How much self-esteem would you have if you were sold for $2?
If you misbehaved as a child, your mother might have said she would sell you. But deep inside, you knew this wouldn’t happen. However, not all children were as lucky as you.
The above photo was taken in 1948 in Chicago, United States. It shows four siblings and their mother at the entrance to their house. In front of them is a gigantic sign saying: “4 children for sale-Inquire within.”
Was this photo a joke, a fake, or real?
How extreme poverty tore apart the Chalifoux family
As it happens, the photo was real and the children were indeed on sale. Their parents, Ray (forty) and Lucille (twenty-four) Chalifoux were both unemployed and poverty-stricken. They were facing eviction from their apartment for not paying the rent.
It’s possible that the sign “4 children for sale” was just a cry for help. Once the newspapers around the country published the story, help actually came in form of job offers, apartments, and money.
Nobody really knows what happened in the following two years. However, in 1950, father Ray left and the family fell apart.
Mother Lucille began dating a man who didn’t want to do anything with the children, therefore she gave them away.
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