Colossal Failure to Research Ekdahl

Who Was Edwin Albert Ekdahl, Stepfather of Lee Harvey Oswald?

The only father figure Lee Oswald ever had was the man pictured below, who appeared on the scene in New Orleans in either late 1942 or the first half of 1943, and disappeared from the Oswalds' life in mid-1948. Yet, Ekdahl has been almost totally ignored as a target of research before now.

Ekdahl's Overlooked Fort Worth Connections

The facts of his marriage to Marguerite Oswald were set out in a divorce petition filed by Edwin A. Ekdahl, signed personally by Fred Korth, whose office was at 812 Neil P. Anderson Building, situated at 411 West Seventh Street in Fort Worth.* Exploring that building's location really gives one a sense of who Ekdahl was during the years Lee Oswald lived in the same house with him. The best way to sense that connection is through Jack White's historic photos.

Ekdahl's office, left; Korth's office, right

Ekdahl's office was nearby in the Texas Electric Service Company (TESCO) Building at 408 West Seventh--the same building which had housed FDR's Works Progress Administration during the depression years leading up to World War II. TESCO used the advertising agency, Witherspoon and Associates, where photographer Jack White was a vice president. White, intriguingly, served as a consultant to the HSCA concerning photo analysis and enhancement and has been an unabashed defender of the work of John Armstrong, author of the book Harvey and Lee, inspired by White's prior photographic work on Oswald. According to Dave Perry, White and Armstrong had in fact worked together "scrutinizing" Marguerite's files. White, at least, should have known, if he did not in fact know, that Oswald's stepfather, Edwin Ekdahl, had worked for one of Witherspoon's most important clients, the Texas Electric Service Company, located across the street for Fred Korth's office when Korth represented Ekdahl in his divorce from Marguerite.


The Fort Worth Club was in the building a block away at 306 W. 7th, where oilmen Charlie Roeser and Sid Richardson had offices, next to the Worth Hotel, on whose stationery Marguerite wrote letters. At one time the website for the Fort Worth Club contained the following boast:

“The Fort Worth Club has historically been the place where the city's most prestigious visitors have chosen to hang their hats while in Fort Worth. Chairmen, Presidents and others from the corporate, political, social, and entertainment world have enjoyed the Club's warmth and hospitality. Stars of the stage and screen have always made themselves at home in The Fort Worth Club. The legendary Sid Richardson lived at the Club and one of Texas’ heroes, Will Rogers, made The Fort Worth Club his second home. Amon Carter, publisher of the city's most powerful newspaper, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, maintained a suite at The Fort Worth Club and was Club president for over 35 years. Mr. Carter and his comrades reportedly ran the town from The Fort Worth Club. It was and is the place where key decisions regarding Fort Worth are made. Meetings at the Club brought General Dynamics, now Lockheed, the city's largest employer, and Casa Manana, Fort Worth's greatest entertainment attraction of the era. Other landmark associations consummated at the Club include the General Motors plant in Arlington, the Bell Helicopter Textron plant in the Mid-Cities, and the Swift and Armour packaging houses.” [Quoted from Fort Worth Club website.]

Today's website merely touts:

In 1926, The Fort Worth Club erected a grand, 12-story high-rise at Throckmorton and Seventh streets, featuring apartment suites for prominent members. Club President Amon G. Carter hosted many prestigious guests at the new building in his personal quarters, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bob Hope, Gene Autrey, war hero J.D. Doolittle, lords and ladies of London, sports figures and more. The new Fort Worth Club became the social epicenter of Fort Worth.

Amon Carter's office at 400 West 7th, in the Fort Worth Star Telegram Building, was just next door to Ekdahl's at No. 408 W. 7th:

Amon Carter partnered with Jesse Jones of Houston

When Edwin Met Margo

Edwin, Marguerite and the '38 Buick

We are told Marguerite met Ekdahl in New Orleans while her boys were all staying at the since-demolished Bethlehem Lutheran Orphanage, east of New Orleans (5413 North Peters Street) prior to her termination from the hosiery shop she managed briefly. Both Marguerite and John Pic recalled that she was then working at Pittsburgh Plate Glass company on Canal Street when the couple met, but it is not clear from their testimony where she was living at the time.

Dr. Cuthbert J. Brown's records reflected that in August and September 1942 Marguerite resided at 227 Atlantic Avenue in Algiers, La. By the time she paid her next visit to this doctor in July 1943, however, an address change to 2136 Broadway was noted on her patient card. A two-story building divided into apartments on the west side of New Orleans near Audubon Street and Tulane University, this house was in a totally different neighborhood from anywhere she had ever lived, and none of the neighbors, owners or tenants questioned 20 years later--either at the Broadway or the Algiers locations--recalled ever having heard of her.

Notwithstanding the FBI's inability to confirm the last two addresses, the Warren Commission felt the evidence (Exhibit 1963 and Exhibit 2213) did support Marguerite's having lived on Broadway during 1942 or 1943. The evidence included Marguerite's W-4 form filled out on July 9, 1943, when she was employed as manager of a hosiery store owned by "Lady Orris Hosiery Co. of New York," operated by Edward Aizer, listing her address as 2136 Broadway. Aizer also told the agent she was then dating a "well-to-do gentleman" with a heart condition, obviously Edwin Ekdahl. However, John Pic was definite in his testimony that she met Ekdahl while she worked at Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, so it seems safe to assume that job preceded her managerial position at the hosiery shop.

Aizer's recollection was that he terminated her employment after only about two months because of her lack of competence with figures. John Pic, who supplied one of the most accurate chronologies of the Oswald/Pic family homes and schools and was clearly not one to be taken in by Marguerite's habit of dissembling,  stated, with regard to his mother's being fired from this job:

"Whenever she changed jobs she always gave me a rationalized answer....I remember once, it may have been the Lerner shop or it may have been this hosiery shop which you are referring to, that she told me that they let her go because she didn't use an underarm deoderant [sic]. That was the reason she gave me, sir. She said she couldn't do nothing about it. She uses it but if it don't work what can she do about it. Other times whenever she changed jobs it was always because the next job was better. "

Following the failure of an attempt at running her own home business, "Oswald's Notion Shop," selling sewing notions and some candy, in the front room of their home for less than a year, Marguerite took what may have been her first job since her marriage to Robert E. Lee Oswald in 1933. Prior to the birth of her first son, John Edward Pic, she had, since before her 17th birthday, a receptionist at the large New Orleans law firm which represented the Standard Fruit Company as one of its clients.

