Edited interview with Billia Campbell Moore, daughter of Nell Hazel. Interview conducted by Joe Manning (JM) on November 26, 2007.

JM: How are you related to the persons in the photos?

Moore: My mother is the tall girl standing in front of the barn. Her name was Nell Gertrude Hazel. Her parents, James and Angie, owned their small farm. When they died, they left it to Ruth, who was the baby. In the picture, my grandmother is holding Ruth in her arms. Ruth married Shelby Smith. She moved to Detroit after they got married. He worked for a construction company, but he travelled a lot. She was manager of a Cunningham's Drug Store for many years. They had one child, Ricky. She married again, to O. P. Williams. She died in Bowling Green in 1992, when she was 75.

Moore: Joseph Clifford Campbell. My mother was 32 then. He already had five boys from a previous marriage. They had been in the Potter Home, an orphanage in Bowling Green. My mother raised them along with me and my brother.

JM: Is your brother still living?

Moore: Yes. His name is Marvin Eugene Campbell. He lives in Bowling Green. I'm 75, and he is 77.

JM: Did your mother work during her adult life?

BC: She worked at the Potter Home. She was a matron and took care of the boys' floor. She started working there when she was in her late thirties. My father was a farmer at the home. We lived there on the property, in a two-story house. It was a beautiful house, and we just loved it there.

JM: Did you live there all of your childhood?

BC: No. My dad took sick and could no longer work there. So we moved to town, where my mother went to work in a grocery, and did that for many years. My dad died when I was 15 years old. He was in his sixties. He had emphysema.

JM: Your mother looks very tall in the photo. How tall was she when she grew up?

Moore: She was six foot tall. She was a lovely lady, tall and thin.

JM: What was your mother like?

Moore: She was very patient. She never lost her temper, and would never argue about anything.

JM: When did she die?

Moore: She died in 1975, in Bowling Green.

JM: Did you know about this photo before I sent it to you?

Moore: None of the family did. When I saw it, I cried, because it looks like they were just poor dirt farmers. But they were not as poor as the picture seems to show. I loved the picture. It was a piece of their lives, but I was shocked to see my mother looking so worn. But every day was a hard day's work for them. As a rule, in those days, people would put on their good clothes when their picture was taken.

JM: Hine's mission was to help create support for laws that would give more opportunities to children, and make their lives better.

Moore: My mother did not get the education she needed. But she was self-educated. She was a wonderful seamstress. She could make stitches almost like a sewing machine. She made all of our clothes.

JM: In the caption, Hine says, ‘a poorly educated family.' Should we have felt sorry for them then?

Moore: I don't think we should have felt sorry for them, but I do think they needed help. What Hine was doing was trying to get the laws changed so life would be better for them. He must have worked pretty hard to make things better for people. I wish their life had been better, but we came along in another generation, and my brother and I have done well.

During the Depression, we always had enough food. We got electricity a little later, and we were a happy family. There was a lot of love in our family. We weren't as poor as my mother was when she grew up. There were a lot of people who were poorer than we were. Mother would pack our lunch for school, and we'd get on the bus and want to change with the people up the street even though they had an apple, and we had bacon or an egg on a biscuit. We thought theirs was as good as ours.