Mrs. Ruth Paine was drinking coffee and chatting happily with her neighbors about women’s things. She was separated from her husband and the company of her friends suited her very well. Also present was Marina, a girl to whom Mrs. Paine had provided accommodation in her house. They then began to talk about Marina’s husband’s job search. Marina’s situation was, to some extent, desperate: she was expecting her second baby and with her husband unemployed her future did not look very rosy.

Women drinking coffee at home

One of Mrs. Paine’s neighbors mentioned that her brother worked at a book store and they were probably hiring. Marina was naturally very interested in this possibility and later begged Mrs. Paine to call the warehouse manager. Mrs. Paine didn’t think twice and called the manager (Mr. Roy Truly); he could only promise her a temporary job, not a permanent one, as long as the Marina’s husband approved the interview he would have with him. It was much better than nothing.

Ruth Paine

The next day, Marina’s husband showed up at the book store and made a good impression on the manager. And that is how, on Tuesday, October 15, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald got a job at the Texas School Book Depository, in the city of Dallas. Exactly 38 days later, on November 22, from a window on the sixth floor of that warehouse he would fire, with a rifle, two shots that would end the life of President John F. Kennedy.

The Texas School Book Depository building, in 1963

REFERENCES: The book “Case Closed”, by Gerald Posner.