Edited interview with Jean Davidson (JD), daughter of Bessie Hazel. Interview conducted by Joe Manning (JM) on December 17, 2007.

JM: What was your immediate reaction to these photos?

JD: Shock. I knew who they were right away. I recognized my grandmother and my Aunt Nell. But my mother wasn't in the picture. Her name was Bessie Vergie Hazel, but she was called Bessie. She was about 15 when she got married, and she was already out of the home by then.

JM: Who did she marry?

JD: Asher Green Davidson.

JM: Did you know who Lewis Hine was, or that there were photos like this taken in the Bowling Green area?

JD: No.

JM: What did your mother do for a living when she grew up?

JD: She was a stay-at-home mom taking care of her home and family.

JM: How many children did she have?

JD: Three boys and me.

JM: When were you born?

JD: I was born in 1933, in Detroit. My parents had moved up there.

JM: Why did they move to Detroit?

JD: My dad didn't want to be a farmer, so they left Kentucky, and he went to work at the Packard car factory in Detroit. He did that during the war, and then he worked for an ambulance company. Even though we lived in Detroit, we would drive back to Bowling Green every year on vacation. My parents finally moved back there in the 1960s.

JM: Why did they move back?

JD: To be closer to me, I guess. I was the baby of the family. I had already moved to Bowling Green because I married somebody from there.

JD: I owned a medical supplies and uniform shop. The last two years I worked, I was a financial aid officer for some vocational training centers.

JM: Did you go to college?

JD: No, but I graduated from high school.

JM: Do you have children?

JD: I have a daughter.

JM: Was your mother in relatively good health all her life?

JD: Yes. She had breast cancer when she was in her seventies, but she got over it. She died at age 86.

JM: Did she tell you much about working on the farm as a child?

JD: The only thing she told me was that she only went to the fourth grade. She couldn't go to school unless it was raining. Otherwise, she had to work in the fields. But she was well read. She was not illiterate.

JM: I am interested in knowing about the children in the photos. What did Sam do when he grew up?

JD: He owned and operated a shoe repair shop in Bowling Green. I remember Nell as a housewife, but in her early years, she worked for the Potter Orphan Home in Bowling Green. She had one daughter and one son. Blanche married Churchill Martin in 1949. She and her husband operated Martin's Grocery Store in Bowling Green, in a little area called Forest Park. They did that until her husband died, and then she married again.

JM: What about Elwood?

JD: His name was Elwood, but they called him Jack. He was an engineer for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. He had three sons and four daughters.

JM: And Carl?

JD: I don't know what his specific job was, but I think he was financially well off. He owned his home in Utah. He was an avid dune buggy guy, and a golfer.

JM: How about Ruth?

JD: She was employed as a manager of the cosmetic department in a department store in Detroit. She later moved back to Bowling Green. She had one son.

JM: Hine was trying to show examples of poverty and child labor. What do you think about that the fact that your family was portrayed in this way?

JD: I was shocked that they looked so poor. But then, I knew they were stripping tobacco in their work clothes. I have a picture of my grandmother and grandfather, and they are wearing nice clothes. I know that they owned their farm.