Month: January 2015

This is the third and final installment of “Found Sound:Feb 1958″

Well, here is “Side 2” of the Audio Letter from 1958.

This side of the tape begins on Sunday February 16, 1958.  The family will be gathered to celebrate Grandpa Holvick’s upcoming birthday which will fall on Tuesday February 18.  Grandpa was born in 1905 so he would be 53 years old when this was recorded.  My paternal grandparents, Frank and Josephine (“Grandma Jo” as I knew her) Palmer and my father’s sister Illene will be among those in attendance for the celebration.  It sounds like it was quite a party!

I thought some listeners may benefit from an additional ‘secret decoder ring’ to figure out the other people on the tape.

Palmer and Ellen Holvick – my maternal grandparents.  My mother Marilyn is their eldest child.

Ron & Margery “Marge” (Holvick) Larson – my Uncle and Aunt, and a young Lori Larson, their daughter.

Arlys (Holvick), my Aunt (who will marry the ‘boyfriend’ mentioned on this side of the tape — Dennis Jorenby, in 1959)

There is another voice that I cannot place (at the 00:17:37 chapter) — maybe my maternal Great-Grandmother “Nana”?  I’ll need some help from those who may have a better recollection than I for that voice.

This side of the tape concludes with the sad news where Grandpa Frank and Grandma Jo Palmer are injured and hospitalized as a result of an automobile accident that occurred on 81.

Audio for Side 2:

Chapters for Side 2:

Name	Start
Sunday, Feb 16, 1958 – At the Farm	00:00:00.000
Illene (Palmer)	00:00:29.536
Jo” (Josephine Palmer)	00:02:54.878
Frank Palmer	00:04:26.867
Illene	00:07:04.681
Ron Larson: Scooter @ Tena’s (Nana); -27 degrees	00:08:15.429
Marge (Holvick) Larson	00:10:10.778
Arlys (Holvick) Jorenby	00:11:44.401
Frank Palmer(?)	00:13:53.062
Jo Palmer	00:15:07.041
?	00:17:37.123
Marge/Arlys	00:18:42.151
Ellen Holvick	00:21:18.015
Palmer Holvick	00:22:22.311
Marge	00:23:15.775
Illene?	00:24:06.975
Arlys	00:26:25.354
Marge	00:27:00.463
Arlys	00:29:37.232
?	00:32:38.417
Illene	00:33:22.408
Marge	00:34:32.137
Palmer (end of Sunday Night Feb 16)	00:37:25.904
Tuesday, Feb 18, 1958 — Palmer	00:37:54.011
Ellen	00:42:09.911
Ellen	00:44:48.737
Palmer	00:49:34.198
Palmer	00:51:26.768
Ellen	00:56:46.785
Wednesday, Feb 19, 1958 — Palmer; Frank & Jo in accident on 81	00:57:23.531
Ellen	00:59:20.490
Palmer	01:00:19.770
Ellen	01:01:58.908
Palmer: Pickup demolished	01:02:40.901

Questions I have on this side:

1. What relation are Olaf (or Ollie) & JoAnn and their daughter Cindy? And who would ‘Auga’ be who would care for Cindy? (Aunt Illene talks about them early on this side).
2. There’s an “Elmer” mentioned — is that a neighbor or someone related?

I hope all who may have had a listen have enjoyed this timecapsule as much as I.

Download

Related: Side 1

(This is the second installment of the “Found Sound” entry)

Voices from the past.  I find it amazing how when I first heard the recording from 1958 of my grandfather’s voice how it was instantly recognizable.  Grandpa passed away in November of 1975, I was 16 that year.  We did not visit too frequently since we were in Maryland and they were in South Dakota.  But the way sounds seem forever forged to memory is fascinating.  It has been over 40 years since I’ve heard his voice, but yet I knew right away who it was.

Since there are more dates specified on Side 2, I’ve tried to work back to the correct dates for this recording (some are guesses).