Three children and two husbands later, following the Christmas holidays of 1941-42, Marguerite placed only the two older boys --Lee was still too young at age two for placement--into Bethlehem Lutheran Orphanage a few miles east of this neighborhood, and she then secured work outside the home. John Pic remembered the time as being soon after WWII started. Perhaps Marguerite had heard that nearby Algiers Naval Base was gearing up for war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Marguerite's biographer of sorts, Jean Stafford,  A Mother In History: Marguerite Oswald, The Mother of the Man Who Killed President Kennedy, quoted Lee's mother as saying:

"I used to work in Algiers, Louisiana, during the war and that is across the river from New Orleans. I was a switchboard operator. My duty was six o'clock in the morning until three, or six-thirty, I forget which. So, I rented a room in Algiers, Louisiana, and my sister was taking care of Lee permanently at this particular time. He was about two years old. Every evening I left Algiers and took the ferry and came over and took care of my baby, and would have to leave early enough to get home before dark--after all, I was a woman alone--to be across the river so I could go to work for six-thirty. And the Naval Base personnel used to come with a jeep to pick me up because there was no other way to get to the Naval Base." [p. 60]

We know from information provided by Marguerite's sister, Lillian Claverie Murret, that her home at the time was some five miles northwest of the neighborhood where Marguerite had lived with her husband, Robert E. Lee Oswald, so that made it quite a distance farther and across the river from Algiers. It is unlikely Marguerite traveled to the Murrets every evening to see Lee; most likely she was recalling the short period at Pauline Street when she had live-in caretakers for Lee.

Her room at 227 Atlantic Avenue, apparently shared with another woman, was 1.3 miles from the headquarters building of the naval training station at Algiers--2300 General Meyer Avenue.

Marguerite's employment in 1942-43 time frame.

The best illustration from Marguerite's own mouth of what Pic would describe in 1964 as her habit of giving a "rationalized answer" to her job changes appears just following the portion of the above-quoted statement  from Stafford's book. The continuation of Marguerite's rambling monologue was as follows:

"I was on this side of New Orleans [in Algiers?] and this young lady that also roomed where I was rooming had a car and she was coming to New Orleans and she told me that if I would stay over she would take me home. Well, my two nephews [Murret sons] had had a tonsillitis operation and I went to the hospital and stayed a little while with them and then I met this young lady and she had a date and they decided that we should go into one of the nightclubs in the Vieux Carre and have a little recreation. Well, now I love to dance and go out to dinner and places like that, and so I said I would.

"And before I knew it, it was two o'clock in the morning. What could I do? I'm with them, they have the car, so I have to wait. So when I did get home I called the other young lady who worked the evening shift for the switchboard and told her I wasn't feeling well and would she take the morning and I would take the evening. She said she would. However, it didn't please her too much. So that afternoon I was called to the Colonel's office and he asked me what happened and I told him I wasn't feeling well, and that I had been up until late and had been to the hospital--that part of course was true--so it was perfectly natural that I call the other young lady and ask her to change with me.

"However, I did dance, you see, with a few of the boys, and they happened to be men from the base, but how was I to know that? And he told me that I was not telling the truth and that I had been seen in a nightclub and I was dancing until two o'clock in the morning when I should have been home in bed resting to be there for the six o'clock shift. And he fired me, right then and there." [pp. 60-61]

Assuming Marguerite was telling the truth, as she remembered it, why would a "colonel" be stationed at a naval base? Was it also possible Edwin Ekdahl, having served in the Navy's engineer corps during WWII, could have been assigned in Algiers during the same time? Or perhaps he was working there in some other capacity?

1940's era map of Algiers Naval Station

Stafford made no reference to Edwin Ekdahl at this particular point in the book, but it is somewhat intriguing that he did appear on the scene at this point in time, or perhaps a few months later. John Pic pins their meeting to his own appendectomy, but neither Armstrong nor the Warren Commission apparently ever felt called upon to look into details of his doctor and Pic's mother's address at that time:

Mr. JENNER - Well, I think probably a good new start off point is Mr. Ekdahl. Tell us your recollection of him, what led up, your present recollection of the circumstances which brought him into your lives and when you first were aware of his existence and what your circumstance was at that time, what your mother's was?
Mr. PIC - Okay.
Mr. JENNER - Give times as best you can.
Mr. PIC - If you can date for me when I had my appendix out I can practically date for you Mr. Ekdahl's.
Mr. JENNER - I am afraid I can't. Were you at Bethlehem Orphanage?
Mr. PIC - Yes; I was at Bethlehem so it would be either 1943 or 1944, and I am sure she was at Pittsburgh at that time.
Mr. JENNER - Pittsburgh Plate?
Mr. PIC - Right. And it was right after I had my appendix out that he appeared on the scene. And she visited us more often when she was going with him.
Mr. JENNER - And she brought him with her, did she?
Mr. PIC - Yes; he had the car.

This detail furnished by Pic, therefore, requires that we go back to Marguerite's address and job history and to the schools John Pic attended. Albert Jenner, the Warren Commission staff attorney who questioned him, never quite grasped the fact that Pic attended George Washington Elementary located at 3810 St. Claude Street (not "St. Cloud," as transcribed in the W.C. Report), which is now Douglas High School, situated near Alvar and Bartholomew Streets, just as Pic remembered it.**

Before Ekdahl--Robert E. Lee Oswald Death, July 1939

After the death of her second husband in the late summer of 1939, Marguerite, age 32, inherited the 2109 Alvar Street residence encumbered by a mortgage. Lee was born October 18 that same year, and to save money (according to John Pic), she put the older boys in the Catholic Infant Jesus College home in Algiers, La.--across the river--until the following summer of 1940. At that time, she brought them back to live with her and baby Lee, and they attended school at George Washington Elementary for a year and a half before having to be placed into another orphanage. Being a Lutheran, it is not known what possessed her to consider the Catholic home for the boys, but the fact it was located in the same area as the naval base where she later got a job is intriguing. Vincent Bugliosi sides with Albert Jenner rather than Pic here, in saying Pic returned for a time to his first school, William Frantz, before transferring to George Washington.

Endnote 516 (page 361) from Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History CD tells us: "Mrs. Fred Huff, the owner of the [1242] Congress Street property, said she had rental records for Marguerite dating from November 10, 1940, but she said Marguerite could have moved into Huff ’s house earlier since her records prior to that date had been destroyed (FBI interview of Mrs. Fred C. Huff on December 9, 1963). The FBI said that records of the New Orleans Retail Credit Bureau reflect Marguerite had moved into the Congress Street house on September 28, 1940 (CE 2201, 25 H 80)."

Marguerite had decided it would be more economical to rent out the Alvar Steet house to the doctor who had delivered Lee in October 1939 while renting smaller accommodations, thus moving several time until her purchase on March 9, 1941 of an "upper lower class" house, as Pic characterized it, at 1010 Bartholomew a few blocks away. Not remembering the address of the intervening residences, all Pic would say was that one was "a green house."

