Earlene Roberts: The Oswald rooming house lady

/ Carter McLellan

By: Carter L. McLellan – Date: September 23, 2024

Contents

  1. The life of Earlene Roberts
  2. Ruby connection?

The life of Earlene Roberts

Earlene Doke Bogle Roberts was born on February 27, 1905, in Woodbury, Cannon County, Tennessee, USA. Her parents were Joseph Monroe Bogle (1874-1961) and Mary Magdaline “Maggie” Escue Bogle (1879-1947). The family moves later to Tyler, Texas, a city some 100 miles east of Dallas.

She was the oldest of three sisters, Georgia G. Bogle Wood (1906-1941), born in Tyler, Texas, and Dovie Lee Bogle Hunt (1908-1994), born in Tennessee.

Earlene grew up and went to high school in Tyler, Texas. In the 9th grade around 1920-1921, Earlene was working as a PBX operator the Hotel Blackstone. That’s where I met, Olan Roberts a building contractor, whom she would soon marry and drop out of high school. Unfortunately, Roberts was unable to have any children. She had a sister born in February 1920, named Bertha Lyles (Cheek).

In 1938, around the age of 33, Roberts moved to Dallas. By around 1949, at the age of 44, Robert’s husband Olan had died and she needed to get work. She started working as a practical nurse or housekeeping. She eventually came to work for A.C. Johnson by around 1958, at the age of 53. She worked for her on three separate occasions over the years.

Oswald

Older image do the 1026 N. Beckley Av rooming house.

In early October, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald showed up at the Johnson rooming house on 1026 N. Beckley Avenue, Dallas. He likely spotted their sign out front. Johnson told Oswald that they were full, but would put the sign back up when a vacancy came in.

Around 1-2pm, October 14, 1963, Oswald returned to rent a room. Johnson had Roberts log the transaction, as Oswald agreed to the house rules and payed the $8. He registered as “O. H. Lee” and told Roberts, “Let me go get my things.”

Around 5-6pm, Oswald returned with a little satchel and some clothes on hangars. He soon got a job at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) with the help of Ruth Paine and her neighbor Buell Frazier. Oswald’s wife and children were living with Paine in Irving.

While living there, he always paid rent on time. He mostly kept to himself and never talked to Roberts. He would watch TV for a little if others had it on. He would leave on Fridays for Irving, then return on Mondays. Only one Monday he had a long weekend and did not pay until returning on Tuesday. He would go to work around 6-7am and return by around 5pm. Roberts never observed Oswald going out at night.

On Thursday, November 21, 1963, Oswald did not return from work that evening. Instead he had gotten a ride by Frazier to Irving, in order to get some “curtain rods” for his room window. Surprising his wife and Paine, that night he pleaded Marina to come with him back to Dallas, but to no avail. On November 22, 1963, Oswald got a ride in the morning by Frazier to the TSBD.

The assassination

The President was shot from the TSBD at 12:30pm, November 22, 1963. A friend of Roberts told her what happened what the news on TV. She turned on the TV and began trying to adjust the connection, when at 1:00pm, Oswald came bustling through the door and moved swiftly into his room. Roberts remarked that Oswald seemed to be in a hurry, but he made no reply. He remained in the room for 3-4minutes, probably getting his revolver.

While Oswald was still in his room, Roberts recalled a police car driving up and stopping directly in front of the house. It was a black police car #207 with two uniformed police officers, which honked twice, then drove off and turned on Zangs. Around 1:04pm, Oswald quickly leaves the rooming house while zipping up a jacket, and that was the last Roberts ever saw of him.

Later that day, Dallas police showed up at the N. Beckley rooming house to inquire about Lee Harvey Oswald. At first, neither Roberts or Johnson recognized the name. But on TV, the suspect in the JD Tippit murder appeared on TV, it was Lee Harvey Oswald, and Johnson’s husband recognized him and told them to look. Recognizing the man on TV is the renter by the name “O. H. Lee”.

