The Heartbreaking Story Behind The Infamous ‘4 Children For Sale’ Photograph

This image captured from 20th-century America will always be remembered as one of the most haunting images of the past. The distressing image shows a young mother who hides her face in shame while her four beautiful kids are sitting huddled together, with confusion over their innocent faces.

At the forefront of the photo, in large, bold letters, a sign reads, “4 Children For Sale, Inquire Within.”

Unfortunately, the photo — whether staged or not — depicts an entirely serious situation. It first appeared in the Vidette-Messenger, a local paper based in Valparaiso, Indiana, on Aug. 5, 1948. The children really were up for sale by their parents, and were purchased by other families.

Years later after the image was taken, the children for sale share their stories.

The heartbreaking reason behind the painful picture taken

When the image first appeared in the Vidette-Messenger, it was accompanied by the following caption:

“A big ‘For Sale’ sign in a Chicago yard mutely tells the tragic story of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Chalifoux, who face eviction from their apartment. With no place to turn, the jobless coal truck driver and his wife decide to sell their four children. Mrs. Lucille Chalifoux turns her head from the camera above while her children stare wonderingly. On the top step are Lana, 6, and Rae, 5. Below are Milton, 4, and Sue Ellen, 2.”

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According to The Times of Northwest Indiana, it’s unclear how long the sign remained in the yard. It could have stood there just long enough for the photo’s shutter to snap, or it could have remained for years.

Some family members accused Lucille Chalifoux of accepting money to stage the photo, but that claim was never confirmed. In any case, the “4 children for sale” did ultimately find themselves in different homes.

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The photo was eventually republished in papers all over the country, and a few days later the Chicago Heights Star reported that a woman in Chicago Heights offered to open her home to the children, and apparently job offers and offers of financial support made their way to the Chalifouxes.

Tragically, this help was not enough and two years after the image was taken, all the children including the one with whom Lucille was pregnant in the photo — were gone.

The question is now what happened to the Chalifoux children after the photograph?

The youngest of the kid in the picture, David was adopted by kind but strict parents

According to the New York Post, the Chalifoux children’s father, Ray, abandoned the family when they were young, and was unable to return home due to his criminal record.

Lucille Chalifoux accepted governmental assistance and gave birth to the couple’s fifth child, David, in 1949, according to the website Creating a Family. But only a year after his birth, David was removed from his family home or relinquished just like his other siblings. 

The little one was adopted by Harry and Luella McDaniel legally, who officially had custody of him in July 1950, and his condition reflected that the Chalifoux home had not been a good one.

“I had bed bug bites all over my body,” he said, according to the New York Post. “I guess it was a pretty bad environment.”

McDaniel's life got some stability finally, even though it was strict. The man described himself as a rebellious teenager who ran away from home at 16 before spending 20 years in the military.

After that, he spent his life working as a truck driver.

He also grew up only a few miles away from his biological siblings, RaeAnn Mills and Milton Chalifoux. He even visited them on several occasions, but their lives were far worse than his. 

RaeAnn And Milton Were Chained Up In The Barn And Treated As Slaves

RaeAnn Mills shared that her biological mother sold her for $2, just so she could have bingo money and this money was provided to her by a couple by the names of John and Ruth Zoeteman.

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They originally intended only to purchase RaeAnn, but they noticed Milton crying nearby and decided to take him too. Evidently, they regarded the children more as purchased property than human beings.

“There’s a lot of things in my childhood I can’t remember,” Milton Chalifoux said.

The Zoetemans changed Milton’s name to Kenneth David Zoeteman.

On his first day in their home, John Zoeteman tied him up and beat him before telling the young boy that he was expected to serve as a slave on the family’s farm.

“I said I’d go along with that,” Milton said. “I didn’t know what a slave was. I was only a kid.”

Ruth Zoeteman, however, cleaned him off after the abuse. She told him she loved him, and that from then on he would “be [her] little boy.”

The Zoetemans changed RaeAnn’s name too, calling her Beverly Zoeteman. She described the couple’s home as abusive and loveless.

“They used to chain us up all the time,” she said. “When I was a little child, we were field workers.”

Mills’ son, Lance Gray, describes his mother's life as a horror movie. She lived a life where not only her childhood was abusive, but in her teenage years, she was kidnapped, raped, and impregnated.

Despite all of this, however, she grew into a compassionate and loving mother.

“They don’t make ’em like her no more,” her son said. “Tough as nails.”

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As the website Rare Historical Photos reported, the abuse inflicted on Milton often manifested as violent rage when he entered his teen years.

At one point, he was brought before a judge and deemed a “menace to society.” He was then given the option between being sent to a mental hospital or a reformatory — he opted to go to the mental hospital.

After being diagnosed with schizophrenia, he eventually left the hospital in 1967, got married, and moved from Chicago to Arizona with his wife.

The children from the image reunited to reflect on their painful past

While Milton and RaeAnn have reconnected as adults, the same could not be said for their sister Lana, who died of cancer in 1998.

They did, however, get to speak for a short while with Sue Ellen and found out that she grew up not far from their original home, in Chicago’s East Side.

By the time all the siblings reunited as adults in 2013, their sister Sue Ellen was in the late stages of lung disease and found it difficult to speak.

Fortunately, she was able to scribble responses to an interview on paper. When asked how it felt to be reunited with RaeAnn, she wrote, “It’s fabulous. I love her.”

And as for her opinion of her birth mother, she wrote, “She needs to be in hell burning.”