This 1932 photo of a girl with a balloon looked happy until they saw what was behind her.
The morning air in downtown Chicago carried the crisp bite of early autumn as Dr.
Rebecca Torres stepped through the heavy wooden doors of Heritage Auctions, one of the city’s oldest establishments for historical memorabilia.
At 39, Rebecca had built her career as a museum curator, specializing in depression era American photography, and she had learned to recognize the subtle details that transformed ordinary images into windows into the past.
Today’s auction promised a collection from an estate in Gary, Indiana.
Photographs, documents, and personal effects from families who had lived through the 1930s.
She moved through the crowded viewing room, past other collectors and historians examining various lots.
Her practiced eye scanned shelves lined with framed photographs, boxes of letters, and albums filled with forgotten moments.
Most of the images were typical of the era.
Stiff family portraits, faded wedding photos, snapshots of people trying to maintain dignity during America’s darkest economic period.
In a small wooden frame tucked between larger items was a photograph that seemed to glow with unusual vibrancy.
The image showed a young girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, standing at what appeared to be a community fair.
She wore a simple cotton dress with a floral pattern, her blonde hair held back with a ribbon, and in her raised hand she clutched the string of a bright red balloon.
What struck Rebecca immediately was the child’s smile.
Absolutely radiant, genuine, the kind of pure joy that seemed impossible to fake.
The composition was remarkably clear for 1932, suggesting the photographer had been skilled.
The girl stood in the center of the frame, the balloon floating above her head like a symbol of hope.
At first glance, it was simply a beautiful moment captured in time.
A child experiencing joy during an era when joy was desperately scarce.
Rebecca lifted the frame carefully, studying it more closely.
The background was slightly out of focus, but even blurred.
There seemed to be activity behind the girl.
That’s from the Keller estate, said Martin, the auction house specialist.
Family from Hammond, Indiana.
Most of it is pretty standard depression era stuff, but that one’s special.
Martin removed the photograph from its frame and turned it over in faded pencil.
Lucy, County Fair, August 1932.
Rebecca made her decision instantly.
I’ll bid on it.
There was something about this photograph that she needed to understand.
Rebecca’s office at the Chicago Museum of Social History occupied a corner of the third floor with tall windows overlooking the city.
She had won the auction easily, and now Lucy’s photograph sat on her desk waiting to reveal its secrets.
Using her highresolution archival scanner, she created a digital file at 1200 dpi.
As the scan loaded, Rebecca began her analysis.
She zoomed in on Lucy’s face first, studying the genuine quality of her smile.
The girl’s dress was simple, but clean and pressed.
Her shoes appeared worn, but serviceable.
A family of modest means maintaining respectability.
The red balloon was vibrant even in black and white.
In 1932, during the worst years of the Great Depression, a balloon would have been a small luxury carrying significance beyond simple pleasure.
Then she examined the background and her breath caught.
Behind Lucy, perhaps 20 ft away, a line of people stretched along a building.
The figures were blurred, but distinct enough.
men, women, and children in a queue.
Rebecca enhanced the image and realized what she was seeing.
This wasn’t a line for fair attractions.
The people’s postures were slumped, their clothing shabby.
This was a bread line.
She moved to the left side of the background.
There, partially obscured by Lucy’s balloon, was a group of men holding signs.
She enhanced the resolution until she could make out words.
“We want work, fair wages now.
feed our families.
Unemployed workers protesting.
On the far right, a storefront sign read, “Going out of business, everything must go.” But the final detail made Rebecca’s hands tremble.
Directly behind Lucy, slightly blurred, was a woman.
Rebecca enhanced the image as much as possible.
The woman was watching Lucy, her shoulders hunched, head tilted downward, one hand raised to her face in a gesture suggesting tears or exhaustion.
The contrast between this woman’s posture and Lucy’s joyful stance was devastating.
Rebecca printed the enhanced sections and spread them across her desk.
This wasn’t just a snapshot.
This was a historical document capturing the contradictions of the depression.
Childhood joy against impossible circumstances.
celebration and despair coexisting.
Families trying to shield children from harsh realities.
