Family recreates summer fun photos at Channel Cottages

WEIRS BEACH — Madeline Santapaula was 24 in 1946, a year after World War II, when she vacationed on Lake Winnipesaukee. Nearly 80 years later, her son Paul Balmer and his family were able to recreate some snapshots taken during that holiday.

Santapaula, originally from Peabody, Massachusetts, died in Reno, Nevada, in 2012. Balmer's sister Jeanellen Burt was sorting through old photos shortly thereafter, and came across some black and white pictures taken lakeside, and asked him if the setting in one looked familiar. Balmer, of Laconia, recognized the concrete wall in the background, but couldn't quite place it.

Much later, during many trips to take his boat out from Paugus Bay Marina, Balmer went through the channel at the Weirs, and noticed the wall at Channel Cottages. He knew it was the same one shown in the old photo.

Fast forward to this summer and the week of Aug. 5, when Burt was visiting from Reno with her family, including granddaughter Madeline Backlund, named for her great-grandmother. Balmer's daughter Amy Patenaude from Nashua was also visiting.

"With all the female descendants here in one place, I couldn’t resist a chance to capture them all in the same photos as my late mother almost 80 years earlier," Balmer wrote in an email. 

Balmer contacted Channel Cottages, and said owner Jose Dematos was accommodating to his request to visit the property to recreate some of the photos.