The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. where she worked was then located at 1500 Poydras at LaSalle (now part of the present location of the Superdome or "Sugar Bowl" arena). She sold the Bartholomew Street house on January 16, 1942, but kept the house on Alvar rented to Dr. Mancuso. Marguerite remembers in a monologue, delivered during Rankin's questioning, this period of time before Lee turned three years old:

War had broken out and the Negroes in New Orleans were going into factories and so on and so forth so there is many a job I had to leave in order to stay home and mind Lee until I could get help.  Then my sister helped with Lee. There is one particular instance, I let a couple [the Roaches] have my home, plus $15 a month in order to care for Lee while I worked [at the Algiers Naval Base?], and this couple after about 2 month's time had neglected Lee and so I had to put them out of the house and there again I had to quit a job [or was she fired?] and take care of Lee until I could make arrangements and my sister could help me with it.  So when Lee was 3 years old I was having it very difficult with Lee, because of the different people to take care of Lee, and the different jobs that I had to give up. However, I was never in want of work. It was during the war and I was always able to get work, but I realized if I continued to quit jobs because I couldn't hold the jobs that some day I wouldn't have enough jobs in New Orleans for me to hold one....So, then at age 3 Lee was placed in the home. I waited patiently for age 3 because I wanted naturally for the brothers to be together. It was hard on Lee also because Lee was at a different place and his brothers were at a different place. So at age 3 I placed Lee in a Lutheran home. Of course, you have to be under strict investigation financially and otherwise to do this because this is a church placement, sir.

Then, I became manager of Princess hosiery shop on Canal Street. I opened that shop and I was left by myself and in 6 days' time I hired four girls. There was the first shop this man has had. He now has, I think, 54 stores and he always remembers me as on the road of starting him to success, because this young man didn't have much money at the time. And this is where I met Mr. Ekdahl and there is why I didn't want to marry right away because the children were being taken care of and I was manager of the hosiery shop. [Mr. Aizer revealed she was dating Ekdahl while working at the hosiery job.]

After leaving them in Bethlehem, Margaret had first rented an apartment at 831 Pauline Street in the same general neighborhood as the Alvar and Bartholomew houses, and soon thereafter to 111 Sherwood Forest Drive, four or five miles northwest from that old neighborhood and quite close to her sister's home in New Orleans. Mrs. Murret often helped Marguerite care for young Lee, according to Russell Holmes' file Chronology compiled during the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation in 1976.

More Armstrong Inaccuracies and Omissions

John Armstrong, in his book, Harvey and Lee (page 18), writes inaccurately that while living on Pauline Street Marguerite "began working for Bert's Shoe Store at 827 Canal Street in New Orleans, her first job of record." He says at page 20,

"After leaving Princess Hosiery Mrs. Oswald's friend, Mrs. Oris Duane, became the store manager and remained in that position for the next 20 years. There is no record of where Marguerite Oswald lived or where she was employed after leaving Princess Hosiery (August 1943 thru April 1944). In fact, the only record of her employment from 1939 (death of her husband) thru 1944 (5 years) was a brief period at Bert's Shoe Store, a brief period at the Naval Base in Algiers, and a few weeks at the two hosiery stores."

The only document substantiating her job at Bert's Shoes appears in Lee Oswald's 201 File in a document created by the Secret Service. The day after JFK's assassination and Lee Oswald's arrest, the Secret Service reviewed Lee's application to work at Reily Coffee Company and, noting the names of some of Lee's Oswald relatives there, began calling them. His father had three brothers, and it was in a call to Mrs. Hazel Oswald that Marguerite's job at Bert's Shoe store was reported.

Hazel was the second wife of one of Robert Lee Oswald's three brothers, William Stout Oswald. She reportedly had received a call from Lee Harvey Oswald in May 1963, inquiring about his father, who had died before he was born; she told him his three uncles were all then deceased as well. Hazel also remembered receiving a call from Marguerite some years prior to 1963--shortly after Marguerite and Lee returned from New York--stating that she was then employed at Bert's Shoes, and Lee was then 14 years old.

Under the year 1942 Armstrong relates this information, which he failed to follow up on completely:

In the summer of 1942 Marguerite rented a room at 227 Atlantic Avenue in
Algiers (across the river from New Orleans), in order to be close to her job at the Naval base, while Lee remained with Lillian Murret. On August 17 Dr. Cuthbert Brown treated Lee Oswald for impetigo, a disease of the skin. Oswald's address was listed as 227 Atlantic Avenue, the same address listed on Dr. Brown's records when he treated Marguerite on September 10, 1942.
In the fall of 1942 Marguerite lost her job at the Naval base and returned to New
Orleans. John and Robert remained at the Orphanage and were invited to their friend's home for Christmas. On December 26th, after Lee had lived at the Murret's home for 7 months, Marguerite placed 3-year-old Lee in the Evangelical Lutheran Bethleham Orphan Asylum with John and Robert. Thirty-five-year-old Marguerite then went to work for Pittsburgh Plate Glass and soon met her future husband, Edwin Ekdahl. Edwin Ekdahl was a 55-year-old engineer, originally from Boston, who was working for Ebasco Services of New York City.(34) Ekdahl had separated from his wife (Rasmine Ekdahl) a year earlier and was working in New Orleans. The couple had one child, Dewey Ekdahl, who lived with his mother in Boston.

We learn that Ebasco, a subsidiary of the Electric Bond & Share Co., was engaged in extremely sensitive matters at that very time from newspapers such as the following:

Nov. 1942

Big Power Plant Of Reds Designed

NEW YORK, Nov. 19 (AP) — Ebasco Services, Inc., a subsidiary of the Electric Bond & Share Co., big utilities system, is designing a $10,000,000 electric generating plan to be erected in Russia as a part of the United States lease- lend [sic] program, it was learned today. It was understood the U.S. treasury  procurement division arranged with Ebasco Services for the blueprints for the big power unit, to be built "eastward" from the present industrial areas. The plant will have 100,000 kilowatts capacity from four turbine generators. Total cost was estimated at $100 a kilowatt.

We have to wonder whether there was a connection between Ebasco Services and Texas Electric Service Co. (Tesco) in Fort Worth. Why was this question ignored by Armstrong? Was it because his friend, Jack White, worked for Tesco's ad agency?

Arrival in Texas from New Orleans

The FBI documented, by consulting Ivy Kern, formerly of 237 Atlantic, who stated positively she knew nobody named Marguerite Oswald, and that Mrs. Oswald had never lived at 227 Atlantic in 1941 or 1942. The Koeppel/Meyer family who did live at that address, confirmed that fact.

Schultz home in Dallas with sandbox in back

Lee left the Lutheran home in January and the two older boys were removed by Marguerite in June 1944  to in Dallas at 4801 Victor--an "upper middle class" neighborhood, as John Pic recalled--with sturdy brick homes sheltered by large shade trees. Lee led a happy existence there, often playing in a neighbor's back yard sandbox, according to an FBI interview of Roydon Schultz of 4726 Victor, who had a son a few years older than Lee [Commission Exhibit 1874].

