Columbian reader helps another listen to old record made by mother

Everybody has a story, but sometimes you need the right media to hear it properly. Thanks to friendly offers from a couple of strangers — an Oregon record shop owner and a loyal Columbian subscriber — Lynne Schroeder and her extended family enjoyed a day-early Mother’s Day celebration by recovering a long-lost, decades-old piece of their mother’s story.

Schroeder and relations squeezed into Beth Webber’s living room in Orchards on Saturday to listen in wonder as an antique record turned on a grand old phonograph and the sweet, scratchy sound of an accordion filled the air. The accordionist was the family’s late matriarch, Lillian Sedar, when Sedar was a teenager and living in La Grande, Ore., circa 1940.

“I always still miss her,” said Lynne Schroeder, who hugged Webber and added: “This is so special, I sure appreciate this.”

A few weeks ago, Schroeder penned a short (and inconclusive) tale for The Columbian’s weekly do-it-yourself storytelling column, Everybody Has a Story, describing how the record found its way to her family. They didn’t even know it existed, she said, before a total stranger reached out to them with a great discovery.

Vinyl hunter Skip Buhler, the owner of a vintage record shop in Forest Grove, Ore., called Lost Wax, came across an old record last year — the kind of thing you used to be able to record for yourself, in a booth at a drugstore or camera shop — with the scrawled name “Lillian Sedar” taped to it. Buhler doesn’t just love old audio, he loves old stuff of all sorts, including ancestry records and genealogy mysteries; he matched the name Lillian Sedar with a local descendant, Lynne’s daughter-in-law Gina Schroeder, via the website ancestry.com. Then he looked her up and gave her a call.

Gina Schroeder, who lives in Fairview, Ore., rounded up her in-laws, Lillian Sedar’s daughters — Lynne Schroeder of Ridgefield, and Becky Newell of Portland — to visit Lost Wax and have a listen.

“I was really excited. I thought it was a neat story, and I thought it would win me major points” with the family, she joked. (“She doesn’t need major points,” her husband, Scott Schroeder, Lynne’s son, joked right back.)

Lillian Sedar was very musical — and a dancer, too — but that part of her life seems to have faded over time, the sisters reflected; they remember their mother bringing out her accordion only on special family occasions and holidays like Christmas. They played the obligatory kids’ role, they confirmed: rolling their eyes and wishing Mom would put that thing away. “Oh, no, we have to listen to this again,” Lynne Schroeder remembers thinking.

Today, that memory makes the sisters laugh — and makes them wish they’d behaved a little differently, too, they confessed. When their mother passed away in 1996, she had two accordions that were up for grabs; nowadays, Lynne Schroeder said, “I kick myself for not taking one of them.”

“When I saw Mom’s handwriting” on the record, “that brought on some tears. It was kind of tough,” she said. “Mom never mentioned doing a record, ever.”

Buhler tried playing the record on a turntable he had, and you could hear something there, the sisters said — but not much. The speed was wrong and the sound basically unlistenable. But the Schroeders were happy to have this keepsake; Lynne gifted it to sister Becky.

Meanwhile, her friends kept telling her this tale was worthy of The Columbian’s Everybody Has a Story column. Schroeder wrote the story complete with a wistful wish that the record could actually get played: “I know all of us would give anything to be able to hear my mom play that old accordion again, even if it was just one more time.”

Schroeder thought that was probably the end of the story; she really wasn’t going fishing for a way to play the record, she said. But that’s exactly what happened: offers started pouring in from local folks with antique working phonographs. That’s not a surprise to The Columbian; every so often, a tale published in Everybody Has a Story results in a happy reconnection among people who have lost track of each other — or a new connection among people with something special to share.

In this case, Schroeder accepted the offer from steady Everybody Has a Story reader Beth Webber, who lives in Orchards. Webber’s big phonograph belonged to her grandparents, and she inherited it along with a bunch of records — like “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain,” which was on the turntable when the Schroeders and The Columbian showed up on Saturday.

Webber, an antiques collector and genealogy lover in her own right, said she doesn’t crank up the phonograph very often anymore, but knew it was working fine. It’s an impressive piece of furniture but actually a simple machine, and Webber said she’s never had it repaired or maintained. It has horizontal wooden doors you open to let out the sound. Below those doors is a storage cabinet for records. The actual product name is “Columbia Grafonola,” according to fancy lettering under the lid, and it stands about chest high in a corner of Webber’s living room.

That’s where seven members of Sedar’s extended family crowded in to listen: sisters Lynne Schroeder and Becky Newell, Newell’s adult son Jesse Newell, Schroeder’s son Scott Schroeder and his wife, Gina, and their sons Henry, 7, and Jack, 10.

Webber cranked the crank, set the needle and adjusted the speed. What started out sounding like a train on tracks gave way to the sharp, strong melody of “San Antonio Rose” on accordion. Everybody fell silent and Lynne Schroeder whipped out a cellphone to make a fresh digital recording of the faded wax one.

“It’s pretty awesome,” said Becky Newell. “It brings back a lot of happy memories.”

“Jack, that’s your great-grandma playing,” Scott told his son. “This is once-in-a-lifetime.”

“I’ve got that connection to your mom now, and I never met her,” said Gina.

“It’s like we have a little piece of her,” said Lynne.