Left to right: A. C. Gladys Johnson and Earlene Roberts.

On November 22 and November 29, Roberts gave testimony to the FBI. Sometime after the assassination, Roberts quit her job at the Beckley rooming house of Johnson. On April 8, 1964, Roberts gave Warren Commission testimony at 301 Post Office Building, Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, by Messrs. Joseph A. Ball and Samuel A. Stern, assistant counsel of the President’s Commission, Dr. Alfred Goldberg was present.

Intimidation

At that time, Roberts was staying at 5000 Tremont, caring for an elderly couple, with a husband that had cancer/leukemia. She complained in her testimony that she had been put through the “third degree” by the Secret Service, Dallas FBI, Dallas Police and Dallas Sheriff. Roberts testified:

“Every time I would walk out on the front porch somebody was standing with a camera on me they had me scared to death.”

It is said that between April and June, 1964, she was dismissed from three rooming house and nursing jobs, allegedly as a result of police doing things like calling her employers to identify her as the Oswald rooming house lady. She probably lost multiple jobs afterward. Right up until her death, Roberts is said to have complained that she was worried to death by the police.

It’s also interesting to note that before the assassination, according to Roberts, she said that “I had worked for some policemen and sometimes they come by and tell me something that maybe their wives would want me to know…” The officers she was acquainted with were an Officer Alexander and Charles Burnely, would would stop in front of the rooming house and honk. The instance that happened when Oswald was last there, she determined we’re not those two men, based on the car number, and look.

On January 9, 1966, Roberts was living at a house at 212 W. Wooden, Oak Cliff, when she suffered a heart attack and was taken to Parkland Hospital, where she died. She was nearly 61 at the time and known to have had diabetes. She also was blind in one eye. She was buried at Rucker Cemetery, in Troup, Texas.

Heart attack, strange death?

Gladys Johnson tried to discredit Roberts in her testimony to the Warren Commission, saying she had a tendency to make up lies while talking about stories. But Roberts was nonetheless an important eyewitness to Oswald’s movements in Dallas from October to November 22, 1963.

Her story of seeing, while Oswald was briefly last in the rooming house, two men in a black Dallas police car number 207 stop at the front door of the rooming house and “tit-tit” the horn before taking off and turning on Zangs, has never been explained. All the Dallas police cars were accounted for in the area, except for Tippit’s.

Furthermore, the alleged harassment and intimidation by authorities and Dallas police since the assassination and after her Warren Commission testimony, is certainly unusual.

On January 9, 1966, at the age of 60, Robert suffered a heart attack at her home at 212 W. Wooden, Oak Cliffe. She was taken to Parkland Hospital, where an autopsy was performed and heart attack was determined to have been the cause of death. It’s hard to reach any other conclusion based on available information. What we do have are the above unusual occurrences in her story.

Less than a month prior, the cab driver William Whaley, who dropped Oswald off by the rooming house, died in December 1965, in a 2-car collision, in Dallas. Around 7 months after Roberts died, Lee Bowers died in a single car accident into a bridge abutment near Midlothian. Bowers had observed three unusual moving in the parking lost west of the TSBD just before the Kennedy motorcade arrived. There was evidence that Bowers might have had a heart attack, but no autopsy was performed.

Other persons in the JFK case have died by heart attack. Over in New Orleans, Guy Banister, died from a heart attack at the age of 64, on June 6, 1964. There had been suspicions among those close to him. One of Jack Ruby’s lawyers, Tom Howard, who was believed to be the man to get Ruby out of the death sentence, died from a heart attack on March 27, 1965, in Dallas. Another heart attack case related to the CIA’s JM/Wave aspect, David Sanchez Morales, died from a heart attack at the age of 52, on May 8, 1978, right around the time of major Congressional investigation into the JFK assassination.

Ruby connection?

