JM: When were you born?

NADINE: February 13, 1933, in Waco, Texas.

JM: What was your father doing for a living then?

NADINE: I think he was an auto mechanic.

JM: What was your mother's maiden name?

NADINE: Viola Howard. My mother and father were divorced when I was six years old. There were eight of us children. I was the fifth one. I had three brothers younger than me. My youngest brother was about two or three months old when my father left.

JM: Where did your father go?

NADINE: I have no idea, but I think he was in prison at one point. My grandmother - my mother's mother - mentioned it one time. I didn't see him again till I was 12 years old.

JM: What happened then?

NADINE: He came by my house one day and brought me a bicycle. We had just two quick visits, and then I didn't see him until I was married and had three children. He dropped by and wanted to see my kids. I didn't really know him, so I didn't trust him with my kids. He was there about a half-hour. That's the last time I ever saw him. When my husband and I were living in Okinawa, I got a message that my father had died.

JM: When you were young, did you often wonder where he was, or was he just sort of out of your life?

NADINE: Well, I had a stepfather, and I thought of him as my father. My mother married him when I was about eight years old.

JM: Did your mother ever talk about your father?

NADINE: She never mentioned him.

JM: Did your father get married again?

NADINE: No, I don't think so.

JM: Have you lived in Waco all your life?

NADINE: I was married to a man in the service. We lived all over, in California, Michigan and Pennsylvania. We lived in Germany twice, and in Okinawa. He got out in about 1968. We were divorced at that time, and he's passed away now. I had five children.

JM: Have any of your kids seen the photo of your father?

NADINE: My son called me and said he saw it on the Internet.

JM: What do you think of the photo?

NADINE: I would have known it was him or someone in my family, because he looks exactly like my brothers at about that age.

JM: What did you think of the caption? Lewis Hine was trying to convince people that this wasn't a good thing for children to be doing.

NADINE: It said he was making $6.00 to $10.00 a week. I showed it to my one brother, and he said, ‘I doubt if he was making that much money. That was as much as he made when he was married to our mother.' Back then, people didn't have any money around here. I can remember my mother and stepfather picking cotton. Everybody picked cotton back then. My brother said, ‘There weren't any child labor laws then. If they wanted to put kids to work when they were four of five years old, they did.'

JM: Mr. Hine said that your father was delivering messages in the heart of the red light district. What do you think about that?

NADINE: I don't know. The houses he showed in that picture aren't there any longer, of course. My brother said that was a place near Edgefield, where people that didn't have any money lived. I don't think they would have had electricity. I didn't have electricity until I was about 10 years old. We had an outside bathroom, and we didn't have running water. We didn't have a telephone.

JM: Did you know your father's parents?

NADINE: His mother's name was Frances. She died when I was three weeks old. My son and I bought a tombstone for her grave. His father was already dead when I was born. I remember Walter, my father's older brother. He had a son that worked in the oil fields. Walter was married to one of my aunts. He used to be around a lot when I was a kid.

JM: In your father's obituary, it said he was called Shorty.

NADINE: Well, they called one of my brothers Shorty, too. All of my brothers were short.