(Testimony of Ruth Hyde Paine Resumed)
Mr. Jenner.
All right. Mrs. Paine, would you please give us your reactions to and your concept of Marina Oswald as a person, your reflections on her personality generally, and her character and integrity, her philosophy? What kind of a person was she?
Mrs. Paine.
I enjoyed knowing her. She was a great deal of company to me in my home. She liked to help me with the language problems I had. She was very good at explaining a word I didn't understand in other Russian words that would then make clear to me the meaning of the word I didn't understand.
She is, as I have already testified, a hard worker. She liked to help around the house. She had some doubts about her ability in cooking, unfounded doubts, I felt. She wanted to learn from me about cooking. I did most of the meal preparation. But she would occasionally prepare meals, and she taught me some things. I thing she is a mixture, as are many people, of confidence and lack of confidence.
She knows, I am certain, that she is an intelligent and able person. But, on the other hand, as I have testified, she was hesitant to learn to pronounce to practice pronouncing English words and didn't consider that she had much ability in English. She did say to me in the fall--I think it was after Mr. Hosty's visit that she observed of herself that unlike the time when she had first come to this country and did not even attempt to listen to English conversation, she had picked up enough so that it was worth her while to try to listen, and then she could pick up some words and some meaning. I may have already testified to this.
I think she is a person who prized her personal privacy. She did---I should say we confided to one another about our respective marriages, as I have already testified. There was some intimacy of confidence, of this kind of confidence, I should say. But I felt that she prized and guarded her own personal privacy.
She was in some ways--she talked with some enthusiasm and detail to me about her time in Minsk, when she was dating and the good times that she had had there, living at that time with her aunt and uncle in Minsk--how she enjoyed herself, and something of the social life she enjoyed.
She spoke of spending time with hairdos and clothes, what to wear, and when she looked back on it, girlish pastimes that she had no time for now as a young mother.
Mr. Jenner.
Did she ever say anything to you--you brought something out about Russia--about any hopes or desires or thoughts about America while she was in Russia?
Mrs. Paine.
She did say once that she had dreamed of coming to America. I think she meant dreamed while sleeping.
Mr. Jenner.
I beg your pardon?
Mrs. Paine.
I think she meant dreamed while sleeping.
Mr. Jenner.
Did she indicate anything beyond that--that is, that she had a dream--did she indicate any hope or desire or affinity, willingness to come to America?
Mrs. Paine.
Yes; that this was also a hope on her part.
Mr. Jenner.
Did she indicate this was a hope prior to the time she had married Lee Oswald?
Mrs. Paine.
It wasn't clear to me when this hope arose.
Mr. Jenner.
Did she indicate it was a hope or desire on her part wholly divorced from Lee Oswald?
Mrs. Paine.
Yes.
Mr. Jenner.
Now, you were telling me about your impressions of Marina's personality, her character, her integrity.
Mrs. Paine.
We spoke once, to my recollection, about our respective beliefs in God. She told me that she observed, looking at the nations of the world, and their religious books, like the Bible, the Koran, that people all over the world for centuries believed in God, had this faith, and she felt that such an idea could not arise so many places as it were spontaneously and live on so many places unless there were something to it.
Mr. Jenner.
Did she say anything about the philosophy in Russia toward religion as negative or positive?
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