According to Pic's memory in his Warren Commission testimony, when the older boys first moved to Dallas, Ekdahl was living somewhere in Fort Worth until the marriage on May 7, 1945, when he joined the family in Dallas at the House on Victor (part of Lot 7, in Block "A" of Ozone Addition to the City of Dallas). But his presence there could have only lasted for six weeks, since John Armstrong's records stored at the Poage Library include a copy of a deed (see page 19 of document), whereby Marguerite, joined by her new husband, conveyed the Victor residence to Ross Angelo on June 30, 1945.

Thereafter, the Ekdahls' address of Grandbury Road, Route 45, Benbrook, Texas, also reflected in Armstrong's records, was never researched for his book. Neither is the fact that Marguerite often wrote letters on stationery of the Worth Hotel, such as one addressed to  on April 13, 1946 (page 10) to the head of the Chamberlain-Hunt Academy where the older boys boarded. The address on one such envelope was Route 5 in Benbrook (page 40), which is mentioned in testimony of Otis Carlton, who says he actually purchased 100 San Saba from Mrs. Oswald. Contradicting that "evidence," is Mrs. W.H. Bell's statement (page 44) that she lived at 100 San Saba, and that the Oswalds lived in 1948 at 101 San Saba. Tax records seem to confirm that Carlton actually bought a portion of the Bell property, changing the addresses to 100 and 102, with 101 being across the street from both. If the San Saba Avenue property was at Route 5, then where was Route 45?

Old Granbury Road, Benbrook, Texas

When Christmas vacation came in December 1945, the boys rode the bus from Mississippi to Shreveport, La., near the Louisiana-Texas border. Pic remembered that Ekdahl was an hour or two late picking them up there, but they eventually arrived in Benbrook, at a new residence to which the family had moved since the boys had departed almost four months earlier. Pic describes this house as being

"about 15 miles below Fort Worth in Benbrook, it was way out. It wasn't the same Benbrook house. It was further. This was a brick house....It was rather isolated on one of the main highways. In fact, I just drove that way recently, and I couldn't find the place. When I went up to Fort Worth in 1962 I was looking for the house and I couldn't find it."

When the FBI interviewed A. R. Cartwright, he told them about an Oswald residence in Benbrook next door to the site for where the Water Department office had been located by 1964. He was apparently referring to the 101 San Saba Avenue house, since records indicate the address of the old City Hall to have been at the adjacent address of 101 Del Rio Avenue.

But what about the other Benbrook house Pic spoke of, and why did Albert Jenner skip over it so blithely during his questioning of Pic? To Jenner's query of whether that house could have been on Grandbury Road, Box 567. Pic's response was: "This was a brick house, with quite a bit of ground. I think way back they told us that one of the Roosevelt sons had a house out there, that is how I remember." There was, amazingly, no followup question:

Who Built the Benbrook Dam?

The intervening event which prevented John Pic from finding the house he remembered occurred in 1952 when Mrs. Amon G. Carter flipped a switch that closed the floodgates of the newly completed Benbrook Dam which had been under construction during John Pic's summer visit in 1945. The completion of the dam would result in the inundation of most of the Dutch Branch Ranch where Elliott and Ruth Googins Roosevelt lived between 1935 and 1944. Mos likely the first Benbrook residence where the Oswalds lived with Edwin Ekdahl was inundated along with it. Why did Jack White and his "protege," John Armstrong not look into this address? Why was there no investigation into Oswald's first grade class at Benbrook Common School?

Would an investigation of that address have demanded a more thorough look into the life of Edwin Ekdahl and his employer? Would it have revealed the background of President Roosevelt's daughter-in-law, her father, and his own elite associates in Fort Worth?

Elliott Roosevelt clearly enjoyed his connection to the man in the White House and played political games to get what he wanted, including electricity for their Dutch Branch ranch house in Benbrook in 1937:

Bringing electricity to outer regions of Benbrook, Texas

[Source of above excerpt: These Amazing Roosevelts: A Book About Franklin D. Roosevelt And His Adventurous Family,originally published by its author, the Methodist evangelist and FDR insider, Rev. William Le Roy Stidger, while FDR was still president.]

One of the "utilities" frightened by Elliott's power play, no pun intended, was Edwin Ekdahl's own employer at the time, Texas Electric Service Co. The address where young Lee Oswald lived that year, and tossed around by Jenner, was the same road described in the history of Benbrook at its website, which relates that:

Roosevelt's Dutch Branch Ranch covered approximately 1,300 acres in the Benbrook area with the ranch house located off of Old Granbury Road (West Cleburne Road) on the east of what is now Benbrook Lake. The ranch was purchased in 1935 by Elliott's wife, Ruth Goggins Roosevelt, and served as Elliot's home while he was president of the Texas State (radio) Network. President Franklin Roosevelt visited his son at the ranch on four occasions from 1936 to 1944. The Roosevelts sold the ranch in 1944 and Fort Worth oilman Sid W. Richardson later purchased it in 1946. Much of the ranch was condemned by the U.S. Government for construction of Benbrook Lake in 1947.

An October 1942 visit of FDR to the ranch is depicted in the following video:

 

The above scenes occurred three years prior to the Ekdahls' move to Benbrook. News reports in 1942 had been full of  talk of bomb-making plants for the war, as well as talk about the President's visit to Benbrook:

Maj. Gen. Richard Donovan, commanding officer of the Eighth Service Command of the service of supply, with headquarters at Fort Sam Houston San Antonio, Texas, rode through the [Consolidated Vultee Aircraft] plant with the President. So did Mrs. Roosevelt, Elliott's wife, Ruth, and two of her three children. Ruth Chandler, 8, and Elliott, Jr., 6. The chief executive, who had come up by train from San Antonio, where he inspected air corps and infantry bases Sunday, arrived at nearby Benbrook, Texas, at 9:30 (Central War Time) Monday morning. A few minutes later he drove up to Elliott's Dutch Branch ranch. Members of the family greeted him at the Hilltop ranch house. Mrs. Roosevelt had flown in Sunday night on her way to the West Coast, which the President had left three days before. Perching his youngest grandchild, 8-months-old David, on his lap, the President gathered Elliott, Jr., and Ruth Chandler around him and posed for family pictures on the front lawn. Then, with Ruth, the three grandchildren, and Mrs. Roosevelt he made a trip around the ranch in a red convertible coupe. He went down to the stables to have a look at the horses, and rode down the roads and across the fields. [Source: Paris, TX News, Oct. 1, 1942]

The Roosevelts, we are told, had already sold their ranch a year before the Ekdahls arrived, though it was in exactly the same area, "about 15 miles outside Fort Worth,"according to a 1985 article in which the Roosevelt children remembered living there. With WWII heating up, however, Elliott had felt called to quit the job of managing his wife's radio station and the ranch she had purchased with an inheritance from her long-deceased father, Joseph B. Googins, to return to the Army Air Corps. The title to the ranch was transferred from Ruth Googins Roosevelt in 1944, and then acquired in 1946 by Sid Richardson, the owner at the time the federal government condemned it for Benbrook Lake. History demands that someone in Tarrant County with access to deed records find out who that intervening owner was.

