HELP! Trying to create extremely simple site

I apologize for the length of this.

I want to create the SIMPLEST of websites that allows me to collect photos from a few friends and make them viewable to all (no password required-- don't care if anyone outside the group has a gander).

I just want the site to show one group photo, and have hyperlinks or tabs to pages containing photos for Person A, Person B, etc. for 5 people. That's all. Don't need the individuals to be able to add photos on their own. Just want to create a 'static' site I'll modify when someone sends me a new photo or two.

With WordPress seeming to be the de facto tool I tried using it, and after MANY hours of getting nowhere except confused I decided to mimic what I had done years ago to create a simple site for showing football pool standings. That method: Used MS Excel to create a spreadsheet, with a few embedded images; created a new folder under/in the public_html folder, and uploaded the spreadsheet I'd saved as type web-page (renamed index.htm) and the image files into that folder.

The new folder was "poolboy", and using a browser anyone could see the spreadsheet by navigating to (my domain name)/poolboy. Can I not do the same thing with just plain MS Word, and create hyperlinks in a main page (index.htm) to 4 other pages created in MS Word (saved as htm files)-- and upload the htm and image files??? Just tried that but "page not found". 

Just want to share a few photos, without buying any software, paying someone to do it, or taking the time to learn more than I actually need for this little project.

Big thanks for any help-- Jim