Children 4 Sale
The image shows a scene that can only be described as heartbreaking. This picture, taken in 1948 in a poor neighborhood of Chicago, shows a group of four children being put up for sale by their own mother. Not only those four, but also the child the mother was currently carrying would be sold off when it was born.
This horrible decision to sell her own flesh and blood offspring came because the family was facing eviction. This caused Mr. and Mrs. Chalifoux, as the parents were titled, to attempt to give their kids a better future by allowing them to go to a different family altogether. The children would go through absolutely traumatic lives because of this. The eldest daughter, Lana was adopted by a family that treated her alright, making her one of the luckiest of the siblings. The next in line, Rae’s life was a whole different story. She and the eldest son, Milton, were sold to a farming family that would keep them as forced laborers. The two were regularly beaten and starved to near death. Rae was raped at the age of 17, resulting in a pregnancy that would allow her to leave her abusers and try to start a family elsewhere.
Milton grew into a respectable businessman despite his harsh treatment, but understandably remains bitter about his adoptive and birth families both. David the son who was unborn at the time of the picture would be adopted by strict but loving parents and would live a happy life. Sue Ellen, the youngest girl in the picture would also grow up in an abusive family and would grow up hating her birth mother with a passion. Words cannot express the tragedy that this family had to endure.