Construction of the dam did not begin until 1947--two years after John Pic and Robert Oswald were there for Christmas vacation, and the lake itself would not appear until the rains came following Mrs. Amon Carter's closing of the floodgates in 1952. No wonder Pic could not find the place in 1962! The entire area had completely changed.

________________
 *The petition was date-stamped on March 23, 1948, and the judgment was dated June 24, 1948. Marguerite had an attorney who, in spite of her claims of infidelity and adultery on the part of her husband, failed to file a petition on her behalf but a mere general denial. Without a counterclaim, the court would have been unable to award the divorce to her, even after a jury trial in which her sons allegedly testified. Or perhaps the missing allegations were part of the conditions of the settlement awarding her $1,500 as her share of the community property accumulated during three years of marriage. The failure to mention any real estate divided by the court, however, does indicate that the Benbrook home where the family lived in 1945 was merely rented. At any rate, the attorneys she hired were McLean & McLean with offices on the 9th Floor of the Burk Burnett Building, and John E. McLean filed only a general denial with one special denial to Ekdahl's charges, and a request for attorney's fees. Another interesting note is that his brother and partner was W.P. "Wild Bill" McLean, Jr., who acted as a special prosecutor of J. Frank Norris, alleged murderer of D.E. Chipps.

**In 1997 the Orleans Parish School Board voted unanimously to change the name of a newer George Washington Elementary school, at 1116 Pauline (constructed directly across the street from the school Pic attended by that name), to Dr. Charles Richard Drew Elementary to comply with a policy prohibiting school names honoring ''former slave owners or others who did not respect equal opportunity for all."

Bolshevik Perfidy and Nazi Greed?

Less than two years ago, much appeared in the news about certain works of art formerly owned by members of the Russian nobility prior to the revolution in which the tsar and his family was overthrown by the Bolsheviks. However, much was left out by the final action of that litigation which occurred in 2010. To fully understand what happened requires that we go back another 35 years to a court case in 1976--to a case which will follow the more recent article printed below.

There was also an earlier lawsuit in 1966, reported in the International Law Reports here at page 72 of Stroganoff-Scherbatoff v. Bensimon. But the real question in my mind is how these Scherbatoffs were related, if at all, to the wife of Max Edward Clark--the former Princess Gali Scherbatoff.

Goering, a museum and Nazi-looted art

by MICHAEL KIRKLAND

UPI NewsTrack Oct 10, 2010

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- How many years, how many laws or court rulings, how many regulations does it take to wash the tragedy from a work of art? What makes an artwork -- stolen from desperate people, part of what would become the largest claim of restitution involving Nazi theft -- clean enough to be kept in a museum? The U.S. Supreme Court may have a try at finding out.

The focus of a case brought before the high court this term involves the delicate balance among state, federal and foreign governments, and more specifically a California law that extends the statute of limitations for court actions against museums and galleries to recover Nazi-looted art. The case is also a detective story of sorts, with plenty of byzantine twists and turns and a whiff of Bolshevik perfidy and Nazi greed.

"The California Legislature has recognized the unique nature of claims for the return of artworks looted during World War II ... and the roadblocks that make pursuing these claims so difficult," a petition in the case says. "Those who seek legal redress for the theft of artworks during WWII must engage in detailed investigations, often in several countries, obtain translations of foreign historical documents and seek the assistance of legal and historical experts, among other things, all of which may take many years to complete."

Trying to recover looted art "also inevitably forces victims and their heirs to relive the horrors associated with that era," the petition adds. Families or heirs "are often thwarted in their efforts to regain their property because present day possessors resort to statutes of limitations and other technical defenses despite undeniable proof of an earlier Nazi confiscation."

The 2002 California law, unanimously enacted by the Legislature, extends "the statute of limitations for claims for the return of Nazi-looted artworks brought in California against museums or galleries," the petition said. The new law "prevents museums and galleries -- which should know the importance of provenance and are in the best position to discover whether an artwork they are acquiring is among the thousands looted during WWII -- from taking advantage of a technical defense to a meritorious claim for the return of stolen artworks."

Lucas Cranach the Elder

In other words, simply citing a statute of limitations doesn't protect the museum. The art in question is by Lucas Cranach the Elder, a 16th century German Renaissance painter and print-maker, known for his portraits of Martin Luther and other Reformation figures. But he wasn't above doing the occasional nude. Cranach's life-size "Adam" and "Eve" -- appraised at $24 million for the pair -- are on display at the Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, Calif.

Jacques Goudstikker

Who owns the works is the subject of debate. So is the identity of the original victim, a noble Russian family or a world-renowned Jewish art dealer in pre-war Amsterdam. Marei von Saher, a Greenwich, Conn., resident and "the sole living heir of the noted Jewish art dealer, Jacques Goudstikker," says the Cranachs were part of the works at Goudstikker's gallery. Von Saher is Goudstikker's daughter-in-law.

After the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, only 35,000 of 140,000 Dutch Jews survived the war. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering looted the Goudstikker gallery of more than 1,000 pieces of art, including the Cranachs, which he wanted for his personal collection. Actually, Goering put low-level employees in charge of the massive Goudstikker collection, then forced them to sell at ridiculously low prices.

After the invasion, the Jewish Goudstikker, 43, fled the country, and died after he broke his neck in a fall aboard a ship crossing the English Channel. After the war, the Cranachs and the other artworks were recovered by Allied troops, and in accordance with policy, turned over to the Netherlands with the expectation they would be returned to the original owner. Von Saher's petition said Goudstikker's widow did receive some works, but the Dutch government retained the Cranachs and other art looted by Goering. 

Georges Stroganoff-Scherbatoff

Meanwhile, Georges Stroganoff-Scherbatoff appeared in 1961 to say the art actually belonged to his noble Russian family. The Dutch sold the art to Stroganoff in 1966, Von Saher's petition said.

"In fact, the Cranachs came from the Church of the Holy Trinity in Kiev, and Goudstikker purchased them at an auction in 1931," the petition said. "They had never been part of the Stroganoff family art collection."

The Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena acquired the Cranachs from Stroganoff in the early 1970s, where von Saher said she discovered them on or about November 2000. At that point, von Saher said she wanted the Cranachs back, but the museum said no. Meanwhile, the Dutch government apparently had a change of heart in 2001 and decided to return 200 priceless works of art to von Saher.

