Everett Peckham (1909-1987)
Elaine Candis (1914-1997)
When Peck Met Elaine
Silver Ink and Summer Sparks: A Timeless Tale of Love
When Elaine Candis met Everett Peckham at Ted Hilton's Elm Camp in the early 1930s, it was the start of a lifelong romance.
By Ken Simon
The cover of the 100-year-old photo album shows its age, its brittle pages displaying hundreds of family snapshots, each neatly captioned in silver ink. The images chronicle Everett “Peck” Peckham and Elaine Candis’s love story, which began at Ted Hilton's Elm Camp in the early 1930s. They also capture an era when summer love blossomed among staff and guests at the town's Moodus resorts, sometimes lasting just for the season and sometimes for a lifetime.
Peck, a recent Deep River high school graduate, was hired by Ted Hilton for the 1928 summer season at Elm Camp. Hilton, then 27, had acquired the Salmon River vacation spot the year before and was embarking on an ambitious expansion and upgrade of the resort, eventually renaming it Ted Hilton’s and dubbing it “The Most Unique Resort in America." The handsome and athletic Peck quickly became a key staff member and a Hilton family friend.
Between the tattered covers of Elaine Peckham's 100-year-old photo album is an enchanting story of summer love at a Moodus resort that became a forever relationship.
As activities director in the 1930s and 40s, Peck orchestrated unforgettable summers for guests, a mix of singles and couples. His most memorable summer was undoubtably the 1931 season when he met Elaine, a spirited 18-year-old from Newton, MA, who vacationed at Elm Camp every summer with her three brothers.
Peck is clearly the star of the album, which Elaine began compiling following their meeting at Elm Camp. The album, which documents his work at Hilton's and her visits to the resort, traces the couple's journey from their initial summer frolics to the first years of their life together, including summers at "camp," their marriage, their first four "honeymoons," and the birth of their first child. After marrying in 1941, the Peckhams settled in Deep River, where they raised three children and Peck started a law practice that he ran for 40 years out of their Main Street house.
Everett Peckham and Elaine Candis about the time they first met at Elm Camp.
The battered album, spanning the years 1927 to 1947, is not just a collection of family memories; it is a celebration of enduring love and a poignant reminder of the Moodus resorts’ role in sparking countless summer romances and timeless tales of love against the backdrop of the scenic countryside.
