Lewis Hine took three photographs of Rosina Goyette on Sunday, September 3, 1911. She was apparently dressed for Mass at St. Mary's Catholic Church. The photos were among 40 he took in Winchendon over a three-day period. Since the Massachusetts child labor laws limited work in the mills to children 14 or older, Hine was trying to document violations. In all of his captions for Rosina's photos, he noted that she looked younger than her stated age of 14. Hine was wrong in this case, as my research would reveal.

She was born in Winchendon on March 27, 1897, to Frederick and Ozine (Archambault) Goyette. Frederick was 17 years old, living in Winchendon, and working in a cotton mill in 1880, according to the census. He was born in Quebec about 1862. He married Ozine a year later. In 1900, Rosina was the youngest of seven children. She would be followed by three more siblings. In 1910, they lived on Glenallan Street, a common address for workers at the Springs Mill and the Glenallan Mill, which were within a mile of each other on that street.

Rosina married Joseph Gagnon on June 6, 1921, probably in Chicopee, Massachusetts, where they would live most of the rest of their lives. Joseph was born in New Hartford, Connecticut, on September 12, 1893. They had one child, Donald, who was born in 1939. Rosina's mother died on April 17, 1930, at the age of 69; and her father died on June 4, 1940, at the age of 77. Her husband Joseph died in Chicopee in 1976, and son Donald died in 2006. Rosina Goyette Gagnon lived to be 98 years old. She died in California on May 27, 1995.

I obtained her obituary from the Springfield Union-News, and that led me to her granddaughter, Gerri Gagnon, and Gerri's mother, Janice Brids, who was the first wife of Rosina’s son Donald. They live in the Springfield area. My interview with them follows.