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+--- Thread: On the trail of Lee Harvey Oswald's original tombstone (/thread-8823.html)
On the trail of Lee Harvey Oswald's original tombstone - Bernice Moore - 28-01-2012
On the trail of Lee Harvey Oswald's original tombstone
Steve Blow The Dallas Morning News
Published: 26 January 2012 12:05 AM
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/columnists/steve-blow/20120126-on-the-trail-o
f-lee-harvey-oswalds-original-tombstone.ece
or
http://tinyurl.com/7bvgjp7
We've all had the experience of frantically trying to find something
that was lost. But probably not a tombstone.
And definitely not an infamous one like Lee Harvey Oswald's.
But David Card of Dallas is determined to get his hands on the
original Oswald gravestone. He says it rightfully belongs to his family.
You may recognize Card's name. For almost 35 years, he has owned Poor
David's Pub, one of the city's oldest live-music venues. This Oswald
stuff is purely a sideline obsession.
Card's father and stepmother lived in Fort Worth and bought the home
of Marguerite Oswald, - the assassin's mother, - shortly after her death
in 1981.
"Three or four years later, they were doing some electrical work. The
electrician went under the house," Card said. "He came out and said,
'Did you know there's a tombstone under your house?'"
And not just any stone, but Lee Harvey Oswald's. His first one.
The flowery granite marker with a cross in the middle was stolen from
Oswald's grave in Fort Worth's Rose Hill Cemetery on Nov. 22, 1967, -
the fourth anniversary of the JFK assassination. It turned out to be a
prank by two teens from Bartlesville, Okla.
The stone was soon recovered and returned, and the thieves were never
identified. But Marguerite decided not to tempt other souvenir seekers.
She put a new, drab marker on the grave that says only "Oswald." And The
original apparently went into storage under her house.
After its rediscovery, Card's parents hauled the stone to his aunt's
house in Fort Worth for safekeeping. And When the aunt fell ill several
years later, her son, Johnny Ragan, took charge of it. "We always knew
where it was," Card said.
One by one, Card's stepmother and father died. Then a few years ago,
cousin Johnny died. After a respectful mourning period, Card and his
stepsister contacted Johnny's widow, Holly, about the stone.
"She denied knowing anything about it," said Card's stepsister, Cleo
Lowe of Fort Worth. "I talked to her three times and she never admitted
anything. It makes me so mad I could spit nails."
I tried calling Holly Ragan this week. The line went dead as soon as I
said why I was calling. I called again and she answered with: "Please do
not call me back. Thank you very much." Click.
With Holly stonewalling everyone, the trail went cold.
But then one day last year, another family member came across a
surprise on the Internet. The gravestone was in Illinois. It was being
touted as part of the collection at Historic Auto Attractions, a
grab-bag private museum in Roscoe, Ill., north of Chicago.
Card's lawyer, Nick Manousos, called museum owner Wayne Lensing and
asked about the stone. "He said, 'I bought it from Holly Ragan. I've got
the bill of sale,'" Manousos said.
My call to Lensing was returned by lawyer Bob Calgaro. He woudn't go
into any details of the sale but said, "Right now, the next move is up
to other people if they want to claim ownership. But we don't believe
they will be able to do so."
Card says he definitely plans to make the next move and is looking for a
lawyer in Illinois to take the case.
He doesn't know or particularly care what the grave marker is worth.
"Money is not the motive," he said. "The motive is to get this important
artifact restored to its proper place."
Ideally, he said, that would be Dallas' Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey
Plaza. And he won't stop until it's there.
"They messed with the wrong tombstone owner," he said.
:banghead:
:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:--
Regards, TOM BLACKWELL, PO Box 25403, Dallas, Texas 75225
http://DemocraticResearch.Org
below is the original stone...b
On the trail of Lee Harvey Oswald's original tombstone - Albert Doyle - 28-01-2012
People who steal tombstones are the lowest of the low.