Ruth Hyde Paine, the Santa Rosa woman whose suburban Texas garage became an unwitting hiding place for Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, died Sunday night. She was 92, just three days shy of her birthday.
Paine died about 5:40 p.m. of natural causes following a five-day coma while in hospice care at Friends House, the Santa Rosa retirement community where she had lived since 2006, her son Chris Pynam told The Press Democrat.
“She was very ready to go,” said Pynam, 64, adding that his mother was a pacifist and a believer in reincarnation. “She was a model for me in ethical living.”
Born in New York City in 1932, Paine was a Quaker, a civil rights advocate and an educator. In 1957, she married Michael Ralph Paine, who fathered her two children. They divorced shortly before she left Texas; Michael Paine died in 2018.
In the early 1960s, as a young mother in Irving, Texas, she befriended Marina Oswald, the Russian-born wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, and welcomed Marina and her children into her home.
Paine met Marina at a local social gathering, where her limited English and Paine’s self-taught Russian — part of her effort to bridge Cold War divides — helped spark a connection. The two bonded as new mothers seeking companionship, Paine’s daughter Tamarin Laurel-Paine said.
“They had that sort of phase-of-life thing in common,” said Laurel-Paine, 65.
Oswald himself never lived in the Irving home, but he kept the rifle he later used to kill Kennedy hidden in Paine’s garage, retrieving it the night before the Nov. 22, 1963, shooting, according to the Warren Commission, tasked with investigating the assassination.
Paine spent much of her life reckoning with the notoriety that followed. She appeared in countless interviews, books, articles and documentaries, speaking openly about what she knew of the Oswalds and the circumstances that thrust her into history.
She and her children remained in Texas for about seven more years after the assassination. She taught using Montessori, or child-centered, methods and helped establish a school in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Pynam said.
After leaving Texas, Ruth Paine moved to Philadelphia, where she served as principal of a Quaker school. Eventually, Paine decided to take her children out of school for a year — partially because of Laurel-Paine’s intense allergies — and sail from the Chesapeake Bay to St. Petersburg, Florida. Pynam said the experience shaped him deeply.
“That was very special for me because it showed me I have skills and competence,” he recalled. “She was quite bold.”
“I guess she was quite the renegade even though she probably didn’t think of herself that way,” Laurel-Paine said.
Paine eventually became a child psychologist working in schools in Florida’s panhandle, said her romantic partner of about 20 years, Fabbian Dufoe III.
“She was an honest, caring person,” Dufoe said.
Conspiracy theories long swirled around the assassination, some implicating Paine herself. One suggested she was a CIA operative who had set up Oswald, which her son called “absolutely absurd.” Many also challenged the Warren Commission’s conclusion, which Paine maintained until her final days: that Oswald acted alone.
Pynam traveled with his mother to Dallas in 2023 for the 60th anniversary of the assassination. They got to visit their former Irving home, which was converted in 2013 to a multimedia museum that essentially restored the home to its 1963 glory.
During an anniversary event, Pynam said Paine was “sharp” in her presentation, adding that his mother was dedicated to sharing her role in a moment that shaped history.
“I’m proud of her clarity and dedication to the truth,” he said.
Retired Press Democrat reporter Chris Smith, who interviewed Paine several times throughout the years, said she seemed to have good reason to believe that Oswald “was a deeply troubled man who acted alone in the assassination of an American president.”
“Paine knew that she was swimming against the tide as she fought against the many conspiracy theories,” Smith said, “but she believed she knew the truth and she spent her life simply speaking it.”
Committed to her Quaker beliefs, Paine also repeatedly tried to avoid paying taxes tied to military spending, which led to frequent audits, Dufoe said.
Her son described her as someone who sought peace, fairness and “unconditional acceptance” throughout her life. Some of her hobbies included singing, dancing and watching David Attenborough documentaries.
Paine is survived by Pynam and Laurel-Paine. Friends and family said she lived with a steadfast commitment to peace, fairness and truth, even as history cast her in one of its darkest chapters.
This is breaking news and will be updated.
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