The children stand in a row, hands skyward, flashing peace signs toward the mountains and clouds stretched before them.

They swim. Hike. Gaze skyward for the eclipse. Birdwatch, read books and grow flowers and vegetables. Play in the mud, pick blackberries in the backyard and eat chocolate cream pie for breakfast.

The family, judging by Jennifer Hart's Facebook postings, is happy, healthy and engaged.

A selection of screen captures from the Oregon woman's Facebook profile provides an intimate look at a family first thrust into the public's eye when a photo of one child hugging a Portland police officer went viral in 2014 and again this week after their SUV was found on its roof at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

The entire eight-person family -- parents Jennifer Hart and Sarah Hart, both 38, and the children they adopted, Markis, 19; Abigail, 14; Jeremiah, 14; Devonte, 15; Hannah, 16; and Sierra, 12 — appears to have died in the crash. A passer-by saw the SUV and reported it to police Monday afternoon.

Authorities are investigating the crash as an accident and said so far they have no reason to believe the crash was intentional.

Mourners have taken to social media en masse, remembering the Harts as loving and unconventional. Their recollections align with the stories depicted in photographs and touching writings in the posts provided Friday to The Oregonian/OregonLive by friends of the couple.

But court records and other official documents paint a more troubled portrait of the family.

In April 2011, Sarah Hart pleaded guilty to abusing daughter Abigail after the then-6-year-old told police one of her mothers had hit her with a closed fist, put her head in a cold bath, then hit her again. Sarah Hart was sentenced to a year of probation for misdemeanor domestic assault, court records show.

In July 2013, after the family had moved to Oregon, police responded to a call at their West Linn home. Police characterized the call as a state Department of Human Services referral.

Last year, shortly after the family moved to Woodland, Washington, neighbors said, Hannah Hart showed up at their door, wrapped in a blanket and asking for protection, saying she was being abused. More recently, Devonte had been asking the same neighbors for food, saying his parents had withheld it as punishment. The requests escalated, and last week, neighbors Bruce and Dana DeKalb contacted authorities.

On March 23, 2018, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services opened a Child Protective Services investigation in which the Hart children are "identified as potential victims of alleged abuse or neglect." The Harts left home that day.

None of that squares with the images of a happy family Jennifer Hart presented on Facebook, and on a YouTube channel in her name that showed the children dancing, singing and interacting with nature.

A photo from October 2015 shows the Hart clan, clad in flannel shirts, posing for a goofy group photo. "There's no point in pretending to be normal. #funkyflannelfamilyfun," Jennifer Hart wrote.

Another shows two boys reading in a well-kept nook, a chicken perched nearby and books on the shelves.

One posted March 8 shows two of the kids, caked in mud and flexing muscles for the camera.

Another posted March 15 spotlights poignant black-and-white portraits.

"Yesterday we celebrated the 9th anniversary of the official adoption day of Sierra, Jeremiah, and Devonte," Jennifer Hart wrote in the caption. "We celebrate all.the.things in this family: The day we met our kids. The day they came home. The official finalization/court date. Birthdays of cats, dogs, chickens. Seasons. Anniversaries. Tuesdays. Why? Why not? I get this one precious life to live."

Life, judging by the photos, was good. And some close to the family insist it wasn't an act.

Family friend Max Ribner, a Portland musician who plays in the band Nahko and Medicine for the People, said the Harts were amazing parents.

"They'd nursed those six kids back to life," he said. "These children were coming from some of the roughest childhoods you could imagine."

Ribner said he first met the family in 2012 when playing the Shangri-La music festival in Clarks Grove, Minnesota. He said he remembered the Hart children because they had dressed in matching outfits and were as close to the stage as possible. The family, he said, always traveled as a pack.

Ribner said that Sarah Hart first came out to Portland around 2012 to look for a job and to see if the area would be a good fit for their family. They'd been living Alexandria, Minnesota, a small town of 13,000 northwest of Minneapolis.

She found a job at Kohl's. Jennifer and the kids joined her sometime in 2013, he said.

"I think there was an openness of community out here that gave them some breathing room from the challenges they had in Minnesota."

Ribner said the mothers talked often about the difficulties they faced because they were a same-sex couple raising six adopted black children.

Of the children, Ribner said, "They were readers, they were writers, they were poets, they were dancers. And they were brave. They didn't have any judgment. But they also felt pain, too."

In 2013, Ribner began offering music classes to kids at his home in Southeast Portland. He said that all six of the Hart children participated in the program and that he and the children wrote songs together and played music twice a month for nearly a year.

He said that music was a passion in the Hart family.

"They exposed their children to conscious music with a message. Music that talks about social revolution and racial equality."

The kids never had cellphones. But they traveled and explored. They regularly attended concerts, events and festivals in the Portland area and throughout the Northwest.

He said the family was civically engaged and community-oriented. They volunteered with homeless people. Devonte would forgo gifts for his birthday, instead asking friends and family to donate money to a charity. They loved celebrating Earth Day.

Ribner once asked Devonte what he wanted to be when he grew up. The boy's answer? "A hero."

Rich Waryan also met the Harts at Shangri-La in 2012 and kept in contact with them during their time in Alexandria and, later, Oregon. In fact, he told The Oregonian/OregonLive, he was the one who ordered the Carfax and test drove the 2003 GMC SUV with Jennifer Hart before the family purchased the vehicle.



He had spoken with Jennifer Hart on the phone March 15, the same day she posted the black-and-white family portrait to Facebook. Waryan had called the women, he said, to congratulate them on nine years with the children.

"The impact they had on everyone around them was truly remarkable and it was like nothing I've ever seen in my life," he said.

Oregonian/OregonLive reporters Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, Kale Williams, Eder Campuzano, Molly Young, Lizzy Acker and Mike Rogoway contributed to this story.