Hine’s photo leads to discovery about life of cannery girl

The life of another Eastport girl photographed in 1911 by Lewis Hine for the National Child Labor Committee has been uncovered by Massachusetts writer Joe Manning. In December, The Quoddy Tides told readers about Manning's Lewis Hine Project, in which he has investigated 150 children photographed by Hine, including several who worked in the Eastport canneries.

Now he has finished a four-year off-and-on search of the life of Anna de Gallant, who was photographed by Hine in 1911 when she was a nine-year-old cartoner at Seacoast Canning Company's Factory #2. Hine's observation that "Nan is already a spoiled child" caught Manning's eye and intrigued him. Was she?

"Her seemingly defiant look is unsettling, but did Hine work to capture that pose, or was it just the way she reacted?" wondered Manning. "If so, was she scared, suspicious or just plain tired?"

Manning first saw the Anna de Gallant photo in August 2006 and immediately found her parents, Charles and Jessie De Gallant, living on Accommodation (now Chapel) Street in Eastport during the 1900 census. They had married in 1891 and had five children.

Manning discovered that, 10 years later, the family had dropped the "de" from their name and was living in Lubec. Jessie was a widow with nine children, including eight-year-old Anna. By 1920, the family was back in Eastport, this time living at 23 Key Street. Jessie, who hadn't remarried, was a private duty nurse, and Anna was one of four children still in the home.

In the 1930 census, Manning found a cannery worker Anna J. Sears in Eastport, who was about the same age as Anna Gallant and married to carpenter Carroll Sears with a boy listed as "Harold," born about 1920. Subsequent investigation revealed that Anna and Carroll had married on August 26, 1922, "about two years after Harold was born. Their marriage certificate confirmed that Anna was indeed Anna J. Gallant," reports Manning.

His detective work failed to find anything more about Anna or her son until the December 25 article in The Quoddy Tides led him to Mrs. Paul Lowe of Eastport, who is the former Nannette Gallant and Anna's niece. Nan told Manning that her aunt "wanted my father to name a child Nannette if he had a girl, so when I came along, that's what I was called. I was named after her." Nan Lowe never knew her aunt but told Manning that her grandfather had been killed in a construction accident in Lubec when her father was only three months old.

In response to Manning's query, "What do you think about the fact that Lewis Hine said Nan was already a spoiled child?," Nan Lowe answered, "Spoiled, possibly, but more likely she was not thrilled with the work she had to do. The ladies in daddy's family, as I was told, were all very strong-willed and stubborn."

Following his interview with Nan Lowe, Manning studied the actual census page in the 1930 census and discovered that the name of Anna Gallant Sears' son didn't look at all like any version of "Harold."

A search of <Ancestry.com> for all males named Sears who were born in Maine in either 1920 or 1921 resulted in only one possibility. The 1985 Connecticut death record for Enfield resident Maurice Sears stated he'd been born in Maine. The Enfield town clerk confirmed that Maurice was the son of Anna Gallant and Carroll Sears, so Manning decided to search <NewspaperArchive.com> for information on Anna and her family.

Then a "stunning" discovery was made. According to the December 2, 1918, issue of the Kennebec Journal, Carroll Sears and Anna Gallant of Eastport had attempted to elope, but they were stopped in Bangor where they had come on the night train, and Miss Gallant was taken back to Eastport by a Washington County sheriff's deputy. The pair's elopement caught the public's eye, as well as law enforcement's, because "both elopers are well known in Eastport, where their escapade caused something of a sensation. Sears, who is married and has two children, is 31 years old, while Miss Gallant is only 16. The disappearance of the couple was discovered some time after the train left Eastport, and prompt work by the authorities there, aided by the Bangor police, completely upset the plans of the pair."

"The [Lewis Hine] pictures are just a snapshot of a moment in time. It colors the story when you find something this unusual," says Manning of the attempted elopement.

"First impressions are important," he adds. "For 99.9% of people who look at a photograph, that'll be the end of it. That's the last they'll ever know about that child. When I start digging, it turns them into a real person."

Anna and Carroll married four years later, and Manning discovered in an Eastport directory that they were still living together in 1935. Eastport City Clerk Helen Archer found Anna's death record, stating she had died in Calais on September 8, 1936, after a long illness and was buried in Hillside Cemetery, although she doesn't appear in cemetery records.

Manning traced widower Carroll Sears to El Paso, Texas, where he died in 1957. Maurice Sears, known as "Roy," was buried in Connecticut next to a daughter Anna, who seems to have been named after his mother.

"I was unable to locate any of Maurice's children," reports Manning. "I did locate his widow, who has remarried. I mailed her the photos of Anna and asked her to pass them on to her children, who would not have known their grandmother. She did not reply, and I could not find a listed phone number."

"We may never know if the grandchildren ever saw the photo or knew anything at all about Anna."

To read about Anna or the lives of other Eastport child laborers investigated by Joe Manning, check out his website <www.morningsonmaplestreet.com/lewishine.html>.