Mr. JENNER. When next did you see them, after this initial event?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That I don't remember. I don't remember. But I
do know that we saw Marina very soon afterward, because either my wife
went to get her or my daughter went to get her--I don't remember that
any more--to take her to the hospital. Or maybe George Bouhe brought
her to our house so that my wife, who was free at the time, could take
her to the dental clinic. I think that was the next time that we saw
Marina. Maybe a few days later.
Mr. JENNER. In any event, it was before Marina went to live with the
Mellers?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. And it was before Marina went to live with the Taylors?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
She never lived with the Taylors. I think she spent 1 night with
them, and that is all. She lived, I think--I think both of them lived
somewhere in the neighborhood. I think she spent 1 night with my
daughter, when she happened to be in Dallas for this medical care. And
since they are about the age of my daughter--she is a little bit older,
but about the same age--I don't remember how it happened, but either I
or my wife introduced Marina to my daughter, and also Lee. This is very
vague in my mind, what happened there.
Mr. JENNER. Well, your recollection is that within a few days George
Bouhe brought Marina to your home?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I think so.
Mr. JENNER. For the purpose of having your wife take Marina to get some
dental care?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And where was she taken?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She was taken to the Baylor Dental Clinic.
Mr. JENNER. That is located where?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. It is right in the center of Dallas, near the
Slaughter Hospital--what a name for a hospital. It is the name of the
man who founded it.
Well, the dental clinic is right there next door. They give you dental
care gratis, or almost for nothing.
George Bouhe was giving her money, by the way.
Mr. JENNER. He was giving her money?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I mean small amounts of money, you know, either
for injections or something like that--because she didn't have anything.
Mr. JENNER. She was destitute, was she?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Completely destitute--because Lee was at the time
losing his job. I don't recall when he told me that--maybe already at
the first meeting. He told me that he was about to lose his job. He was
working somewhere in Fort Worth as a manual laborer, some ironworker.
Mr. JENNER. Leslie Welding Co.?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; I don't know the name of it. This company
was going bankrupt, or that he was going to lose his job. At least that
was his version. Maybe he was fired.
Mr. JENNER. That was his version. That wasn't the fact.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. It was a fact?
Mr. JENNER. It was not. Your wife also took the baby for some medical
care?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Now, this I am not so sure. She told Marina
where to go, and told her, "You have to give the baby such and such
injections." And this I remember well--that she didn't do it. She
didn't go to that children's clinic, because of pure negligence. She
is that type of a girl--very negligent, poor mother, very poor mother.
Loved the child, but a poor mother that doesn't pay much attention. And
what amazed us, you know, that she, having been a pharmacist in Russia,
did not know anything about the good care of the children, nothing.
Mr. JENNER. How did you find out she had been a pharmacist in Russia?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, that eventually came--the second time or
the third time that we met her--she told us the story of her life.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have a recollection as to what she told you?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. Well, she said exactly her story of her life
as she told me, that she comes from a family of ex-Czarist officers.
That her father had been a Czarist officer of some kind--you see what I
mean? I don't remember whether it was navy or army. I don't recall it
any more. That her mother remarried, and that her stepfather did not
treat her well. That they moved--I think they lived in Leningrad when
she was a child. That eventually they moved to Minsk. I don't remember
what her father's profession was.
One thing I remember--that one of her uncles was a big shot Government
official, something like that--colonel or something like that. That I
remember she told me.
And then she went to this school of pharmacists, I think in Minsk, and
graduated as a pharmacist. And one day she was walking by this river,
which I also remember, in Minsk--the River Svisloch, which crosses the
whole town, and where there are some new apartment buildings built, and
in one of those apartment buildings there were very nice apartments,
and that is where the foreigners lived.
She said it was her dream some day to live in an apartment like that.
And that is where Lee Oswald lived. And eventually when they met--I
remember they met at some dance--I think he was ill, something like
that, after that dance, and she came to take care of him. That is
something I have a vague recollection of--that she took care of him,
and from then on they fell in love and eventually got married. But she
said it was the apartment house that was one of the greatest things she
desired to live in, and she found out later on that Lee Oswald lived in
that apartment house, and she finally achieved her dream.
It sounds ridiculous, but that is how in Soviet Russia they dream of
apartments rather than of people.
She told us a tremendous amount of things which will come to me as
things go on.
Mr. JENNER. Go ahead.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Naturally I was talking to her and to him--I was
trying to find out what is life of young people in Soviet Russia, what
are the prices on food, what can you get for your money, what salary
you get, what amusements you get.
Mr. JENNER. Tell us what they said.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The salaries--she was getting an equivalent of
$60 a month. He was getting something like $80 a month. That almost
all of it had to be spent on food. The lodging was very cheap, almost
nothing, because it was provided by the Government. That the food was
rather plentiful, you could get it--but it was rather monotonous.
Sometimes you could not get meat. They used to have discussions between
them all the time--always they quarreled about--Lee Oswald and Marina
always quarreled between themselves as to what actually were the
prices, what actually were the conditions of life in Soviet Russia.
Mr. JENNER. Tell me about the differences here.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. The attitudes she had, and the attitude he had.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He liked Russia more than she did. I think he
liked the conditions in Russia more than she did.