One of the first points that one should be aware of is the proximity of Ruby’s apartment on Eweing street, to the Beckley rooming house and to tie location of the Tippit shooting. At least in terms of Ruby’s place, there isn’t any discernible significance. Nevertheless, they are all in the same south part of Dallas.

Perhaps one more exceptionally unusual circumstance around Roberts was her indirect connection to Jack Ruby, Carousel club owner who gunned down Oswald on November 24, 1963.

Earlene Roberts reportedly had a sister, named Bertha Cheek, who was born in February 1920, in Troup, Texas. She seems to particularly low profile, had a number of different names, with not a whole lot of information about her being out there. By her early 20’s, Cheek owner property in Dallas.

From 1948 to 1961, she owned a boarding house at 5212 Gaston, Dallas, which was eventually raised for the construction of luxury apartments. She also managed apartments at 3914 Swiss, Dallas. In Cheek’s early testimony to the FBI after the assassination, she alleged that she had met Jack Ruby as far back at 1943, because she had operated nightclubs in Dallas. She further alleged that Ruby attempted to secure her investment of $12k for a nightclub venture in 1948, a year after Ruby came to Dallas. Both allegations were changed by her 1964 Warren Commission testimony. So, did she lie to the FBI? If so, why?

In her Warren Commission testimony, Cheek now claimed that she first met Ruby in 1957 to 1958, around the time Roberts first started working for Gladys Johnson at the N. Beckley rooming house. Cheek claimed that around 1960-1961, she had possibly rented a room out to Dallas Police Officer Henry Olsen, who had been well acquainted with Ruby at his nightclub and who after the assassination claimed there were rumors among Dallas police that J. D. Tippit had known Ruby. Furthermore, Cheek had told the FBI, but forgot to mention until asked to the Warren Commission, that between 1959-1961, she had rented out rooms to two unknown Cubans.

She also failed to mention, as she had to the FBI, that on November 18, 1963, Ruby invited her to the Carousel attempting to secure an investment in the club of several thousand. Cheek didn’t like the terms so declined. She testified to the FBI, apparently had not volunteered, on November 29, 1963, and to the Warren Commission in 1964. She did not recognize Oswald, but felt she may have rented to him in the past.

This all becomes even more strange with the fact that Cheek’s boyfriend was a young man about half her age named Bobby Lichtfield, a convict who had been acquainted with Ruby, which Cheek failed to mentioned to in her testimony. Lichtfield claimed that Cheek wanted to marry before the assassination, so they could run her properties together. Bertha and Lichtfield were looking to buy Ruby’s Vegas Club, with Ruby trying to sell through Lichtfield the Carousel, something Cheek had not clarified in her testimony.

There is yet another strange report that ought to be covered here. According to Penn Jones, Jr., one renter at the N Beckley rooming house at the time Oswald was there, was a man named John Carter. This individual had been a house painter and had on some occasions worked alongside a man named Henry “Hank” Killam. He was also friendly with Killam’s wife, Wonda Joyce Killam, who had been a dancer for Jack Ruby at the Carousel club. She had reportedly known Ruby since 1947 and worked for him from July to November 1963, but told Jones she worked for Ruby for two years.

Whether or not Carter knew Oswald is unknown for sure, but he claimed not to have even heard about Ruby until after he killed Oswald. That certainly comes off is unusual, sense he knew a dancer at his club.

Wonda told Penn Jones that federal agents continuously hounded Hank for questioning and allegedly caused him to lose jobs. Similar sounding to what happened with Roberts. Killam left Dallas, moving from place to place until settling in Pensacola, Florida. He got a job and told his wife to come down. On the morning of March 17, 1964, Hank Killam was found dead on a street with his throat cut. The newspapers there conjectured that Killam had either fallen or jumped through a plate glass window and cut his throat. The papers did not include the posbility that he might have be pushed through the plate glass window. Jones was unable to contact Carter or Roberts.

Notes

References

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