The museum tells a slightly different story of the Cranachs' provenance: 

"The Soviets" -- needing hard currency -- "sold the Cranachs in 1931 as part of an auction titled 'the Stroganoff Collection,' which featured artworks (confiscated after 1917) from the noble Stroganoff house," the museum said in its own brief. The Stroganoff family fled the revolution and all their Russian property was confiscated. "Over the Stroganoff family's protest, the Cranachs were purchased by ... a prominent Dutch art dealer named Jacques Goudstikker."

Under protest, Goudstikker's widow chose not to seek the return of the artworks, the museum said, "which would have required her to return the money paid by Goering for those works" in the forced sale. "The time to file a claim under Dutch law elapsed in 1951."

The Dutch government transferred the Cranachs to Georges Stroganoff-Scherbatoff as part of a settlement that also included money. Von Saher filed suit in federal court in Los Angeles in May 2007 to recover the Cranachs from the Pasadena museum, but a judge dismissed the suit, holding the California law extending the statute of limitations to make the claim "intrudes on the federal government's exclusive power to make and resolve war, including the procedure for resolving war claims," and is therefore unconstitutional. Without the new law, von Saher had only three years to make her claim under California law after discovering the Cranachs in the museum.

Holocaust restitution 

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled for the museum, saying the California law was designed to create "a worldwide forum for the resolution of Holocaust restitution claims," which was not a "traditional state responsibility." Since California was not exercising a traditional state function, the court said, the state law was pre-empted by the foreign affairs power reserved to the federal government because the intent of the state statute was to right wartime wrongs.

In her petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, von Saher said the appeals court "misconstrued" Supreme Court precedent, particularly in 2003's American Insurance Association vs. Garamendi. The Garamendi case came about because the Nazis "confiscated the value or proceeds of many Jewish life insurance policies issued before and during the Second World War," the Supreme Court said in its ruling. "After the war, even a policy that had escaped confiscation was likely to be dishonored, whether because insurers denied its existence or claimed it had lapsed from unpaid premiums, or because the German government would not provide heirs with documentation of the policyholder's death."

As in the artworks case, California acted, its Legislature passing the Holocaust Victim Insurance Relief Act of 1999. The state act required any insurer doing business in the state to disclose information about all policies sold in Europe from 1920 to 1945 by the company or anyone "related" to it. Violations of the act meant loss of an insurer's state business license. After the act became law, California issued administrative subpoenas against several subsidiaries of European insurance companies that were already cooperating with an international commission on Holocaust insurance claims. The federal government then warned California its new law interfered with the work of that commission.

Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the California Holocaust insurance law "interferes with the president's conduct of the nation's foreign policy and is therefore pre-empted."

Von Saher's lawyers argue the California law extending the statute of limitations for the recovery of looted art, unlike the state law in Garamendi, does not conflict with any federal law or international treaty, and the 9th Circuit's ruling in the Cranach case unconstitutionally extends federal pre-emption.

Von Saher is no longer alone in her case. A number of organizations have filed friend-of-the-court briefs on her behalf, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Bet Tzedek, "The House of Justice," a Southern California non-profit legal service that says it has represented more than 800 Holocaust survivors or their families. California also has filed a brief supporting her. All these briefs, of course, presumably were read by the Supreme Court justices this summer, including the briefs filed by von Saher and the museum. The high court could take several actions: rule summarily for either side without hearing argument, agree to hear argument before any ruling or simply refuse to review the case.

For the moment, the justices are asking the U.S. solicitor general's office for advice. At the start of the new term on the first Monday in October, they asked the administration lawyers for an opinion on what should be done with the case. The solicitor general's office should reply with an opinion within a couple of months.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

George STROGANOFF-SCHERBATOFF, Plaintiff,
v.
Henry H. WELDON, Defendant. 

George STROGANOFF-SCHERBATOFF, Plaintiff, 
v. 
Charles B. WRIGHTSMAN and Jayne Wrightsman, Defendants

The opinion of the court was delivered by: BONSAL, May 18, 1976

MEMORANDUM 

 BONSAL, District Judge. 

Plaintiff George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff commenced these actions alleging conversion of certain works of art by defendants Henry H. Weldon, Charles B. Wrightsman and Jayne Wrightsman. Specifically, in a complaint filed February 6, 1974, plaintiff alleged that Henry H. Weldon "converted to his own use a painting known as Portrait of Antoine Triest, Bishop of Ghent, ["Triest Portrait"], by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, of the value of $50,000, the property of plaintiff."

Diderot bust

Then, in another complaint filed December 31, 1974, plaintiff alleged that Charles B. Wrightsman and Jayne Wrightsman converted to their own use a bust of Diderot by Houdon, described in Catalogue 2043 of Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Hause, No. 225 with a property value of $350,000. A subsequent suit, 75 Civ. 3174, was brought against the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the present owner of the Diderot bust, which was subsequently consolidated with the Wrightsman case by Court order dated September 30, 1975. 1

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Defendants now move pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(b) for summary judgment in their favor. In support of his motion, defendant Weldon has submitted his own affidavit; the affidavit of his attorney, Harry E. Youtt, Esq.; the affidavit of Robert L. Manning, the Director-Curator of the Finch College Museum of Art; portions of the "Sammlung Stroganoff" or auction catalogue prepared for the auction in Berlin, May 12-13, 1931; and portions of the Catalogue de la Galerie des Tableaux of the Imperial Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia. 

Defendants Wrightsman have submitted an affidavit by their attorney, Betty J. Pearce, Esq.; several documents including

• "The Stroganoff Palace-Museum--A Brief Guide, St. Petersburg, 1922"; 
• excerpts from the "Sammlung Stroganoff" decrees of the All Russian Central Executive Committee and of the Council of People's Commissars; 
• "Eighteenth Century French Art in the Stroganov Collection"; 
• affidavits of the translators of these documents; documents on Soviet law and the Soviet Constitution; and
•  the affidavit of Charles B. Wrightsman. 

In opposition to these motions, plaintiff has submitted his own affidavit and a supplemental affidavit of his attorney, Lyman Stansky, Esq. 

Before deciding these motions for summary judgment, the Court, in a Memorandum to Counsel, gave the parties ". . . an opportunity to submit further briefs on the Act of State and Statute of Limitations points in light of Princess Paley Olga v. Weisz, [1929] 1 K.B. 718; Menzel v. List, 22 A.D.2d 647, 253 N.Y.S.2d 43 (1964); and Menzel v. List, 49 Misc.2d 300, 267 N.Y.S.2d 804 (1966)." Supplemental memoranda of law and additional affidavits were subsequently filed by all parties. 

