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(Testimony of Mrs. Lillian Murret Resumed)
Mrs. Murret.
on Canal Street, and it's just a few blocks after you get off of the bus from Lakeview, so she enrolled him there, and she gave him my address for the school, and I think, or I'm quite sure, that while he was there he was having trouble with some of the boys at the school.
Mr. Jenner.
Now, will you tell me about that? Just tell me what you are referring to now with relation to that school.
Mrs. Murret.
Well, I can only tell you what I was told. I don't know anything myself that happened, but I can tell you what he told me, or what he told her of what happened. He said they were calling him "Yankee," and so forth, names like that, and this one time he got into the bus and he sat in a seat in the Negro section, which he didn't know, because he had come from New York, and he didn't know that they sat in special seats, so he just got on the bus and sat down where he could. The bus stopped in front of the school, and you can hardly get a seat anyway, so he just ran to the bus and jumped on and got a seat, like I said, in the Negro section, and the boys jumped him at the end of the line. They jumped on him, and he took on all of them, and of course they beat him up, and so he came home, and that was the end of that. He didn't say anything to me about that.
Another time they were coming out of school at 3 o'clock, and there were boys in back of him and one of them called his name, and he said, "Lee," and when he turned around, this boy punched him in the mouth and ran, and it ran his tooth through the lip, so she had to go over to the school and take him to the dentist, and I paid for the dentist bill myself, and that's all I know about that, and he was not supposed to have started any of that at that time.
Now, at the Beauregard School at that time, they had a very low standard, and I had no children going there and never did. My children went to Jesuit High and Loyola University, but they did have a very bad bunch of boys going to Beauregard and they were always having fights and ganging up on other boys, and I guess Lee wouldn't take anything, so he got in several scrapes like that.
Mr. Jenner.
These were things that Mrs. Oswald told you; is that right?
Mrs. Murret.
Yes; most of it, except when he was in my home, and I observed the way he acted. He was a lonely boy most of the time, I think.
Mr. Jenner.
Your children were all entered in school, were they?
Mrs. Murret.
Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
And did they study pretty hard?
Mrs. Murret.
Oh, yes.
Mr. Jenner.
Did you have the impression that Lee Harvey was doing well in school, or what was your feeling along that line?
Mrs. Murret.
I think he was doing very poor work in school most of the time. Then he got to the point where he just didn't think he ought to have to go to school, and that seemed to be his whole attitude, and when I mentioned that to Marguerite, that seemed to be the beginning of our misunderstanding. She didn't think her child could do anything wrong, and I could see that he wasn't interested in going to school, because I have had children of my own going to school and they always done real well in their grades. They actually seemed to like school, but I can't say that Lee ever showed that he liked school.
Mr. Jenner.
When he came with his mother from New York, did he ever discuss anything with you relative to his trip to New York?
Mrs. Murret.
No; he never said anything, but my sister told me about the time they had to take him out of the apartment, when she was working, and put him in that place, and she had to get a lawyer to get him out.
Mr. Jenner.
All right. Now, this boy was about 14 years of age at that time; is that right, after they returned from New York and stayed at your place?
Mrs. Murret.
Yes; and then the next I heard was when he came here, and he didn't want to go to school because he thought he already knew all that they had to teach him, so she must have allowed him to go to work for Tujague's, because he had a job as a runner, going from building to building, delivering messages and things like that.
Mr. Jenner.
That was in 1955, would that be about right?
Mrs. Murret.
When he was here; yes.
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