She needed to find out who Lucy was, who had taken this photograph, and what had happened to this radiant child whose happiness had been preserved against such a heartbreaking backdrop.
Rebecca began by establishing historical context.
The photograph mentioned county fair, August 1932, and came from Hammond, Indiana.
She researched county fairs in northwestern Indiana during that month and year.
The Lake County Public Libraryies digital archives provided the first breakthrough.
She found advertisements for the Porter County Fair in Valparzo, Indiana, held August 12th, 20, 1932.
The ads promoted free entertainment for the whole family.
Crucial during a time when families had no money for recreation.
Local newspapers painted a grim picture.
Unemployment had reached 40% in Porter County.
Three banks had failed and tensions were rising between desperate workers and business owners with no work to offer.
One article caught her attention.
Despite economic hardships, community gathers for annual fair.
Fair organizers had kept prices low and provided free attractions so even the poorest families could attend, an act of communal defiance against despair.
Another article made her pause.
Unemployed workers staged peaceful demonstration at fairgrounds.
About 30 unemployed men had gathered with signs, not to disrupt festivities, but to remind attendees that the crisis continued devastating families.
This had to be Lucy’s photograph.
The timeline matched, the location fit, and the protesters aligned with what Rebecca had discovered in the background.
Rebecca contacted the Porter County Historical Society and drove to Valparizo.
Dorothy, the volunteer archivist, greeted her warmly.
When Rebecca showed her the photograph, Dorothy’s face lit up.
The 32 fair.
Dorothy said, “My mother talked about it many times.” She said it was the strangest feeling trying to have fun while knowing so many families were barely surviving.
They pulled archival boxes containing programs, receipts, and photographs from local photographers.
Rebecca’s heart raced as they spread dozens of images across a table.
Many showed typical fair scenes, but several captured tension.
Well-dressed fairgoers passing protesters.
Families picnicking while people waited at charity food stations.
Then Rebecca found it.
Another photograph by the same photographer.
A boy eating cotton candy while behind him a man held a sign.
Hungry will work for food.
These were taken by James Whitmore, Dorothy said, pointing to a credit line.
He was a documentary photographer from Gary who came to capture the real story of the depression.
Rebecca had found her photographer.
Now, she needed to discover Lucy’s identity.
Rebecca drove to Gary, Indiana, researching James Whitmore along the way.
She discovered he had been part of a movement of documentary photographers in the early 1930s who believed images could capture social truth more powerfully than words.
While famous photographers like Dorothia Lang and Walker Evans would later become icons of depression documentation, Witmore had been working independently in the industrial Midwest.
The Gary Public Libraryies local history room contained a small collection of Whitmore’s papers donated by his daughter in 1978.
The librarian Thomas pulled several boxes from climate controlled storage.
Inside, Rebecca found journals, correspondents, and contact sheets from Whitmore’s depression era work.
His journal from August 1932 provided immediate context.
On August 14th, he had written, “Traveled to Valparizo for the county fair.
The organizers invited me to document the event, but I have a different purpose.
I want to show what they won’t put in the official fair photographs.
The reality behind the forced cheerfulness, the desperation lurking at the edges of every celebration.
America is collapsing and we’re pretending it’s not happening.” The entry continued, “I’m photographing children deliberately.
They represent both hope and tragedy.
Hope because they’re innocent and still capable of joy.
Tragedy because they don’t understand what’s being lost.
Their parents smile for them while dying inside.
Rebecca felt a chill reading these words.
Whitmore had been intentionally creating juxtapositions, deliberately framing joyful subjects against desperate backgrounds.
Lucy’s photograph wasn’t accidental.
It was carefully composed social commentary.
She found more journal entries from that week.
August 16th.
Met a family today.
The mother works at a canery when there’s work.
The father lost his job at the steel mill 2 years ago.
They brought their daughter to the fair and bought her a balloon with money they probably needed for food.
The child’s joy was real, but watching the parents’ faces broke my heart.
I asked permission to photograph the girl.
The mother cried and said yes.
Rebecca’s pulse quickened.
This had to be Lucy.
She searched through contact sheets, finding multiple images from the fair.
There were several shots of Lucy, some with different expressions, different angles.
