Will and Peggy Eesley with Charlie, Jeanne, and Anne on the Black Lake dock, c. 1950–1952

A summer-day photograph at the Black Lake cottage, c. 1950–1952 — the Will Eesley household at the lake with three of their young children. The dock extends out into the still water; a floating swim-platform sits in the middle distance and the lake fades silver into the far shore under a sky of soft cumulus.

Cast

Per Chuck Eesley, June 2026 (tentative on the two girls):

• Will Eesley — Chuck’s paternal grandfather; the architect of the Highland Ridge house, then in his late thirties. Seated on the dock leaning back, sun on his face.
• Margaret “Peggy” McMaster Eesley — Will’s wife, Chuck’s paternal grandmother. Dark curly hair, dark short-sleeved top, sitting close beside Will, head turned toward the camera.
• Charlie — Chuck’s father, b. 24 May 1947, about three to five years old here. Small boy in a patterned shirt sitting on the edge of the dock with his bare feet hanging over the water.
• Jeanne Eesley (probably) — Will and Peggy’s eldest, then about seven. Standing on the dock in a polka-dot or print two-piece bathing suit, one hand raised.
• Anne Eesley (probably) — the next sister, then a toddler. Sitting in the shallow water at the edge of the beach in a small striped swimsuit.

The figure further out on the dock walking toward the swim platform is most plausibly Jeanne or Anne in a second moment of the same afternoon (or possibly a fourth child — uncertain).

The image is the earliest photograph of Will and Peggy’s young family in this archive’s Black Lake set — the next-generation summer at the cottage Will’s father Charles Leonard had built two decades earlier, captured a few years before the cottage burned down and the Eesley summers at the lake ended.

Source: Eesley family archive; cast IDed by Chuck Eesley, June 2026.