In this tragic picture, the four children are seen on display on their front stoop as their mother hides her face from the photojournalist. The woman, Lucille Chalifoux, was only 24 years old, but pregnant with her fifth child at the time. Lucille and her husband Ray, age 40, were facing eviction from their apartment at the time. Ray had lost his job as a coal truck driver. Faced with the prospect of being homeless – and the daunting task of feeding so many mouths – they chose to auction off their own children.
Within two years, all four of the children pictured, as well as the child she was carrying, were sold off or given to other homes
Seven-Year-Old RaeAnn Was Sold For $2
In the middle of the process of being purchased for $2, RuthAnn recalls that her younger brother Milton was crying so hard that the couple paying for her decided to take him as well. RuthAnn remembers the situation not so much as her mother trying to take care of the children but as her needing money for superficial pleasures. The couple who paid $2 for a 7-year-old girl was John And Ruth Zoeteman, farmers who ended up using their “adopted” kids as forced labor.
There is no evidence that they paid additional cash for Milton, or how much it would have been.
Two of the children, RaeAnn and Milton, were sold to farmers John and Ruth Zoeteman for $2. The Zoetemans changed their names to Beverly and Kenneth and took them back to their farm. On the farm, the two children were reportedly regularly chained up in the barn. They were bought for the purpose of working on the farm and were forced to slave away for long hours. Milton even recalls his new “father” calling him a slave.
The youngest child, David, whose birth name was Bedford Chalifoux, was given away at two years of age. When his adoptive family, the McDaniels, received him, he had bed bug bites all over his body. They raised him in a strictly religious fashion, but their proximity to his siblings RaeAnn and Milton allowed him to visit them at the farm on which they lived. He remembers untying them in the barn.
Years later, David reunited with his birth mother. Upon seeing him, she told him he looked just like his father but offered no apologies. He also met the four daughters she had during a later marriage: children which she kept.
The Chalifoux children were scattered when they were sold at such a young age, but social media allowed a few of them to find each other much later in life. Sue Ellen Chalifoux was able to meet her sister RaeAnn in 2013. This was especially meaningful as Sue Ellen was suffering from fatal lung disease. 70-year-old RaeAnn had not seen her 67-year-old sister Sue Ellen for the first time since they were seven and four years old, respectively.
David, RaeAnn, and Milton were planning a reunion that same year. Their eldest sister, Lana, died from cancer in 1998, but they are using social media to connect with her family and learn more about her life.
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