A Victor home recording made by an unidentified female and “Dr. Frank” Jones while on what sounds like a lovely vacation in California during the summer of 1931.
It’d be pretty cool to figure out who this was and get a copy to their descendants! It was found in an album with a collection of Little Wonder records in a thrift store in Iowa in March of 2022.
At 78rpm the voices sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks, so slowed it down until it sounded close to normal – which came out to be around 60-62 rpm.
Transcript:
Side I
“This is Friday, July 11, 1931. Hello, Uncle Jim and Mrs. Woolsey and Dorothy. Well, here we are in Long Beach. It is cool on the ocean, but back a mile or so, it’s plenty hot. I had (weenies? Wheaties?) for supper last night and I thought of you. We just went to the big boat California – it arrived from New York. It was wonderful. We saw Etsy Bowne(?) and Mrs. Springfield and Leila(?). Mrs. Springfield says she feels better now. We are going to visit (?) this afternoon. We went to Tijuana, Mexico last Monday. I am glad I live in the Good ole’ U.S.A. I never knew how I loved the grand old flag – and how much it really meant to us all. We are going to start north to Portland about next Wednesday. We expect to stay a day or so in Oakland and may stop in San Francisco a day. We are going up the Redwood drive – they say it is one of the most beautiful drives in the world. Mother hasn’t done very… but very little back seat driving, although, um… at times she has done… there’s been a little (?) in the backseat as we crossed over the big Nevada mountains. We wish you all were here with us. I wonder how my Sunday school class is coming along. I visited…”
Side II
“(?) will say something to you.”
“Hello Jim, Mrs. Woolsey and Dorothy. Well, here we are, and uh, everything’s fine – mother’s gained about five, ten pounds and (?) has gained about the same and we’re on our way up north – I guess, uh, Wednesday. We want to stop, uh, see (?) if we have time although we saw her on the way down – they have a beautiful home and uh… everybody’s getting along fine up there. We expect to go on through Glacier Park and down through the Yellowstone Park and we’ll probably be home, oh uh, the last of August – maybe about the first of September. Well, it’s good and hot if you get away from the coast then, I wish you was out here and lots of love to all of you and this is Doctor Frank.”
#victorhomerecording #homerecording #audiopostcard
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