\nOn August 5, 1948, an advertisement was published in the Vidette-Messenger in Valparaiso, Indiana, featuring a distressed mother with her back turned, her head in her hands. Her four young children sat on the steps behind her, next to a sign that read: \u201c4 children for sale. Inquire within.\u201d This ad soon appeared in newspapers across the U.S., from New York and Pennsylvania to Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Texas, and several other states.\n
![\"\"](%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/viralstrange.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2024%5C/07%5C/IMG_8837-520x486.jpeg%5C%22 "\\"\\"")
\nThe children were Lana, aged 6, Rae, aged 5, four-year-old Milton, and two-year-old Sue Ellen. Lucille was pregnant with her fifth child, who would also be given away. Many of the children had little memory of their birth mother or the photo being taken. Some would meet Lucille later in life and discover that her decision might not have been out of necessity. Each child has a unique and compelling, albeit tumultuous, story to share, except for Lana, who died of cancer in 1998.\n
Getting to Know the Children for Sale Reconnecting with the Children for Sale Milton Milton was later placed in the care of his friend\u2019s family and discovered that his adoptive parents were actually foster parents. \u201cI thought I had been adopted,\u201d he said. He ended up in a mental hospital, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and moved to Chicago before settling in Tucson. \u201cMy in-laws gave us $500, and we moved to Arizona,\u201d he said.\n Meeting Lucille Sue Ellen The Youngest to Go \u201cWe\u2019re all human beings. We all make mistakes. She could\u2019ve been thinking about the children. Didn\u2019t want them to die,\u201d he concluded.\n The image of the children for sale is profoundly\u00a0disturbing\u00a0because it was believed to be due to economic hardship. While that may still hold some truth, the siblings\u2019 stories reveal that their mother had ulterior motives, challenging the perception of loving motherhood.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lucille Chalifoux and her husband, Ray, were struggling with unemployment and the threat of eviction, seemingly leaving them with no other option. However, the reality might have been different from what the public perceived. Eventually, the children had the chance to share their own\u00a0stories. Children for Sale On August 5, 1948, an advertisement was published …\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":84984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84986,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84983\/revisions\/84986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echowoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAlthough they never reconnected with Lana, Rae, and Milton were able to spend time together throughout their lives. There is no clear evidence of the children being bought or adopted, but Rae and Milton were taken in by John and Ruth Zoeteman in DeMotte, Indiana. According to Rae, Lucille sold her for $2 to have bingo money because the man she was involved with didn\u2019t want her children.\n![\"\"](%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/viralstrange.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2024%5C/07%5C/IMG_8840-408x486.jpeg%5C%22 "\\"\\"")
\nYears later, Rae\u2019s son, Lance Gray, helped her reconnect with her siblings via social media. \u201cThey don\u2019t make \u2019em like her no more,\u201d he said of his mother. The photo showing the children for sale was sent to her by Milton. \u201cMy brother in Tucson somehow sent it to my e-mail,\u201d she said. \u201cI got on there and said, \u2018Good God. That\u2019s me.\u2019\u201d\n
\nMilton ended up in Tucson after a difficult\u00a0journey. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things in my childhood I can\u2019t remember,\u201d he said. His first day with his adoptive parents, he was beaten, tied up, and told he would be a slave. \u201cI said I\u2019d go along with that,\u201d he shared. Milton endured mistreatment, being locked in a barn and given only peanut butter and milk. He was told to \u201ckeep him in line\u201d and make him fearful. Eventually, he went to live with an aunt and uncle, attended high school, and helped with an egg delivery business.\n![\"\"](%5C%22https:%5C/%5C/viralstrange.com%5C/wp-content%5C/uploads%5C/2024%5C/07%5C/IMG_8841-728x470.jpeg%5C%22 "\\"\\"")
\nMilton also met his birth mother long after she put her children for sale. In 1970, he stayed with her for a month but was thrown out after a fight with her husband. \u201cMy birth mother, she never did love me,\u201d he said. \u201cShe didn\u2019t apologize for selling me. She hated me so much that she didn\u2019t care.\u201d\n
\nSue Ellen believed she had been adopted \u201clegitimately\u201d by a couple named Johnson. She died from lung disease in 2013 but not before reuniting with Rae. \u201cIt\u2019s fabulous. I love her,\u201d Sue Ellen wrote of her sister. Conversely, she wrote, \u201cShe needs to be in hell burning,\u201d about her biological mom.\n
\nTheir youngest brother, David, born Bedford Chalifoux, was not one of the children for sale. He was taken from his mother and placed with the McDaniels, who couldn\u2019t have children. \u201cI had bed bug bites all over my body,\u201d he said, describing his poor living conditions. His adoption records state that his biological father had left and didn\u2019t return home due to a criminal record. David grew up near Rae and Milton and occasionally visited them, witnessing their abuse. David met his birth mother and noted she had remarried and kept her subsequent children. \u201cAs soon as my mom seen me, she said, \u2018You look just like your father,\u2019\u201d he recalled. \u201cShe never apologized. Back then, it was survival. Who are we to judge?\u201d\n