Whitmore had spent time with his family carefully composing his final image.
A letter tucked into the journal provided more information.
It was addressed to Whitmore from someone named Sarah, dated September 1932.
The letter was written in careful, deliberate handwriting on thin paper that had yellowed with age.
Rebecca handled it gently, reading the words that had been preserved for over 90 years.
Dear James, thank you for sending the photograph of Lucy.
It’s beautiful and terrible at the same time, just like everything these days.
You captured exactly what I wanted people to see, that we’re trying so hard to give our children moments of happiness, but the world is falling apart around them.
Lucy loved that balloon.
She carried it for 3 days until it finally deflated.
She cried when it died, and I think she was crying for more than just a balloon.
Rebecca sat back, her mind racing.
Sarah had to be Lucy’s mother.
The letter writer understood Whitmore’s artistic intention and had participated in creating the photograph deliberately.
This wasn’t exploitation.
It was collaboration between a photographer and a subject who both wanted to document truth.
The letter continued, “Things are getting worse here.
Robert still can’t find work.
The canery is closing sections every month.
We’re 3 months behind on rent.
I don’t know what we’ll do when winter comes.
But I’m grateful Lucy had that day at the fair.
She deserves happiness, even if I can’t provide much of it.” Rebecca found herself blinking back tears.
Sarah’s love for her daughter and her desperate circumstances came through in every word.
She continued reading.
You asked if you could use the photograph in your exhibition.
Yes, please do.
If our struggle can help people understand what’s happening to families like ours, then something good comes from it.
Maybe someone with power will see these images and realize that we’re not lazy or looking for handouts.
We’re drowning and need help.
Lucy doesn’t understand why we can’t buy food like we used to, why we had to leave our house, why her father is sad all the time.
I want her to understand someday that we tried, that we loved her, that this wasn’t our fault.
The letter was signed, Sarah Peterson, Hammond, Indiana.
Rebecca immediately began searching for records of the Peterson family.
She found them in the 1930 census.
Robert Peterson, age 28, steel worker.
Sarah Peterson, age 26, canary worker.
Lucy Peterson, age 5.
They had lived on Harrison Street in Hammond with Robert’s elderly mother.
But what had happened to them after August 1932? Sarah’s letter suggested they were facing eviction.
The economic situation was deteriorating.
Rebecca needed to trace the family forward through time.
She searched through Hammond city directories from subsequent years.
The Peterson family disappeared from Harrison Street after 1932.
No listing in 1933, 1934, or 1935.
They had either moved or Rebecca didn’t want to consider the darker possibilities.
She expanded her search to newspapers, looking for any mention of the Peterson family in Hammond or surrounding areas.
Rebecca spent three frustrating days searching for information about the Peterson family.
After 1932, she combed through newspaper archives, welfare records, school registrations, and death certificates.
The family seemed to have vanished from Hammond entirely, which wasn’t unusual during the depression when families frequently moved seeking work or were forced to relocate when they couldn’t pay rent.
She found one brief mention in the Hammond Times from October 1932, a list of families evicted from their homes for non-payment of rent.
The Peterson family, Harrison Street, was among two dozen names.
The article noted that most evicted families had relocated to temporary accommodations or moved in with relatives, but provided no specific information.
Rebecca returned to James Whitmore’s papers, hoping for more correspondence with Sarah.
She found two more letters, both heartbreaking.
The first dated November 1932.
We’re living in a tent city now on the edge of Gary.
about 40 families here, all in the same situation.
Lucy tries to be brave, but she’s cold at night and asks why we can’t go home.
Robert is getting desperate.
He talks about riding the rails west looking for work.
I’m terrified he’ll leave and never come back.
The second letter from January 1933 was even more dire.
Robert left 2 weeks ago, said he’d send money when he found work.
I haven’t heard from him.
I’m working whatever hours the canery gives me, but it’s not enough.
Lucy got sick from the cold.
A doctor at the charity clinic said she needs better shelter and food.
I don’t know what to do anymore.
James, I’m failing her.
There were no more letters after that.
Rebecca felt a weight in her chest.
Had Sarah and Lucy survived? Had Robert ever returned? The tent cities of the depression era had been brutal places, and many families had been torn apart by the economic catastrophe.
