The sad story behind the ‘Children for Sale’ photo from the 1940s.

Back in the late 1940s, a really sad picture was in newspapers all over the U.S. It showed four kids being sold. A woman named Lucille Chalifoux and her husband, Ray, were struggling because they didn’t have jobs and were about to be kicked out of their home. They felt like they had no choice. But there might be more to this story than people knew at the time. Later on, the kids got the chance to share what really happened to them.

Children for Sale

On August 5, 1948, there was an ad in the Vidette-Messenger in Valparaiso, Indiana. It showed a sad-looking mother with her head in her hands, and her four kids sat on the steps behind her. There was a sign that said: “4 children for sale. Ask inside.” This ad got into newspapers all over the U.S., like in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Texas, and some other states too.

Image Credit: The Vidette-Messenger / Rare Historical Photos

The kids for sale were Lana, 6, and Rae, 5, sitting on the top step. Their brother Milton, 4, was on the lower step with their sister Sue Ellen, 2. Lucille was expecting another baby, who would also be given away. Many of the kids don’t remember much about their mom or the photo. But some of them met Lucille later and found out that she might not have had to sell them. Each kid has their own interesting and sometimes hard story, which they’ve shared with each other. Sadly, Lana died in 1998 from cancer.

Getting to Know the Children for Sale

They’ve also reached out to Lana’s family to try and learn more about their older sister’s life. It’s sad they couldn’t reconnect with their other sister, Rae, but Rae and Milton got to spend time together over the years. Although it’s not clear if they were bought or adopted, Rae and Milton went to live with John and Ruth Zoeteman in DeMotte, Indiana. Rae said Lucille sold her for $2, supposedly so she could have money for bingo because her partner didn’t want her kids. That’s why she put them up for sale.

Source: The Vidette-Messenger / Newspaper Archive / Public Domain

Rae and Milton’s names were changed to Beverly and Kenneth, and they lived together for some years. Then Rae was sent to a home in Michigan for unmarried mothers after being raped and getting pregnant. Her daughter was taken away and adopted. The home they grew up in was “loveless” and “abusive.” Rae said the only time she felt anything from the man who raised her was when he was dying. “They used to chain us up a lot,” she said. “When I was little, we worked in fields.” When she was 21, she briefly reunited with Lucille but felt no love from her.

Reconnecting with the Children for Sale

Years later, she had a son named Lance Gray, who played a big part in helping her find her siblings on social media. He said, “They don’t make people like her anymore. She’s tough.” She got the photo of the kids for sale from Milton. She said, “My brother in Tucson somehow sent it to my email. I saw it and thought, ‘Wow. That’s me.'”

Milton

On the other hand, Milton had his own tough journey that led him to Tucson. He said, “There are a lot of things from my childhood that I can’t remember.” On his first day with his new parents, they beat him, tied him up, and said he would be their slave. “I agreed because I didn’t know what a slave was. I was just a kid,” he said. Milton kept being treated badly; he was locked in a barn and only given peanut butter and milk to eat. One day, he asked why they treated him like that, and he was told it was to “keep him in line.” “If you’re scared, you’ll do what I say,” John told him. Eventually, he went to live with his aunt and uncle. He went to high school and helped with an egg delivery business.

Later, Milton started living with his friend’s family. He realized that his adoptive parents were actually foster parents. “I thought I was adopted,” he said. “I don’t know how they got away with it.” He had some problems and ended up in a mental hospital, where doctors said he had schizophrenia. He left the hospital in 1967 and moved to Chicago, then later settled in Tucson. “My in-laws gave us $500, and we moved to Arizona,” he said.

The Zoetemans. RaeAnne is on the far left, and Milton is on the far right. Image Credit: Public Domain

Meeting Lucille

Like his sister, Milton also met their birth mother many years after she put them up for sale. In 1970, he stayed with her for a month. But he got into a fight with her husband, and the husband got arrested. So, Lucille kicked Milton out. “My birth mother never loved me,” he said. “She never said sorry for selling me. She hated me so much that she didn’t care.”

Sue Ellen

Sue Ellen didn’t have any official papers about her adoption, but she thought she was adopted in a proper way by a couple named Johnson. Unfortunately, she died from lung disease in 2013, but she got to see Rae again before that. “It’s great. I love her,” Sue Ellen wrote about her sister. On the other hand, she had harsh words for their biological mom, saying, “She deserves to be in hell burning.”

The Youngest to Go

Their youngest brother, David, who was born as Bedford Chalifoux, wasn’t one of the kids for sale. Instead, he was taken from his mom and given to the McDaniels because they couldn’t have kids of their own. “I had bed bug bites all over me,” he said. “It was a really bad situation.” His adoption papers say that his dad left them, and he couldn’t go back home because he had a criminal record in Cook County, Illinois.

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