Denise 15 years ago with one of the 4th generations of Stanfords on Kimball Pond. 

​Greetings from Denise & Jim Stanford in California, where we’re hunkered down wishing we were with you all (even virtually) in the place that is dear to our hearts.
We have 60 years and 4 generations of family memories from summers and falls spent on Upper Kimball in South Chatham. Here are some “snapshots” of what it was like when my parents and I first arrived in 1951 after driving over Hurricane Mountain at night pulling my dad’s small dinghy. (Still “docked” on Thomas Henricksen’s property, the original Anderson farm at the north end of the lake, the last time I looked.) 
Being a teenage girl, all I could think of was that no boy would ever find me in the middle of the woods! Red Monroe, who was delivering milk to Chatham in those days, to the rescue—he assigned a local boy to Little Chatham Road! And since Katherine Bishop’s camp Chatham Woods was thriving then, the boys’ camp on Lower Kimball provided a lot of male counselors for additional fun. When I was in Michigan, where my father taught, I was too much of a “goody-goody" to get in trouble. But in Chatham some teens taught me how to fill a watermelon with gin and plug it until the slices become saturated. One time, to my later regret when my conscience kicked in, we stole some corn from Weston’s field to round out the meal. Obviously my parents never knew any of this. And if any Weston relative is reading this I apologize 55 years later!
In those days Ken and Elsie Small rented cabins (I think they’re now called “Sunshine Shores”?) close to where the Lunns live. Elsie’s sister Ina ran the Post Office which had South Chatham’s only telephone. If you had to get hold of someone, as I did when some local friends & I got caught in a storm climbing Mt. Washington, you called Ina and she sent someone to your house with the message. Ina was also fond of reading messages on people’s post cards. When my boyfriend (now husband) Jim came to Chatham to be checked out by my parents, he met Ina. She greeted him with, “Glad to meet you Bill”. It must not have bothered Jim too much because at the end of week (during which Heidi and “Bun” Wood took us to Rattlesnake Brook to also check him out) we got engaged in the Andersons’ cow pasture. We’re still going strong 60 years later!
Thanks to Jeanne Eastman and Bob Benes for not letting COVID stop the Ice Cream Social!
--Denise Stanford