Triest Portrait

It appears undisputed that both the Triest Portrait and the Diderot bust were sold in Berlin in 1931 at the Lepke Kunst-Auctions-Hause (hereinafter "Lepke Auction") by order of the Handelsvertretung or Trade Consulate of the U.S.S.R. 2

The Triest Portrait was purchased by the Frank T. Sabin Gallery in London which later sold it to the Alfred Brod Gallery, Ltd. in London. In 1963, defendant Weldon acquired the painting from the Brod Gallery and remains the present owner. 

It is unclear from the record who purchased the Diderot bust at the Lepke Auction; however, Charles B. Wrightsman later acquired the bust in June, 1965 from French & Company, Inc., a New York art dealer, and later donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on or about November 14, 1974. 

Plaintiff alleges that he is the direct descendant of Count Alexander Sergevitch Stroganoff, the original owner of both works of art, and that he is the rightful owner of these works of art by reason of familial succession. Plaintiff contends that the auction catalogue for the Lepke Auction described these works as part of the Stroganoff Collection. ("Sammlung Stroganoff".) 

Defendant Weldon contends that the auction catalogue does not support plaintiff's contentions that the Triest Portrait was part of the Stroganoff Collection. Rather, Weldon contends that the Portrait was part of the collection of the Imperial Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. 3

Moreover, defendant Weldon contends that even if plaintiff can prove ownership of the painting by familial succession, the Court is barred from granting any relief by reason of the Act of State Doctrine.  Defendants Wrightsman also contend that the Act of State Doctrine bars any relief. 

The Act of State Doctrine

The Act of State Doctrine requires courts of this country to refrain from independent examination of the validity of a taking of property by a sovereign state where 1) the foreign government is recognized by the United States at the time of the lawsuit, and 2) the taking of the property by the foreign sovereign occurred within its own territorial boundaries. 

In Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U.S. 250, 18 S. Ct. 83, 42 L. Ed. 456 (1897), plaintiff brought suit against the defendant, the commander of a revolutionary army in Venezuela, for damages caused by defendant's refusal to issue a passport and for alleged assaults and affronts by defendant's soldiers in Venezuela. Since the United States had recognized the defendant's revolutionary government as the legitimate government of Venezuela, the Court held:

"Every sovereign state is bound to respect the independence of every other sovereign state, and the courts of one country will not sit in judgment on the acts of the government of another, done within its own territory." Id. at 252, 18 S. Ct. at 84.

Then, in Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 38 S. Ct. 309, 62 L. Ed. 726 (1918), hides were seized in Mexico from a Mexican citizen by General Villa, acting on behalf of General Carranza, and were sold in Mexico to a Texas corporation which shipped them to the United States where they were sold to defendant. Plaintiff claimed title to the hides as assignee of the Mexican citizen. Taking note of the fact that the United States had recognized the Government of Carranza as the de facto government of Mexico in 1915, and as the de jure government in 1917, the Court denied plaintiff's request for relief and held:

"Plainly this was the action, in Mexico, of the legitimate Mexican government when dealing with a Mexican citizen, and, as we have seen, for the soundest reasons, and upon repeated decisions of this court such action is not subject to re-examination and modification by the courts of this country." Id. at 303, 38 S. Ct. at 311.

The Act of State Doctrine was again applied in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 84 S. Ct. 923, 11 L. Ed. 2d 804 (1964), a case involving the expropriation by the Cuban Government of property located in Cuba but owned principally by American nationals. There, the Court held:

". . . the Judicial Branch will not examine the validity of a taking of property within its own territory by a foreign sovereign government, extant and recognized by this country at the time of suit, in the absence of a treaty or other unambiguous agreement regarding controlling legal principles, even if the complaint alleges that the taking violates customary international law." Id. at 428, 84 S. Ct. at 940.

Here, the record shows that the works of art, whether in the Stroganoff Palace or in the Imperial Hermitage Museum, were appropriated by the Soviet Government under either Decree No. 111 of the Council of People's Commissars published on March 5, 1921, which nationalized all movable property of citizens who had fled the Soviet Union, 4 or Decree No. 245 of March 8, 1923, promulgated by the All Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, which nationalized property housed in State Museums. In addition, at the time of the Lepke Auction in Berlin, plaintiff's mother, Princess Stroganoff-Scherbatoff, wrote a public letter of protest stating that:

"This collection remains entirely my property. The Soviet republic has taken possession of this collection in a way that sets at defiance every principle of international law." (Emphasis added.) New York Herald Tribune, May 13, 1931, at 15.

Portrait of Stroganoff

While plaintiff contends that the "taking" did not occur within the territory of the Soviet Union but in Berlin at the Lepke Auction and, under such circumstances, the Act of State Doctrine is inapplicable, the record indicates that the works of art were appropriated in Russia, prior to the Lepke Auction, and were transported to Berlin by the Soviet Government solely for the purpose of the public sale.

 In Princess Paley Olga v. Weisz, [1929] 1 K.B. 718, the British Court of Appeal was faced with a case involving similar facts. There, a Russian refugee noble, Princess Paley Olga, instituted an action in the British courts to recover certain furniture and art objects that had been in the Paley Palace, near St. Petersburg, and which were sold by the Soviet Government to the defendant in 1928. Relying in part on Decree No. 111 of the Council of People's Commissars published on March 5, 1921, and Decree No. 245 promulgated by the All Russian Central Executive Committee and of the Council of People's Commissars in March 1923, the defendant Weisz contended that the articles in question had ceased to be the property of the plaintiff and were in the possession of the Soviet Government as public property. Since that Government was the Government of a foreign sovereign State, and had been recognized as such by the English Government in 1924, defendant contended that the plaintiff could not dispute the validity of the appropriation of the articles by the Soviet Government in the British courts. In affirming the lower court's decision that plaintiff's action must fail, the Court of Appeal (Scrutton, L. J.) held:

"Our Government has recognized the present Russian Government as the de jure Government of Russia, and our Courts are bound to give effect to the laws and acts of that Government so far as they relate to property within that jurisdiction when it was affected by those laws and acts." Id. at 725.

 Here it appears that the Triest Portrait and the Diderot bust were transported to Berlin for public sale in May 1931 at the direction of the Soviet Government. The Soviet Government had been recognized by the United States as the de jure government of Russia in 1933. Whether the works of art had been appropriated under Decree No. 111 of March 5, 1921 or Decree No. 245 of March 8, 1923 appears to be immaterial. The sale of the Stroganoff Collection was held by order of the Handelsvertretung and as such was carried out under the direction and with the consent of the Soviet Government. While the actual sale of the works of art occurred in Berlin, the property had been seized in Russia by the Soviet Government. 

