This photographic view of the house along Route 116, near Sawmill River Road, shows a mother seated with her young son standing next to her at the gable end of house. John Kislowski (1885-1951) owned this home on Conway Road in the hamlet of Mill River of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, by 1912. He was born in Łapczyn, Białystok Obwód, Grodno Gubernia, Russian Empire. He had immigrated in 1903 at the age of nineteen and by 1910 was living in Mill River in the house of Joe Scovicz, another immigrant from Poland and was employed as an onion farmer. In 1909 he married Karolina Piekarski and had five children: Roger, Stanley, Anna, Edna, and Jenni. By 1912 he had purchased this home in Mill River along with 22 acres of farmland and 50 acres of pastureland. By then he owned two horses and six cows. In 1915 the value of his property and livestock was assessed by the Town of Deerfield at $4,520.

This photograph comes from the Howes Brothers collection of photographs. The Howes Brothers, based in Ashfield, Massachusetts, made more than 20,000 images of New England rural life from 1890 to around 1910, offering a glimpse into the lives of people rarely visible in history.