She decided to search forward in time, looking for Lucy Peterson in records from the late 1930s and 1940s.
If Lucy had survived childhood, she would have been a teenager by 1940, possibly appearing in high school records or census data.
After hours of searching, Rebecca found something in the 1940 census.
Lucy Peterson, age 15, listed as a ward of the state, living at the Indiana Children’s Home in Indianapolis.
The notation indicated she had been placed there in 1934.
Rebecca’s heart sank.
Lucy had ended up in an orphanage.
What had happened to Sarah and Robert? She searched death records from 1933 1934 and found what she had feared.
Sarah Peterson, age 29, died February 1934.
Cause listed as pneumonia complicated by malnutrition.
Robert Peterson was listed as deceased in 1933, killed in a railroad accident in California while attempting to find work.
Both parents dead within a year of that photograph being taken.
Lucy, orphaned at 9 years old, Rebecca sat in her office staring at the photograph with new understanding.
When Lucy smiled and held that red balloon, she had less than 6 months before her world would completely collapse.
Her father would leave seeking work and die far from home.
Her mother would struggle through a terrible winter in a tent city and ultimately succumb to illness brought on by poverty and Lucy herself would lose everything.
Her parents, her home, her childhood.
But Lucy had survived.
She had made it to the children’s home.
Rebecca needed to know what had happened next.
How this girl, whose moment of joy had been preserved in such a powerful image, had navigated the trauma of losing everything.
She contacted the Indiana State Archives and requested records from the Indiana Children’s Home.
After explaining her research and providing credentials, they agreed to search their files.
A week later, she received a package containing Lucy’s case file, heavily redacted to protect privacy, but still containing valuable information.
Lucy had been placed in the home in March 1934, 2 weeks after her mother’s death.
The intake notes described her as withdrawn, undernourished, traumatized by recent losses.
She had no living relatives willing or able to care for her.
The notes mentioned that she carried a small photograph with her, a picture of herself holding a balloon at a fair, which she refused to part with.
Rebecca’s throat tightened reading this.
Lucy had kept the photograph, held on to that memory of the last happy day with her parents.
The file contained progress reports from subsequent years.
Initially, Lucy struggled.
She had nightmares, refused to eat, and rarely spoke.
But gradually, with care from staff members, she began to recover.
A teacher’s note from 1936 mentioned that Lucy showed artistic talent and spent hours drawing.
Another note from 1937 indicated she had begun helping younger children in the home, showing particular patience and kindness with new arrivals who were frightened and grieving.
By 1940, Lucy was described as resilient, compassionate, academically capable.
She had expressed interest in attending high school and possibly pursuing further education.
The home’s director had written, “Lucy has transformed her own suffering into empathy for others.
She understands loss in ways that make her uniquely qualified to help children in similar circumstances.
Rebecca found records showing Lucy had graduated from high school in 1943 at age 18.
She had received a scholarship to Indiana University.
What happened next took Rebecca’s breath away.
Lucy Peterson had studied social work at Indiana University, graduating in 1947.
Rebecca found her senior thesis in the university’s archives.
The long-term effects of childhood poverty and family loss, a personal and professional examination.
Reading it, Rebecca understood how completely Lucy had turned her trauma into purpose.
I was 7 years old when the depression took everything from me.
Lucy had written, “But it took my parents years to lose it all.
I watched them slowly break under the weight of unemployment, poverty, and hopelessness.
I saw my father’s shame when he couldn’t provide for us.
my mother’s exhaustion as she worked every available hour and still couldn’t keep us fed.
And I remember one perfect day, a county fair, a red balloon, a moment when they spent money they desperately needed just to see me smile.
That day captured in a photograph represents both the best and worst of what I experienced.
Love expressed through sacrifice, joy existing alongside despair.
The thesis went on to analyze how poverty affected family structures, child development, and long-term outcomes.
Lucy had interviewed other adults who had been children during the depression, documenting patterns of trauma and resilience.
Her work was academically rigorous, but deeply personal, informed by lived experience that gave her insights other researchers couldn’t access.
