Sold on a Monday

by Kristina McMorris

For the characters in this story, their journey started with a picture—and the same can aptly be said of my endeavor to write this book. When I first stumbled upon an old newspaper photo of four young siblings huddled on the steps of an apartment building in Chicago, their mother shielding her face from the camera, the sign in the foreground stunned me. The image had first appeared in the Vidette-Messenger of Valparaiso, Indiana, in 1948 and, in a brief caption, claimed to exhibit the desperation of the Chalifoux family. The picture troubled me so much that I bookmarked the page on my computer. (One of many odd compulsions that differentiate historical fiction writers from normal people.) As a mom myself, I kept wondering what could have possibly pushed their mother, or both parents, to that point. In the direst of times, I could fathom perhaps having to give up my children for the sake of their well-being. But why on earth ask for money in return? Over breakfast with a writers’ group, I stated that very question, meant rhetorically, yet my friend Maggie answered without missing a beat: “Because they wanted to eat.”