The following is the recording from Side 1 of that tape from 1958:

Some interesting chapters in the recording (click the time link to jump to that chapter):

Name	Start
Start — Monday Feb 10 – 1958 (?)	00:00:05.457
Arlys	00:01:24.656
Palmer – Just after Dinner Feb 10	00:02:53.894
Tuesday Feb 11 – Go to town for Drawing	00:03:12.726
Cold – “14 below”	00:03:48.101
Palmer – “Kids” driving the Ford	00:05:35.099
@ Marge & Ron’s – young Lori talking	00:07:20.282
Ron Larson:	00:09:28.740
Ellen Holvick (Grandma)	00:10:56.823
Palmer — New Recorder Wed Feb 12?	00:12:11.022
Ellen: Received Tape on Sat 8	00:15:07.581
Palmer: the “DJ”; Surgery; HiFi	00:16:58.033
Ellen: Plays Piano”Sail Along Silvery Moon”	00:22:11.077
Ellen plays piano	00:24:31.287
Palmer/Ellen plays “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”	00:29:03.299
The School in Rutland	00:31:02.390
Ellen plays “Sweet Hour of Prayer”	00:31:44.703
Piano: ?	00:33:10.953
Piano: ?	00:34:24.100
Palmer: More about the School	00:35:19.605
Piano: ?	00:36:34.442
Basketball Broadcast: Egan vs Dell Rapids	00:38:47.294
??? Marty & “I” (Nana?)	00:54:58.131
Thursday Feb 13, 1958	00:57:02.926
Marge	00:57:34.642
Marge	00:58:43.641
Rutland Basketball Radio Broadcast	01:00:26.198

 

Questions that I have listening to this:

1. Who are some of the people mentioned? (JoAnn, “Ollie”)
2. What are the other songs/hymns Grandma Ellen plays?

 

Comments Welcome!

I’m working on the recording of “Side 2” for the next installment.

Download Side 1

I was given a couple of old Reel-to-reel tapes by my older brother, Jeffry, several years ago.  These got cleaned out of a storage facility as my mother was going through some things.  I used to do quite a bit of reel-to-reel recording and still had a TEAC 2340SX machine stored in the basement.  Recently, I pulled out the old machine and decided I would try to play the 1958 tapes to see what they may contain.  Back in those days, it was not uncommon to record over existing material which is exactly what I discovered with one of the reels.  Although it had “April 21 -1958” written on the back, it proved to be newer than that because one side was actually a recording of the Star Trek episode “Charlie X” which originally aired September 15, 1966.   I was a little disappointed.

But then I threaded up the other reel.  On the back of this box, you can see the date Feb 19, 1958 written lightly in pencil.  The other note refers to “our 1st recording” and something about an “accident.”  At the time of this playing in Jan 2015, the reel of tape is about 57 years old. I wasn’t sure how it would play after having been stored in less than ideal conditions for so long.  Would it be brittle and break up or would the magnetic coating just peel off as it passed through the machine?  I planned on capturing the playback the first time I played the tape in case it proved to be too fragile for additional playback.  So I started the tape.  It did not snap into pieces as soon as the transport engaged.  That was good. Because I was capturing all of the tracks simultaneously, one channel was playing in reverse but on the other I immediately recognized my grandfather’s (my mother’s father) voice.  I stopped the tape and re-queued it to the beginning to start the digital capture on the computer.  As it turns out, it was a ‘Living Letter’ from my Grandparents, Aunts & Uncles in South Dakota to our family (well, I wasn’t around at the time) stationed in France at the time and by all indications was the content as noted on the box.  The tape was 1200ft long and playing at a speed of 3-3/4″ inches per second meant there was about an hour of material on each side.

There was some slight flaking of the tape coating at the tail end of the reel, but the tape made it all the way through.  As I replayed the digital recording, I discovered that the audio became garbled partially through which was not how the tape actually sounded.  Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the audio interface that caused this and I had to re-capture the audio again.  I was very glad that the tape showed very little sign of any degradation since I would have to play it through again. It ended up taking four passes on my TEAC for a clean digital copy. Now that we had it captured I was anxious to see what tidbits of life in 1958 we would learn from it. We’ll write about that soon.

Related: Side 1 and Side 2