Voices from the past

Last month I sat down with Annabelle and went through a bunch of her pictures and documents, listening to stories and brainstorming about how to get this blog rolling.

One of the most interesting things she had to share with me were a box of old reels that Mary Jean Pryor had recorded over the years. Most of them were recordings of her piano lessons and recitals, but a couple of them looked very interesting, with titles like "Daddy July 1972" and "Bruce and Brian then Daddy and Me".

When was the last time you saw these?

I spent a week scouring the internet to find someone who would be able to convert these reels to digital files. I finally found someone local, and 2 weeks later I had a CD in hand ready to listen to voices from the past.

It is over 5 hours of audio, some talking, some jokes, some piano performances and a few organ tunes. In fact, a good majority of the stories are told in French. Good thing we have a fluent Frenchie in the family. She is going to have to do a recording herself to translate it all for us...hint hint Auntie Annabelle.

The files are quite large, but I would love to be able to get everyone a copy.

 

A note by Mary Jean on one of the reels

Yummy Brownies

Here is Recipe #1. Let me know if you have any recommendations for future recipe posts

 

This is from "Baker's Favorite Chocolate Recipes: A Handbook of Chocolate Cookery"

We are live in 3...2...1...

Welcome to our Family Blog!

When Grandpa Bob passed, I realized that I had waited too long to capture all our hilarious, ridiculous, interesting and sometimes strange family stories. Growing up I loved hearing all the stories told by grandparents and my aunts and uncles. I want to see if we cant get some of them written down, shown in pictures, told orally, or told through some of Grandma's amazing recipes on this blog for everyone to see, hear, smell and eat.

This blog will only survive if we all contribute. I will try and get the ball rolling with some initial posts, but I hope that you will all help me in this huge task by sending me information you want to share.

For starters I have grandma's cookbooks and will be posting at least one page of her most famous recipes once a month. If you have any special requests please let me know.

I am also in the works on creating a family tree so when we do tell stories, we can keep record of people involved. Seeing as our family was a fertile baby making machine, there are a lot of people to keep track of. More often than not I don't know who is related to who and how. A tree will hopefully help to make sense of all the characters.

I look forward to doing this project with you all and hope that you enjoy the process, the memories and the past.

I love you!
Erin