later both he and Robert, Jr., attended. 29 On August 19, 1939, little more than a year after the Oswalds bought the Alvar Street house, Robert Oswald died suddenly of a heart attack. 30

Two months later, on October 18, 1939, a second son was born.31 He was named Lee after his father; Harvey was his paternal grandmother's maiden name. 32 For a while after her husband's death, Mrs. Oswald remained in the Alvar Street house without working; she probably lived on life insurance proceeds. 33 Sometime in 1940, she rented the house to Dr. Bruno F. Mancuso the doctor who had delivered Lee.34 (Dr. Mancuso continued to rent the house until 1944,35 when Marguerite obtained a judgment of possession against him.36 She sold the house for $6,500 to the First Homestead and Savings Association, which resold it to Dr. Mancuso.)37 She herself moved to a rented house at 1242 Congress Street, where she lived for about half a year.38 For part of this period after Oswald's death, the two older boys were placed in the Infant Jesus College, a Catholic boarding school in Algiers, La., a suburb of New Orleans. 39 Neither they nor their mother liked this arrangement, 40 which John thought was intended to save money;41 it lasted for less than a year, after which the boys returned to the school Frantz and then transferred to the George Washington Elementary School. 42

On March 5, 1941, Mrs. Oswald purchased a frame 43 house at 1010 Bartholomew Street, for $1,300.44 According to John's recollection, the neighborhood was not as pleasant as Alvar Street; the house had a backyard, and the family kept a dog named "Sunshine." 45 A neighbor, Mrs. Viola Peterman, recalls that Mrs. Oswald kept to herself but appeared to be "a good mother to her children." 46 She opened a shop in the front room, where she sold things like sewing"'supplies and small groceries.47 Oswald's Notion Shop, as it was called, failed to make money,49 and on January 16, 1942, Mrs. Oswald sold the house back to the Third District Home Association, from which she had purchased it, for a profit of $800.50

Probably in contemplation of the sale of the house, Mrs. Oswald applied in December 1941 to the Evangelical Lutheran Bethlehem Orphan Asylum Association for the admission of her two older sons to the orphan asylum, known as the Bethlehem Children's Home; she stated on the application that she could contribute $20 per month to their maintenance and would supply shoes and clothing.51 She had inquired also about Lee, who was too young to be admitted. 52 John and Robert were accepted and entered the home on January 3, 1942. 53

Mrs. Oswald moved to an apartment at 831 Pauline Street,54 and returned to work. In December 1942, she listed her occupation as "telephone operator"; 55 this may be the job she held at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., a company for which she worked at some point during this period. 56 She left Lee for much of this time with his aunt, Mrs. Murret, who thought him a good looking, friendly child, but could not devote a great deal of attention to him because she had five children of her own. 57 In the late spring of 1942, Lee was watched for several weeks by Mrs. Thomas Roach, who lived with her husband in the