Idas Joseph Crepeau was born in Quebec, the son of Hormidas and Emelie Crepeau. According to the 1901 Canada census, his father was a farmer. As if to confuse things even more, Idas was listed as Hiledas (he was later listed for several years as Eledas in the North Adams city directories). Both the 1910 and 1920 census stated that the Crepeaus came to the US in 1910, a year before Hine took the photos, and that most of the children worked in the mill at that time.

The neighborhood around the Eclipse Mill was populated almost entirely by French-Canadian immigrants. Many lived on Front Street, a short, dead-end street susceptible to serious floods until the 1950s, when the Army Corps of Engineers installed flood chutes. The Crepeau house survived, although it's obviously been remodeled and expanded.