A small nook off a dining room with just enough space for a twin bed has made a Dallas boarding house a point of fascination for the last 50 years, because of one man who occupied it for about six weeks in 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of assassinating President John F Kennedy.
The house has been in Patricia Hall's family since about 1942, but she has decided that it's finally time to let it go -- as long as a buyer wants to preserve it and offers the right price.
"I understand the significance of the history of this house," said Hall, 61. "It doesn't matter if you believe in a conspiracy or the lone gunman. The fact is that Lee Harvey Oswald lived here."
Oswald rented the room on October 14, 1963, from Hall's grandmother, Gladys Johnson. He stayed at the red brick house with white trim during the week while working his new job at the Texas School Book Depository, and on the weekends he returned to the suburb of Irving where his wife lived.
Oswald briefly returned to the house on November 22, 1963, about 30 minutes after Kennedy was fatally shot in downtown Dallas. Johnson's housekeeper told the Warren Commission, which carried out the official investigation of the assassination, that Oswald hurriedly entered, grabbed a jacket and headed back out into the neighborhood. Soon after, Oswald fatally shot Officer JD Tippit, then was arrested at the Texas Theatre.
Hall said her grandmother, an admirer of Kennedy, was embarrassed and humiliated by her connection to Oswald.
"She began getting death threats. She received a lot of hate mail," Hall said.
But Johnson also refused to vilify Oswald, known to her as O H Lee, who kept his USD 8-a-week room tidy and was even granted refrigerator access.
"She would only be true to what her observations were," Hall said.
Fay Puckett, Hall's mother, ran the boarding house after Johnson's death. Neither matriarch ever wanted to indulge sightseers, but Puckett did allow Oliver Stone to film scenes for his 1991 movie "JFK" there.
Not long after her mother's death in 2008, Hall started letting people in to see the room, displaying a donation box to help with restorations.
"People are curious. They want to see where he lived. They want to see how he lived," Hall said.
Hall said she's been considering selling the house for years, but decided the time was right as this year marks the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination in downtown Dallas.
