Photo: Lewis Hine, 1910. Young mill workers at Pacific Mills, Lawrence. National Archives, public domain.

In September 1911, Lewis Hine photographed a teenage boy in the Wood Mill and wrote down his name: Wilfred Valliere, 79 Margin Street. Here is the rest of his story, pieced together a century later by researcher Joe Manning for the Lawrence History Center.

Wilfred was born on July 8, 1896, in Somersworth, New Hampshire, one of at least 12 children. His father, Alfred, came from Quebec and worked as a loom fixer. His mother, Georgiana Leclerc, was also from Quebec; they married in Somersworth in 1892. In 1905, the year the Wood Mill was being built, the family moved to Lawrence. Wilfred was 9. They rented a three-decker on Margin Street, and Alfred kept fixing looms.

By his teens Wilfred was working in the Wood Mill's mill room. Hine guessed he was 14; Manning thinks 15. About four months after the photo, the 1912 Bread and Roses strike swept him up with everyone else.

In 1915, his mother died giving birth. The baby, Clarence, survived and lived to 96.

In 1916 Wilfred married Bertha Beauchesne. He worked in a Haverhill shoe factory, then the couple moved to South Lawrence, where he ran an Orange Crush soda bottling business while Bertha ran a small grocery store. A grandfather, a baker, lived with them and worked in the bottling plant. Around 1930, the landlord wanted the building back and the business was lost. The family moved to Methuen. Wilfred went back to shoe work, later became a distributor for bottling companies and Wise Potato Chips, kept the books with Bertha, and took night classes. His son believed he never finished high school.

Wilfred and Bertha had five children. He died on April 21, 1978, at 81, in a small mobile home in Salem, New Hampshire.

It is an ordinary life, and that is the point. Thousands of lives like his passed through these walls.

Know a family story from the mill? Call us at 978.645.6260.

Come see where it happened. Read the full story of Riverwalk · Book a tour