I’m posting photos from my collection of family photographs on Saturdays with a brief explanation of what I know about each picture.

This is my wife Ellen, aged four, playing in the lake at her family’s cottage on Manitouwabing Lake, near the village of McKellar, Ontario.

The cottage was a place of great joy for Ellen but she also remembers how long the drive from her Weston, Ontario home was especially for a young child. The cottage was owned by Ellen’s parents so Ellen spent the entire summer each year playing, fishing, and boating.

It is assumed that the photo was taken either by her father Carl or mother Tess (Latimer) Wagner as Ellen played in the shallow water near the shore of the family’s island cottage.

Ellen (Wagner) Hadden, aged 4, playing in the water at her parental family’s cottage