Village leaders showing off the publication of the big circulation magazine, Saturday Evening Post. Pictured in the front row, left to right: Irving Altman, owner of Altman’s Shops Devoted to Feminine Fashions, unknown, Enterprise Columnist Eddie Vogt, former Mayor and Postmaster Thomas Ward, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, and later President of Paul Smith’s College Thomas Stainback; back row, left to right: Superintendent of Schools Charles Cowan, unknown, Mayor Tony Anderson; Owner of Saranac Lake News Company Ewald Wilcox, holding a copy of The Post; Mr. Jacques DeMattos himself and unknown. The Post carried a feature story about Saranac Lake. An Enterprise clipping with the date cut off after “Saturday, July 21, 195-” reads, “The full length article will be the 106th in the Post’s series, Towns and Cities of America. Frank Ross, a Post staff photographer had visited the region months before and the post will cover the feature along with seven four-color photos.” (Photo courtesy of Jacques and Alice DeMattos)

I had the great, good fortune of running into Marilee Dupree last week as I was leaving, and she was entering, Riley’s Rock Shop. I showed her my book and she replied, “I have your book,” and then added something like, “but I have something for you.”

Okay, it’s a winding road to get into this story, so stay with me. In my column of Sept. 17, 2022, I published a “Picture of the Week” (shown here again) showing all the big shots in town holding a picture of the Saturday Evening Post. The Post published a feature story about Saranac Lake but there was no other information about that feature.

So, Marilee drops this journalistic bomb on me — “I have something you might like for your column, an old edition of the Saturday Evening Post featuring Saranac Lake.”

Wow and wowzie! — Shut the door, get outta town. — That kind of shock would make a mare bite her colt.

Turns out that Marilee is the daughter of the beautiful Irene Ladd, who I knew in high school and I also knew her grandfather. He was a soft spoken guy, always in a suit and tie and was a great Saranac Lake High School science teacher at that time, Charles Roger Ladd.

This is going to take a couple of columns to do justice to the story. The Post was one of the most popular magazines in the country and in the later 1950s was nearing 6 million in circulation. Many of the covers were made famous by Norman Rockwell but not this one. (More about the cover later.)

The story was written by William Chapman White, whose wife was Ruth Morris, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Morris, who had the biggest Theatrical Agency in the world and owned Camp Intermission on Lake Colby, now owned by the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Mr. White was a columnist for the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune (and I hasten to add, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise) and his bio read, “but he is known especially for his 1954 book, ‘Adirondack Country.'”

The story by Mr. White is thousands of words, maybe as many seven thousand by my unscientific research method. There is a two page spread in the center of the magazine with eight large photos in color. One features Dr. and Mrs. Francis B. Trudeau, another of old-timers, Lyman Lawrence, (deceased), Ernest Fletcher, Aiden Lawrence and Dave Bushey (deceased).

Then on the last page of the magazine with a headline “Keeping Posted,” were short stories, some with photos.

Following is one of those stories — what a testimony for Saranac Lake from a fellow who could chose to live any place in the world:

“William White is such a convincing writer that he casts a spell even over himself. He and his wife and son have always locked up their New York apartment in hot weather and visited Mrs. White’s mother in pine-scented Saranac Lake, New York — which is why he wrote the piece about that town on Page 34. White gave his finished manuscript a final reading; then his eyes turned dreamy and he exclaimed to his family, ‘By George, if Saranac Lake is such a wonderful place, why don’t we just go live there?’

“As nobody could think of any reason why not, they promptly went.

“That was a while ago. Recalling White’s remark that Saranac Lake has two seasons, July and winter, it seemed wise to check on whether he was still there or had moved to Florida to thaw out. He telegraphed, ‘Wouldn’t live anywhere else. Suggest you come here and do the same.”

Next week I will try to publish a reduced, but complete cover and how that cover was created … with more photos.