Laconia, New Hampshire

At the motel in York Beach, Maine, where I work part-time, I recently took a reservation from a guest who is coming from Laconia, New Hampshire. Now this is not the first guest we have had from Laconia, but as I was recalling that early in my life my family had lived in that city for a short while it occurred to me that I had neglected to include that fact in autobiographical notes I am preparing as a part of my genealogical project. I could not recall, however, in what year we lived there. I can visualize the house and recall that the address was 12 Pearl St. I remember that directly behind the house there was a large field, or park, where a circus that came to town was set up. But, what was the year? OK, I know I didn't go to school in Laconia, even though I was thinking that we had moved directly from our former home, in Sutton, New Hampshire, to Concord, New Hampshire, where I started kindergarten at Walker School. So, it dawned on me, that we must have moved to Laconia before relocating to Concord. Then, last night as I was perusing this question while I should have been sleeping, I suddenly remembered that during the time we lived in Laconia there was great excitement in the area due to the launching of a rebuilt steamship onto Lake Winnepasaukee. In fact, I vaguely recollect that my Dad, Mom, sister Joyce, and I, may have gone to observe the auspiscious event. So, this morning I did some computer research attempting to find a history of the steamship Mt Washington. There I found a nice historical website that tells the entire story of early sightseeing vessels on the lake, including the SS Mt Washington II, that was rebuilt on a hull of a ship that was originally in service on Lake Champlain. The hull was cut into sections and transported on flat-bed rail cars to Lakeport, New Hampshire, where it was reassembled, rebuilt, and launched on August 12, 1940. Eureka! And, that year ties in very nicely with my personal time-line. I would have been 4-years of age, it was August (a reasonable Circus month), and finally we would have relocated to Concord where I was eventually enrolled in kindergarten at age 5.