An Ohio woman has finally been reunited with a "priceless" video that was taken during a family vacation in California 35 years ago.
Erin Freas and Sean Murphy, from Ohio, enjoyed a family vacation with their mother's cousin Janice (Jan) who flew them out to California in 1985.
During the trip, the kids made incredible memories which included visiting Disneyland and boating in the San Diego Bay—many of which were recorded on a VHS tape.
But while memories of the fun trip remained, neither Freas or Murphy had a copy of the tape and a crystal clear picture of the trip was missing.
Fortunately, VHS collector Matt McCarthy from L.A. stumbled across a tape at a junk store and found the vacation recording.
"Matt stated he collects old VHS tapes and had found ours in a box from a junk store in L.A," Freas told Newsweek. "He watched it and put names and Ohio locations together and found me on Facebook.
"We messaged a few times and he made two DVDs and mailed them to me. I couldn't believe this total stranger was going above and beyond just to return these memories to me.
"My faith in humanity was completely restored experiencing this. That someone went to all of this trouble just to be kind."
McCarthy told Newsweek he found the tape labeled "Erin and Sean visit 6/85" at the junk store and following some internet sleuthing he was able to find Erin and asked if it was her tape.
Shocked, Freas admitted she had never seen the tape's contents.
McCarthy told Newsweek that Freas said to him: "We're getting a piece of our childhood back that we thought was lost forever."
He also revealed that the copy was sent to Freas on the same day as it was taken 35 years ago.
Freas continued: "I received the envelope shortly after and I couldn't wait to watch it! He made two copies, so I immediately gave one to my brother, Sean.
"[My mother's cousin] flew Sean and I out to stay with her for two weeks. We flew by ourselves with the help of airline staff. Something I could never allow nowadays with my own kids, lol. The trip fun included Disneyland, Universal, a Padres game, boating in San Diego Bay and so much more.
"Jan always stayed in touch with our family here in Ohio and would try to visit once a year or so, along with calling and writing letters to us.
"Over the years, we stopped hearing from her as often. She was a golf pro and then went on to the police academy and became a police officer on the L.A. gang unit.
"We have searched and searched over the years with no luck of finding her. So to have these never-seen-before memories returned to us by Matt is absolutely priceless. We can't thank him enough."
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