After graduation, Lucy had taken a position with the Indiana Department of Welfare, working specifically with children in crisis.
Rebecca found newspaper articles from the 1950s mentioning her advocacy work.
She had pushed for better conditions in children’s homes, fought for policies that kept families together during economic hardship, and worked to ensure that children who lost parents received adequate support and care.
One article from 1955 particularly stood out.
Social workers personal experience drives reform efforts.
It featured an interview with Lucy, now 30 years old, discussing her childhood and how it shaped her career.
She had told the reporter about the photograph taken at the fair, describing it as the last moment of my old life before everything fell apart.
“That photograph has haunted me my entire life,” Lucy had said in the interview.
Not because it’s painful to look at, though it is.
But because of what you can’t see if you only look at me.
If you examine the background, you see the reality.
My parents were trying to shield me from the breadlines, the protesters, the desperation.
That photograph tells the truth about the depression in a way that most images don’t.
It shows the lie we told ourselves that we could protect our children from what was happening by giving them balloons and taking them to fairs.
The article described how Lucy had spent years trying to locate the original photograph, wanting to use it in educational materials about childhood poverty.
She had remembered the photographers’s name, James Whitmore, but hadn’t been able to find him.
Rebecca realized with a start that Lucy had never known the photograph survived, had never seen how it had been preserved.
Rebecca intensified her search for what had happened to Lucy in later years.
She found marriage records from 1958.
Lucy Peterson had married Robert Chen, a fellow social worker.
They had no children of their own, but had served as foster parents to dozens of children over the decades.
Newspaper archives from the 1960s and 1970s showed Lucy’s continued activism.
She had been instrumental in establishing emergency assistance programs for families in crisis, advocated for mental health services for children who experienced trauma, and worked tirelessly to reform the foster care system.
Throughout her career, she had remained focused on preventing children from experiencing what she had endured.
In a 1972 interview, Lucy had reflected on her work.
I survived because people cared.
Staff at the children’s home who saw potential in a broken little girl.
Teachers who encouraged me, advocates who helped me get to college.
I owe them everything.
My entire life has been about paying that forward.
About making sure other children get the same chances I did.
Rebecca found Lucy’s obituary from 2018.
She had died at age 93, survived by her husband and dozens of foster children she had helped raise.
The obituary listed her accomplishments.
40 years in social work, instrumental in passing state legislation protecting children’s welfare, founder of two nonprofit organizations supporting families in poverty.
Memorial donations were requested for a scholarship fund she had established for children aging out of foster care.
But what moved Rebecca most was a quote from one of Lucy’s former foster children.
Lucy never talked much about her own childhood, but we all knew she understood what it meant to lose everything.
She made sure every child who came through her home knew they were valued, that their losses mattered, that they could survive and build meaningful lives.
She gave us the gift she had received, the belief that our past didn’t have to define our future.
Rebecca realized she had uncovered not just the story behind a photograph, but the trajectory of an entire life shaped by one devastating period and transformed into something purposeful and beautiful.
Lucy had taken her own suffering and used it to prevent and alleviate suffering in countless others.
But there was one more piece Rebecca needed to find.
She wanted to know if Lucy had ever learned that James Whitmore’s photograph had survived, if she had ever seen it again after that last day at the fair.
The answer lay in the final boxes of Whitmore’s archives.
Among Wit Moore’s papers, Rebecca found a letter dated 1973, decades after his initial correspondence with Sarah.
It was addressed to Lucy Peterson Chen at her office in Indianapolis.
The letter explained that Whitmore, now elderly and organizing his life’s work, had been trying to locate the subjects of his most important photographs.
He had finally tracked down Lucy and was writing to tell her that her image had become part of his documentary collection, that he had exhibited it multiple times over the years, and that it had moved countless viewers to understand the human cost of the depression.
“Your mother understood what I was trying to do,” Whitmore had written.
She wanted your story told.
wanted people to see that behind every happy face was a family struggling to survive.
I’ve always felt that your photograph with that beautiful red balloon and your genuine smile set against the desperation in the background was the most honest image I ever created.
It doesn’t hide the pain or erase the joy.
It shows both because that’s what life was like then.
That’s what life is always like when society fails its most vulnerable members.
