01.01.70

Boston widow Margaret Carey (McGuire) moves her family of two young sons and an exuberant teenage daughter (Mills) to a house in Beulah, Maine, after the death of her husband and the discovery that, due to his poor investments, the family is in a dire financial situation. Her daughter Nancy has written to Osh Popham (Ives), the caretaker of an absent millionaire’s abandoned big yellow house that the Carey family once saw on a vacation trip.

The headstrong and imaginative daughter writes such an exaggerated tale of heartbreaking white lies that Osh lets the family rent the house for a pittance and contributes labor and material to refurbish it. Of course, Osh has not asked permission of the traveling owner—much to the increasing distress of his wife. While the family is happily adapting that summer to their new life in a rural community, their snobbish cousin Julia (Walley), who has been orphaned and living with a well-to-do family friend, shows up to stay and causes some anxiety for Nancy. Eventually Julia learns the error of her snooty ways.

Source: MousePlanet