Founder of Cape Elizabeth blanket business remembered for her grit and optimism

Photo / Provided ChappyWrap founder Beth Haller LaSala, left, with her daughter, Christina Livada, who runs the business from her home in Cape Elizabeth.

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By Renee Cordes

Beth Haller LaSala, founder of a family-owned blanket business called ChappyWrap, died on March 10, a week after turning 68.

Remembered by her family as an eternal optimist who “listened with her whole heart,” the Cape Elizabeth resident was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. The illness returned aggressively in 2024.

“She took on the disease with grit, determination and positivity – qualities that defined her fight until her final days,” Christina Livada said of her mother in email addressed to the "Chappy family."

LaSala, who was born on March 3, 1957, Altoona, Pa., and lived in various places including Washington, D.C., and Texas, settled in Maine as her "forever home" in 2020. She launched ChappyWrap in 2006 in Massachusetts with a business partner.

In 2018 after the partner retired, Livada left her speech-pathology job in July 2018 to join her mom at ChappyWrap as vice president of sales and marketing, as detailed in an October 2022 Mainebiz cover story on next-generation leadership at family-owned businesses.

As president of ChappyWrap since July 2021, Livada (honored as a Mainebiz 40 Under 40 in 2023) runs the company from her home in Cape Elizabeth. Livada's husband, Drake Livada, is the company's director of sales and operations.

IFOB tribute

Catherine Wygant Fossett, executive director of the Institute for Family-Owned Business, shared news of LaSala’s death with members of the Portland-based organization earlier this week.

“Beth and her family became a part of the IFOB family as they were navigating the journey of succession planning,” she told Mainebiz. “They participated in our peer groups and shared their warmth of spirit and their special wraps with us. We are deeply saddened by their loss and are here for them as they embark on this new chapter in life.”

To honor LaSala’s memory, her family suggests donating to one of her favorite causes, the Tanzanian Children’s Fund, “or by simply wrapping someone you love in comfort and warmth, just as she always did.”

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