Clipped to the letter was Lucy’s response handwritten on professional letter head from the Indiana Department of Welfare.
Rebecca read it with tears streaming down her face.
Dear James, thank you for reaching out.
I have thought about that photograph so many times over the years.
It was the last picture taken of me with both my parents still alive.
Though I didn’t know that then.
For a long time, I couldn’t bear to look at it because it represented everything I lost.
But as I grew older and began working with children in crisis, I started to understand its value.
That image shows what you intended, that we were trying so hard to maintain hope and give children moments of normaly even as everything collapsed around us.
I would be honored if you continued to use it.
If it helps even one person understand what poverty does to families.
If it motivates anyone to act, then my parents’ struggle and my survival have additional meaning.
That little girl holding the balloon didn’t know what was coming.
But the woman I became knows why it’s important to remember.
Rebecca discovered that Lucy and Whitmore had remained in correspondence until his death in 1985.
Lucy had attended the final exhibition of his work, standing before her own image alongside other photographs documenting the depression’s impact on ordinary families.
Several people who had attended the exhibition remembered seeing an elderly woman standing quietly in front of the photograph of a girl with a balloon, tears running down her face as she explained to a grandchild that the child in the picture was her.
Now in her Chicago office, Rebecca prepared her own exhibition.
The photograph of Lucy would be the centerpiece, but she would surround it with the context she had uncovered, the letters, the historical records, the story of a girl who lost everything but transformed that loss into a lifetime of service to others.
She had contacted Lucy’s husband, who was still alive at 97, and he had given his blessing and provided additional materials, including photographs of Lucy as an adult.
The exhibition would be titled Behind the Balloon.
One child’s journey through the Great Depression.
Rebecca wrote the exhibition text carefully, making sure to honor not just Lucy’s survival, but her parents’ love and sacrifice, Whitmore’s artistic vision, and the broader story of how economic catastrophe devastated ordinary families while they struggled to maintain dignity and hope.
On opening night, the gallery filled with visitors.
Rebecca watched as people examined the enlarged photograph, noticing first the joyful child and then slowly discovering the desperation in the background.
She heard their gasps as they spotted the bread line, the protesters, the closing business.
She saw them read Lucy’s story and understand how that single moment had been suspended between her old life and the tragedy that followed.
Several of Lucy’s former foster children attended, now elderly themselves.
They shared stories of the woman who had raised them, who had given them stability and love when their own lives had fallen apart.
One woman in her 70s spoke about how Lucy had never let them forget that hardship could be survived, that trauma could be transformed, that suffering could become compassion.
She used to tell us that she’d had one perfect day before everything fell apart.
The woman said, tears in her eyes.
She said that day taught her that even when the world is breaking, people still love each other, still try to create moments of joy for their children.
She said her parents gave her that balloon and that memory because they knew how precious those moments were.
And then she gave the same thing to all of us, moments of lightness in the darkness, proof that we were loved, even when everything else was going wrong.
As the evening wound down, Rebecca stood alone before the photograph.
Lucy’s smile was still radiant, still genuine, still heartbreaking in its innocence.
The red balloon still floated above her head like a symbol of hope that both was and wasn’t justified.
And in the background, the suffering that Lucy’s parents had tried to shield her from remained visible to anyone who looked carefully enough.
The photograph had looked happy at first glance, just a child enjoying a fair, holding a balloon, smiling in the summer sunshine.
But the details revealed what came next.
Loss, struggle, survival, transformation.
Lucy’s story was the story of the depression itself.
Tragedy and resilience intertwined.
Suffering that could either destroy or forge strength, and the power of human beings to take the worst experiences and turn them into something meaningful.
Rebecca had solved the mystery of who Lucy was and what had happened to her.
But more importantly, she had helped ensure that Lucy’s life and the lives of all the families who had suffered through the depression would be remembered not just as statistics or history lessons, but as real people who had loved each other, sacrificed for each other, and somehow found ways to keep hoping even when hope seemed impossible.
The girl with the red balloon had grown into a woman who spent her life holding out balloons to other children who needed moments of joy in their darkness.
And now her story would continue to inspire everyone who encountered
