’t share what he found in the DMN on the actual canvassing beginning in September: 

[117] The R.L. Polk Company was contacted regarding canvasing for the 1964 Dallas City Directory. They stated that “those types of records/information are not available anywhere. With the company being sold a few times over the last 15 years, this type of information was not saved.” I subsequently searched the Dallas Morning Newsnewspaper archives for two days looking for articles or ‘want ads’ relating to canvasing by the R.L. Polk Company during the years 1905-65 with an emphasis on the period 1962-1965. I was able to determine the following: The listings for R.L. Polk & Company’s Greater Dallas City Directory were compiled between late September and mid-December the year prior to publication. Persons were hired to canvas residential areas door-to-door. Two attempts were made to contact residents and then a card was left to be filled out and mailed back. The directory was then published and distributed about 7 months later. Consequently, the Greater Dallas 1964 directory listings were gathered in September-December of 1963 and published in early June, 1964.

I’ll reserve judgement until I get a chance to check for myself, but I think it’s worth confirming this sort of thing. 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Tony Krome]

3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I’ll reserve judgement until I get a chance to check for myself, but I think it’s worth confirming this sort of thing. 

Let me break Myer's endnotes down;

[117] The R.L. Polk Company was contacted regarding canvasing for the 1964 Dallas City Directory. They stated that “those types of records/information are not available anywhere. Myer does not mention "Greater" here. The 1964 Dallas Directory canvassing months were available, and they were December 1963 to mid-March 1964.

With the company being sold a few times over the last 15 years, this type of information was not saved.” I subsequently searched the Dallas Morning Newsnewspaper archives for two days looking for articles or ‘want ads’ relating to canvasing by the R.L. Polk Company during the years 1905-65 with an emphasis on the period 1962-1965. Myer, with his "emphasis", has singled out 4 editions, 1962, 1963, 1964 & 1965. Myer also states that he is searching for canvassing information for POLK Directories in general.

I was able to determine the following: The listings for R.L. Polk & Company’s Greater Dallas City Directory were compiled between late September and mid-December the year prior to publication. No evidence presented here about the type of material Myer discovered to determine these "Greater Dallas City Directory" canvassing months. If Myer was thorough in his investigation, he would have found that the 1963 Dallas Directory canvassing months included late September, October, November & December of 1962. (note how different these months are compared to the 1964 Dallas Directory)

Persons were hired to canvas residential areas door-to-door. Two attempts were made to contact residents and then a card was left to be filled out and mailed back. The directory was then published and distributed about 7 months later. Consequently, the Greater Dallas 1964 directory listings were gathered in September-December of 1963 and published in early June, 1964. The 1964 "Greater" Dallas Directory was issued in May.

 

By "emphasising" and grouping 1962, 1963, 1964 & 1965 together, the reader comes away thinking that Dallas Directories, generally, were canvassed in the months of September, October, November & December. However, that was not true for the 1964 Dallas Directory, and for whatever reason, Myer does not reveal this.

Worthy of note is that Myer's unsourced "Greater" canvassing months are basically the same as the !963 Dallas Directory canvassing months. Were the 1963 Dallas Directory canvassing months the source of Myer's DMN investigation?