Last year, I spoke to John E. Fleming. He wrote a memoir about his service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa during the 1960s. This was his only appearance on the program. Fleming died in September.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald fired his rifle from his perch in the building that housed the Texas School Book Depository. Before he shot JFK, Oswald had concealed his rifle in the garage at the home of Ruth Paine, a friend of Oswald's wife, Marina. When the Warren Commission investigated the shooting, they ended up gathering more testimony from Ruth Paine than any other witness. In 2002, Thomas Mallon published a book about Ruth Paine's unlikely connection with the Oswalds and how it occurred. It was Ruth Paine who told Oswald he might be able to get hired at the book depository. He got the job. The rest of the story is a tragic bit of history. Ruth Paine died recently. She was a 1955 graduate of Antioch College. In 2020, this book was reissued with a very different cover. It had this photo of Ruth Paine in front of her garage. A haunting photo.
The Book Nook airs Saturdays at 7 a.m. and Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO 91.3 FM and streams at WYSO.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book Nook on WYSO is presented by the Greene County Public Library with additional support from Washington-Centerville Public Library, Clark County Public Library, Dayton Metro Library, Wright Memorial Public Library, and Tipp City Public Library.