Mr. JENNER. Why?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Because he was a foreigner there, and he had
a privileged position. He had a nice apartment. He said that people
were interested in him, you see. That very often--he worked in a TV
factory--the workers would come to him and ask him questions about the
United States and so on, and that pleased him very much, because he was
that type of an individual who needed attention.
Marina was more inclined to criticize the living conditions there than
he did--as far as I remember. Yet she was not too critical, you see. It
was a livable way of life.
Actually, they came to think that possibly their life was better there
than in Fort Worth. In other words, both were disappointed in what
happened to them after they came back to the United States. And I think
that Lee more than Marina. Because as the time went on, Marina was
getting more and more things from people--people like the Clarks, like
ourselves, like George Bouhe, started giving her gifts, dresses and so
on and so forth. She had some hundred dresses.
Mr. JENNER. A large number of dresses?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. About a hundred dresses.
When we carried them out to live with the Mellers, my car was loaded
with her dresses. It was all contributions from the various people, in
Fort Worth and Dallas.
Mr. JENNER. In addition to dresses and clothing, what other things?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, mainly baby things. She had two cribs, I
remember. She had a baby carriage.
I think George Bouhe gave it to her. Toys for the baby. Many things
like that.
Mr. JENNER. Now, you say you carried her out and took her to the
Mellers?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. This was already possibly 2 weeks after we
met them.
Mr. JENNER. Now, what was the occasion that you did that, and why did
you do it?
That was a pretty forward thing to do, was it not?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. In the meantime, Lee lost his job and George
Bouhe told him that he should move to Dallas, he will give him an
introduction at the Texas Employment Agency--he knew somebody there.
And eventually he got a job through that Texas Employment Agency. I
don't remember the name of the person who was there--some Texas lady
whom George Bouhe knew.
And I told him that I would help him, too, to find a job, and even
spoke to Sam Ballen about it, can he give him a job. And that is
probably the only time that Sam Ballen met Oswald. I told him to go to
Mr. Ballen's office--he has a reproduction business, a very large one
in Texas.
Mr. JENNER. Reproduction?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Reproduction, electric log reproduction service.
When they reproduce electrical logs from the oil wells. And also, they
print catalogs and things like that in his office. It is quite a large
business that he has--with branch offices all over Texas, and even in
Denver, Colorado.
I said, "Why don't you see if you can give him a job?" And I remember
that Sam saw Lee Oswald and found him very interesting.
I remember I saw him the next day and said, "How did you like Lee
Oswald?" and he said, "Nice fellow, very nice fellow, very interesting
fellow."
Mr. JENNER. But he did not have any work for him?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He didn't have a job for him. And at the same
time he received a job at some other outfit--I forgot the name of
it--the traffic outfit, and they moved from Fort Worth to Dallas.
Mr. JENNER. You said you entered and took Marina out of the house, and
the baby?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That was a little bit later on--when he already
moved to Dallas, he already had the job. But now I am trying to recall
who moved him from Fort Worth to Dallas, and I think that was Gary
Taylor, my ex-son-in-law, and Alex, my daughter. I think they both
drove to Fort Worth.
I told them to do so--"Go to Fort Worth and help them, they have no
car, they have no money--help them to move."
I think in the meantime Lee found a job at Jaggars, and was looking for
a place to live, and found a place to live himself in Oak Cliff, this
address which I don't remember now--the first address in Oak Cliff. He
had two addresses. I forget the exact address. My wife will remember
that.
Anyway, my daughter and her husband went there and moved them.
Mr. JENNER. When was this?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, maybe 2 weeks after we met the Oswalds.
Mr. JENNER. September of 1962?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. About that time--about September.
A little before that, I think, because in September we started the
campaign on the cystic fibrosis, and we completely lost track of
them--we were very busy on that. And I think it was in September that
this campaign started.
Mr. JENNER. And before you started your campaign on cystic fibrosis,
they had already moved to Dallas?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. They already moved to Dallas. We already had
moved them--had taken Marina away from her husband. And she already had
returned back to her husband.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, you say you had already taken Marina away
from her husband. Tell us how that occurred.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In the meantime. George Bouhe became completely
disgusted with Lee.
Mr. JENNER. Why?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Because--I don't know exactly why--because he
liked Marina very much.
Mr. JENNER. Bouhe?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Bouhe--he is an elderly man.
Mr. JENNER. Yes, I appreciate that.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He wanted--almost like a daughter, you see. To
him she was a poor girl whose father was an ex-officer, and she needed
help. And he really gave her money. He would give her $30, $40, I
think, all at once.
Mr. JENNER. Did he ever collect money from you and others to contribute?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't think so.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever give Lee Oswald any money?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever give Marina any money?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Not as far as I remember. Maybe a dollar--maybe
50 cents, something like that, for a bus. But never any money. I was in
very difficult financial condition myself at that time. I don't think I
gave her even 50 cents.
Sometimes we would invite them to eat a little bit, you see, in the
house.
Mr. JENNER. You invited them to your home to eat?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. I think maybe once or twice they came to the
house to eat.
Mr. JENNER. Your home on Dickens Street?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.