A Genealogy Story - Perfect Audio Recording

Mary Agnes Frecker (Flood) on the right, 1928-1968, died of bronchiectasis (a lung problem caused by a childhood illness). Pictured above is my little brother, Danny in 1960, with Anna McManus Flood and Mary Flood Frecker (mother on right).

I’ve been building my family records at Ancestry after learning that my daughter will travel to Ireland in 2020. The topic of genealogy has taken over my thoughts. 

Finding a Treasure

As I built the ancestry files, I pulled family photos from our home computer. Yesterday I found an audio recording from January 1959 made my parents, Mary and Jack Frecker, when they were young and healthy. It’s a crystal clear recording that is 25 minutes long. My father had borrowed a reel to reel tape recorder. My parents (now deceased) made the recording for Anna McManus Flood (pictured above on left). She is my maternal grandmother. Joseph Flood, my Irish grandfather, and she could not come to Tucson from Chicago when I was born in 1958, so the recording was made. I’m 8 months old in the recording and my brother Keith is about 2 years old. 

I have no idea how the large (36 Mb) file got onto my computer. I cleaned out my dad’s stuff when he died in 2005 but I don’t remember transferring files between devices as that would have been a technical challenge back then. It’s a wonderful experience to hear your own happy family, and finding something 60 years old in perfect condition is a treasure.

You should thank your parents and all your family historians for saving these memories. There is nothing closer than your family. And there is nothing sweeter than the voice of your young mother. 

Here's a link to the audio recording: https://familytreetops.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/02-Mary-Freck...

Now I'm into genealogy and I started a unique art idea of looking at family trees - from the top down – like a map of years or rings of a tree. For more art and stories see my website https://familytreetops.com