Although it’s been 54 years, and held under a microscope in every which way possible, the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy has held the attention of Americans as well as people worldwide. In every manner imaginable, the revealing of new perspectives on the event continues to happen. A great example of this was the opening of the Ruth Paine House Museum in Irving, Texas in 2013.
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Irving’s Ruth Paine House Museum Provides a Different Perspective on JFK Assassination
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Photo: Facebook/David Shaw
Recognized as the residence where Lee Harvey Oswald stayed the night before the assassination, the City of Irving purchased the home at 2515 W. 5th Street in 2009. Ruth Paine was a suburban housewife who lived in the home in 1963 and had allowed Oswald’s wife, Marina, to reside there with her two daughters. Restored to its 1963 appearance, the city opened the museum in the year of the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death.
Photo: Facebook/City of Irving, Texas – City Hall
With multimedia exhibits concerning the time period, furnishings to outfit the home in a similar if not almost exact fashion as the era and Ruth Paine’s budget dictated, and projected vignettes in which actors play Ruth and Michael Paine together with Marina and Lee Harvey Oswald, tours actually begin on the third floor of the Irving Central Library at the Ruth Paine House Museum Visitors Center, and then visitors are escorted by van to the Paine house.
Photo: Facebook/NBC DFW
Through the generous cooperation of Ruth Paine herself, the use of family and Warren Commission photos, as well as other available period material, the 1,250-square-foot home is a veritable time capsule of 1963, giving visitors a look back in time as one of many John F. Kennedy-related sites in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The museum gives everyone another touch-point from which the perspective of this historic moment in time can again be analyzed, including the old-fashioned TV set which plays rare 1960’s media coverage of President Kennedy’s Dallas visit to the replica of the couch on which Ruth Paine was interviewed by a myriad of journalists. The Ruth Paine House Museum is an interesting lens through which to gain a different viewpoint.
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