March 19, 2008
Irvington man's lost recording of his late wife's voice is retrieved
Melanie Plenda
The Journal News
IRVINGTON - A village man who lost the last recording he had of his late wife to a phone system upgrade spent the last two nights making up for lost time once he got it back.
"I listened to it about 10 times at least," an almost giddy Charles Whiting said last night. "I thought it was really lost forever. I was just absolutely thrilled."
Whiting, 80, is a longtime Verizon customer. Originally, his wife, Catherine, set up the couple's voice mail and left the greeting message. After her death in 2005, Whiting said, he had come to rely on checking his messages and hearing her voice in the greeting. In a small way, he said, it was as if she hadn't left.
However, more than a month ago, Verizon updated the voice-mail system in Dobbs Ferry and Irvington.
As a result of the upgrade, the message was lost - or so Whiting thought.
Though he got no satisfaction when he called Verizon's customer service, upon hearing of his plight, Verizon officials stepped in to help him, said Verizon spokesman John Bonomo.
Verizon called on New Hampshire-based recording company CBW Productions, with whom Verizon has a contract. CBW was able to contact Whiting, get into his phone archives, retrieve the message and put it back on his voice mail.
"We were happy we could help out in this unique situation," Bonomo said. He added that Verizon still recommends people make backup recordings of important messages.
Holly Seppala, the owner of CBW, said via e-mail that her company has been recording important and sentimental voice-mail messages for people since 1999.
According to the CBW Web site, the company records voice-mail messages and permanently archives them to compact discs or MP3 files for "keepsake or legal reasons," or, as in Whiting's case, to put the greeting back onto his voice mail.
Whiting said he is grateful to CBW and to Verizon.
"I'm very glad to have it back and I thanked them very much," he said. "I'll probably also send a thank you card, just to make sure they know how much I appreciate it."
