The first thing that strikes me about this photograph is how differently these boys present themselves. Fred looks friendly and composed, and he is nicely dressed. William, barefoot and sloppily dressed, looks almost defiant, although perhaps more typically like a young adolescent. When I see a Hine photo, I often wonder whether the image Hine captured somehow gives us a hint of what the child will be like as an adult. I have encountered a number of startling examples of this happening; and in this case, he seems to have been right on the nose for both boys.

In the case of William, this has to be one of the strangest stories I have come across in my research. Much of what I found out was a huge surprise to his descendants and friends. That's because he was married twice (no children from the second), but no one I talked to knew about both marriages, only either the first or the second. His niece, the daughter of his brother Fred, was astonished and had a hard time believing it. She knew only about the second marriage, as did William's close friends from his church. But to Judy Marshall, the granddaughter from the first marriage, it was a revelation that provided a missing link and helped to reconcile her feelings toward her grandfather who had abandoned her mother as a child.

William Massie Crocker was born on December 18, 1894, in Chester, South Carolina. His parents were Aaron Walker Crocker (known as Walker) and Sallie (Jameson) Crocker, who were married about 1892. According to the 1900 census, they were living in Chester. Walker was a farmer, and they had four children, William being the second oldest. In the 1910 census, still in Chester, they had two additional children. Walker is listed as an engineer in a cotton mill, and three sons, including William, are doffers at the mill.

In the 1920 census, William is now married to Essie (Smith), and they live with William's parents and four of his siblings. Both William and Essie work at the mill, he a carder, and she a weaver. But they are now residing in Whitmire, South Carolina, about 30 miles southeast of Chester. In 1923, William and Essie had their first and only child, Novilla; but according to Novilla's daughter, William left the home a few months before Novilla was born, and the couple divorced soon after.

In the 1930 census, Essie is back in Chester, living with daughter Novilla. They are boarding with an unrelated family, and Essie is a weaver in a cotton mill. She is listed as widowed, but it was common at that time for divorced women to claim they were widows. Indeed, William was still living, probably in Whitmire, although I could not find him in the 1930 census. Sometime after 1930, William married Mary S. O'Dell and lived the rest of his life in Whitmire. They had no children. He served in both WWI and WWII, and worked many years at Cone Mills.

William's father, Walker Crocker, died in 1928, and his mother, Sallie, died in 1961. His wife Mary, called Odell or Dell by friends, died December 2, 1991, at the age of 84. William, long since known as Buck, died on June 16, 1992, at the age of 97. His daughter Novilla, then Novilla Davis, died in Catawba, South Carolina in 2004, at the age of 80. According to her daughter, she had not seen her father since she was five years old. But that's not the whole story.

On the following pages, see my interview with William's granddaughter, more from William's friend at his church, the story of William's brother Fred, including an interview with his daughter, and more photos.