Ron Dethlefson

[PeterF]

When I was first getting interested in this hobby almost 3 decades ago, Al Sefl turned me on to one of Ron’s books, and I called information for his hometown and got his phone number, and cold called him.

He spent lots of time then and over the subsequent years patiently explaining things to me on the phone, and I also visited him a few times. He was a real mentor to me, and we jokingly called each other Uncle and Nephew.

In 1995, I traveled with him to the Edison site in Orange New Jersey, acting as his research assistant (and greater NYC area rental car chauffeur). During that trip we visited a whole spectrum of phono collecting giants, some of whom have now left us: Cramer, Koenigsberg, Tongue, Wile, Hummel...

I was honored to act as a proofreader and editor for several of his books, and the autographs in the front of my copies have suddenly taken on quite a bit of extra meaning.

I hope he’s listening to a bunch of crappy cylinders with a bunch of other great gone collectors someplace now, all of them in thoughtful poses with chin in hand, and none of them willing to say “this is awful, do we have to listen to the whole thing?”

Because Billy Murray and Manuel Romain, and Len Spencer and Franklin Bauer - and maybe even the old man himself - are there too, and they get pretty ticked off when you do that.

[VanEpsFan1914]

Ten years ago when I was small I would read Dethlefson's name on articles about phonographs and eventually associated him with all things well-researched & phonograph-related. May he rest in peace.