Ira and Dottie Dueltgen ("Del-gin") opened their home and
collection to me in early 1997.
Every few weeks, I'd appear at their doorstep to return a box of their
wax cylinders and borrow another.
Month by month, box by box I worked through Ira's large collection of wax cylinder
recordings, digitally preserving them.
What should have been fairly quick visits, seldom were.
As I would complete a new entry in the "cylinder check out" log I left with Ira,
and was preparing to leave, he would often point out an interesting cylinder
asking if I knew the tune.
I usually didn't, so Ira would crank up one of his favorite phonographs.
Soon, music would fill his basement museum, and we'd both be singing along
– record after record.
Ira loved cylinder music.
Ira was a gentle, trusting, kindhearted, and fun-loving man
who deeply loved his wife and was devoted to his children and their families.
Ira and Dottie were married going on 70 years when Ira passed on May 6, 1999.
Gracious and kind, I will always be grateful to Ira and Dottie Dueltgen.
