Don Eesley with Aunt Ota and Big Helen at Sault Ste. Marie — 1929

Three figures on a waterfront at Sault Ste. Marie in 1929, with the far shore and its buildings across the St. Marys River behind them. Seated at left is Donald Stuart “Don” Eesley (b. 1908), about twenty-one; at center, in glasses and a cloche hat, his aunt Sciota “Ota” Chenoweth Smith — his mother Lillie Dale’s sister, the physician of the older Chenoweth generation and mother of Mafry Hyatt. The photograph belongs to the same Michigan-summers period as the family’s Black Lake gatherings of the late 1920s. Standing at right is Helen Bernadine “Big Helen” (Alspach) Eesley — Leonard’s wife, in her late twenties here.

Which Helen

The family label names the standing woman simply “Helen,” and she is confirmed (per Chuck) as “Big Helen” — Helen Bernadine (Alspach) Eesley, Leonard’s wife. She is not Don’s youngest sister Helen (Eesley) Burnes, who — born January 1924 — was only five years old in 1929. The two Helens of this generation are easy to conflate; the age settles it. This is also the earliest photograph of Big Helen now in the archive, and gives her a face on her page for the first time.

Source: Eesley family archive, family-labeled photograph (“Don, Aunt Ota and Helen, 1929, Sault St. Marie”); all three figures confirmed by Chuck Eesley, 2026 (the “Helen” resolved as Big Helen Alspach, not Helen Burnes, by the age evidence).