Cecil’s Lost Sounds

A few years ago National Public Radio launched an award-winning program called Lost & Found Sound, a series on largely forgotten audio treasurers fom the past.  After the producers issued a call for rare sounds folks dug through attics to find old recordings and what emerged was a series of episodes chronicling our nation's audio history. Well, Cecil County has lost sounds too, and when an appeal went out from the Historical Society for help in capturing this aspect of earlier times, the Cecil Whig's Jane Weaver answered the call. As a result of the request, she scoured drawers and cabinets, finding four old audio tapes from WSER, an Elkton radio station, as well as some broadcast memorabilia.

Weaver, the news director at the station from 1980 to 1988 created her share of lost sounds that once filled the airwaves.  Weekday mornings, she worked in a studio putting together daily local newscasts and public affairs programs.  These broadcasts chronicled important county news and happenings. Local public officials, as well as state and national leaders who passed this way, were captured by her microphone, tape recorder and notepad. These audio artifacts, aired once years ago, have been donated to the Society.  As the Cecil County Sheriff's Office prepared to move prisoners from a 19th century jail in 1984, there is a feature length interview with Sheriff John F. DeWitt and Chief Deputy Smokey Elliott.  They proudly escort the radio-news reporter through the modern county detention center as sounds of a lock-up, such as clanging jail-house doors and radio transmissions, are heard on the tape.

Weaver, joined by other local on-air personalities, such as Dave Winchester and John Brennan, are heard on other tapes producing imaginative, local advertising spots for businesses that faded away years ago.  There is also a DJ doing a top 40 AM radio show from the station when that was the hottest format in the industry.  Her on air-name was Jane Bellmyer.

Added to the Weaver collection is another donation of a WSER tape.  This one, done by DJ, Chuck DeSocio, in 1993 on the 30th anniversary of the Pan American Airlines crash in Elkton contains a feature length interview with Rosemary Culley and other local folks involved in that disaster.  Culley, the only dispatcher on duty at the county's emergency communications center, describes how events unfold that troubling December night in 1963.

A large part of Cecil's 20th century history was documented and recorded by sound and image so the Historical Society is seeking to develop collections of these artifacts.  These include audio and video recordings related to county history.   As an example of holdings being added to this records group, there are video tapes of a National Geographic News Broadcast on Elkton's Wedding Industry, a Today Show program from Elk Landing, and the audio of emergency communications radio traffic during the 1963 plane crash.

This is just one of many new initiatives being undertaken by the Historical Society of Cecil County to collect and chronicle unique aspects of our past. It joins other innovative program such as the Cecil County Veteran's Oral History Project, which was funded by local veteran's groups and service clubs.