Family group of eight at the Lafayette Hotel restaurant, Marietta — c. 1985–1990 (cast queued)

A formal color photograph of a family group of eight at the Lafayette Hotel restaurant in Marietta — confirmed by Chuck Eesley 2026. Three generations of family on the Lafayette’s distinctive red-patterned carpet in 1980s formal-occasion dress: an older couple, two middle-aged couples, a young boy in red shirt in the front.

The Lafayette Hotel — Marietta’s riverfront landmark

The Lafayette Hotel stands at the foot of Front Street in downtown Marietta, overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers. Built in 1918 on the site of an earlier hotel that had been destroyed by fire, the Lafayette has been Marietta’s grand-occasion hotel and restaurant for over a century — the venue Marietta families have used for weddings, anniversaries, retirements, and formal Sunday dinners. A family-of-eight photograph from a Marietta family in the 1980s gathered in restaurant dress on the Lafayette carpet is almost by definition a celebration occasion — an anniversary, a graduation, a homecoming, an Easter dinner.

What the frame records

Cast queued for Chuck’s identification — possible Wildermuth-side or Eesley-side gathering, possibly a Robert Earl + Dorothy anniversary, possibly a Charlie-and-Terrie or Will-and-Peggy family dinner. The young boy in red is plausibly young Chuck (c. age 6 to 10 puts the date at c. 1985 to 1990).

Source: Eesley/Wildermuth family archive, transmitted by Chuck Eesley 2026; venue confirmation by Chuck June 2026.