JM: Yes, here she is in the 1880 census. She was 13 years old, living in Eastport with her father, William and mother, Lucretia, and some brothers and sisters.

George: That sounds right.

JM: In the 1910 census, in Eastport, there's William J. Hamilton, wife Susan, Raymond, George, Irena and Byron. Also living with them is Susan Hamilton, your great-grandmother. She's 75.

George: Irena? Her name was Irma. And William's middle name was James.

JM: In the 1920 census, they are still in Eastport. Byron is the only child in the home. In the 1930 census, here's your father, George, living in Medfield, Massachusetts. He's 30 years old. Also listed is your mother, Catherine, daughter Phyllis, and Catherine's parents. I also found William James Hamilton living with wife Susan, and son Byron, in Medfield.

Cecilia: William was born in 1866 and died in 1946. His father, James, was born in New Brunswick.

JM: When were you born, George?

George: 1932, in Framingham, Massachusetts.

JM: How long did you know your Uncle Byron?

George: I knew him when I was a child, so I guess I must have known him for over 50 years.

JM: Where was Byron living when you were growing up?

George: He was living in Medfield.

JM: What did he do for a living?

George: He was a stationary fireman or engineer (operates and maintains boilers and other heating equipment). Then he was in the service. I think he was in White Sands, New Mexico, where they tested atomic energy. I think he also went to Hawaii. I don't know what he did in his later years.

JM: Did you have a close relationship with him?

George: I saw him quite a bit.

JM: When did your parents leave Maine and come to Massachusetts?

George: I haven't the slightest idea.

JM: Why did your family move to Massachusetts?

George: There wasn't any work in Eastport, so they started migrating south. They worked in the mills around Lowell and Haverhill. And then they moved to places like Medfield and Norwood, wherever they could find work. My father, George, was also a stationary fireman. Uncle Ray was in Norwood, but I don't remember what he did. Irma was a homemaker.

JM: Did Byron go to college?

George: No, but he was extremely brilliant. If he had had money, he certainly would have gone to college. He liked to quote poetry and the classics.

JM: Did he tell you he worked at the sardine cannery when he was a child?

George: No, but I knew my family was doing that in Eastport.

JM: Did they ever talk about it?

George: Not much.

JM: What was Byron like?

George: He was very outgoing and had a number of friends.

JM: How tall was he?

George: Maybe 5' 8".

JM: It looks like he married Thelma kind of late in life.

George: Yes, he did. They didn't have any children. She had been married before.

JM: I found out that Byron and Thelma lived at a retirement home in Norfolk in their last years. I called the home and talked to the social worker. She had been working there about 20 years. I asked her if she remembered them, and she said she did. I asked her what she remembered about Byron, and she said, ‘Not much. He sort of kept to himself. But I do remember that he loved to read poetry.'

Cecilia: He lived on the second floor of the retirement home, and after his wife died, he used to clean the staircases and the halls. It gave him something to do. He used to go to his sister's house and work like a dog doing everything and anything. Whatever it was, he could handle it. One time, he came up here and raked leaves for maybe half the morning. He was always busy, busy, busy.

JM: The Hine photo shows that he cut his finger badly. Did you ever notice any evidence of an injured finger?

George: No, and he never mentioned it.

JM: When did your father die?

Cecilia: My husband's father died around 1954, in Medfield.

JM: When did your mother die?

Cecilia: My husband's mother died August 7, 1990, in Norwood. She was 90.

JM: How did you wind up living in Lenox (Massachusetts)?

George: When I graduated from Boston University, I didn't have a job. I had some background in nature and environmentalism. So I looked for a job that had something to do with that. I looked up the Audubon Society office in Boston, and they had a job opening at the Pleasant Valley Sanctuary in Lenox. So that's how we arrived here.

JM: Your father worked in factory jobs, and you wound up going to a very highly rated university. How did that happen?

George: I came from a poor family. You can tell by the pictures. Fortunately, I went into the service. That was in 1951. Through that, I managed to get the GI Bill, which helped quite a bit with the tuition. And I worked part time as a tree climber.

JM: What motivated you to go to Boston University?

George: My sister suggested Boston University. They were very amenable to giving preference to soldiers who had the GI Bill. I majored in liberal arts.

JM: Were you the first person in your family to go to college?

George: No, my sister went first, to Framingham State.

JM: Hine's purpose was to expose child labor in order to get laws to prohibit it. Do you think your family was a good example of bad child labor conditions?

George: Well, it was a typical occupation for people in that area then. The pay was mediocre. It's still like Appalachia up there. We go up there every year, and we frequent the church on the Indian reservation. I asked one of the Indians why there were so many of them that had a military background. He said that's because there wasn't much work there, so one of the things they could do was join the service.

JM: Hine took a lot of pictures of kids who cut fish with big knives. They seemed to be awfully young to be doing that.

George: The knives weren't that big.

JM: But they were sharp.

George: They did use sharp knives back then. Have you heard the term, ‘herring choker?' They grab the fish, they cut off the head, they cut off the tail, and put it in a can that's sealed with lead. That's how they got the name ‘herring chokers.' People from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick did that kind of work. You hear people say, ‘He was a Nova Scotian, herring choking so and so.'