Air mail envelope, 6.5x 4.25, hand-addressed by Oswald to his mother, “USA, Box 982, Vernon, Texas, Mrs. M. Oswald,” with Oswald adding his return address, in Russian, to the lower left, “Minsk, 4/ Kalnina St. Apt. 24, Oswald L. H.” Reverse bears a November 18, 1961, Vernon, Texas postmark. Envelope has been sealed in protective plastic. In very good condition, with torn top edge and scattered creasing and wrinkling.
After defecting to the Soviet Union in 1959, Oswald was sent to work as a lathe operator in Minsk. There he met Marina Nikolayevna Pruskova, whom he married in 1961. When he wrote this letter to his mother Marguerite Oswald in November 1961, Oswald had tired of Soviet working-class life. Earlier that year, he wrote in his diary: “The work is drab, the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No nightclubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have had enough." Oswald would return to the United States with his wife and infant daughter in the spring of 1962. A scarce envelope sent nearly two years to the day before the JFK assassination. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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