Unlike the situation in Menzel v. List, 49 Misc.2d 300, 267 N.Y.S.2d 804 (1966), where the taking was by an organ of the Nazi Party, not a sovereign state, and the Act of State Doctrine was held inapplicable, here, the Soviet Government, by official decrees of its political organs, had acquired the works of art in Russia prior to their public sale in Berlin in 1931. Moreover, in Menzel v. List, the appropriation of the painting was in Belgium and the Government of the Kingdom of Belgium, although in exile at the time, was still the recognized government of Belgium. Here, the appropriation was by the Soviet Union and occurred within the territorial boundaries of the Soviet Union. 

 Thus, it seems clear that, on this record, plaintiff is precluded from recovery by reason of the Act of State Doctrine. Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, supra; see Princess Paley Olga v. Weisz, supra. In view of the foregoing, the Court does not reach the statute of limitations issue. 5

Accordingly, defendants' motions for summary judgment are granted.

It is so ordered.

Footnotes

---

1. On February 2, 1974, plaintiff commenced another action, 74 Civ. 625, alleging conversion by defendant Charles Wrightsman of a bust of Voltaire by Houdon. Subsequently, a suit was brought against the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 74 Civ. 3809, for the same cause of action. Both actions were consolidated for purposes of a joint trial by Order dated April 26, 1976.


2. See affidavit of Johann Wille dated December 5, 1975.


3. See affidavit of Robert L. Manning dated February 7, 1975, attached to defendant Weldon's Motion for Summary Judgment.


4. Plaintiff denies that Count Alexander Sergevitch Stroganoff fled the Soviet Union in 1919 and thus disputes the applicability of Decree No. 111 of March 5, 1921 to the facts of this case.


5. Plaintiff has brought these suits for conversion of works of art. Under the applicable New York statute, New York Civil Practice Law and Rules ("CPLR") § 214(3) (McKinney 1972), "an action to recover a chattel or damages for the taking or detaining of a chattel . . . must be commenced within three years." (Section 214(3) of the CPLR, effective September 1, 1963, replaced former Section 48(4) of the Civil Practice Act which provided a six-year statute of limitations.)

   Moreover, under New York CPLR § 206(a), a demand is necessary before a person is entitled to bring an action in conversion. That statute provides, in part:

". . . where a demand is necessary to entitle a person to commence an action, the time within which the action must be commenced shall be computed from the time when the right to make the demand is complete."

   Here, it would appear that the right of plaintiff's mother to make the demand was complete in 1931 when the works of art were sold at the Lepke Auction in Berlin. Under the New York statute of limitations, it would appear that the time for commencing an action in conversion had already run at the time of Princess Stroganoff-Scherbatoff's death in 1944.

Fort Worth's Arlington Heights

Where Max Clark finished high school in 1930

Max Edward Clark

Max Edward Clark was born in Indiana in 1914. His family began moving south, following the oil strikes, shortly before Roberta, the youngest Clark, was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in December 1920, and the family arrived in Fort Worth, Texas in 1927. Their address in 1928 was 5233 Byers Avenue in the heart of Arlington Heights in Fort Worth--a newly constructed home in an affluent new neighborhood--placing the Clark children in the Arlington Heights schools. The high school at that time was located at 2100 Clover Lane, which is now known as W.C. Stripling Middle School‎. Both Max and younger sister Wilda graduated from high school in 1930 and entered college in Fort Worth--Texas Christian University, about five miles southeast of their home, crossing Camp Bowie and W. Vickery Boulevards.

Early TCU campus, aided by widow of Burk Burnett

The father, Isaac Edward Clark, was an oil operator in Fort Worth, president of his own company called Clarco Oil and Refining Co., which in the late 1920's was one of about six tenants officing on the fifth floor of the Mrs. Dan Waggoner Building at 206 W. 6th Avenue (Sixth at Houston Street).  Clarco followed the rest of the oil industry to wherever the most recent discoveries were made, and it was operating around Abilene, Texas in the 1930's. It went into receivership in 1938, and the receiver started selling off assets to pay debts. The Clark oil operations that remained shared Room 514 with Shaw Audit Company for at least a couple of years after the death of Isaac E. Clark. Max Clark, attorney, and Isaac Clark, oil operator, showed up as a tenant of Room 515 in 1942 while attorneys Richard D. Walker and Maurice Short had Rooms 513-15, and all shared the same telephone number.

A Personnel Security Questionnaire on Max Clark indicates that he was using Room 516 of Dan Waggoner Bldg. in late 1946 as an office while he worked on a temporary basis for the Office of Price Control, shortly after his return from WWII. The Fort Worth city directory shows both the law office and oil operations in that space in 1947 and later. He did not report on the questionnaire that he had filed in 1948 to run for judge in the Court of Criminal Appeals, Second Judicial District, but withdrew in the middle of June. He listed as references attorney Baylor B. Brown, 614 Dan Waggoner Building, and Wayne Weldon, attorney, in Room 713 of the same building.

One block over, at 810 Houston Street, was the other, newer W. T. Waggoner Building which began construction in 1919.

Max enlisted in the Army in March 1941 and was not officially out of the Army until 1950, according to the Biographical Data sheet prepared in 1955 in his FBI file, continuing with the Air Force Reserve as a Major until 1955. While in the military, he had traveled to Morocco, Tunisia, Italy, Sicily, France and Germany, meeting his Russian wife while he was in Europe. 

In April 1946 Max Clark's name appeared on a military transport manifest of soldiers who sailed from Camp Philip Morris near Le Havre with the 1260th Engineer Combat Battalion. This camp was one of the many "cigarette camps" through which millions of American soldiers passed. His rank was shown as Tec 4, with an MOS of 776 (radio operator), an apparent conflict with the rank of Major shown on the above personnel sheet. His departure point was almost 700 miles away from where his future wife's White Russian family had settled after fleeing the Bolshevik armies, and where her father, Prince Michel Scherbatoff lived when his wife, Princess Gali, died in 1964--23 Boulevard Gambetta, Nice Alpes Maritimes, France.

Max testified he had made a subsequent trip to France to visit his wife's relatives, but immigration records reflect they again sailed from Le Havre, rather than from the south coast of France--on the French liner, S.S. De Grasse, October 7, 1947 with a passport issued to Gali Clark in Philadelphia in July that same year.

One mile away, northeast along Crestline Road, from where Clark lived during his teen years was the River Crest Country Club where, it is entirely possible, the Clark children may have known members of the Phillips family. Max Clark's siblings were:

•  Wilda E. (born 1915, married Robert J. Ruble, who later became assistant chief airway operations specialist with the CAA), which at that time was located north of the city near Meacham Airport;
• Rex Edward (born 1918, married Flora Jane Estes, whose father John O. Estes managed a cotton company); and
• Roberta D. (born 1921, who married Daniel Maurice Short.

Robert J. Ruble worked at the same location as Birge Davis Alexander, the brother-in-law of then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. Alexander was the plant engineer at the CAA in 1956.