As the Eaton wildfire ripped through the California home of Victoria McDonnell DeSantis and her family, her father's brief time in Black and White stripes playing for Newcastle United was far from her mind.
But the flames destroyed her home in the city of Altadena - and with it they lost newspaper clippings and old photos hearkening back to the time when Frederick McDonnell was pictured in the same team photo as some of NUFC's 1950s legends. She is now hoping someone, somewhere, might have any kind of archival records or papers relating to her dad's time in the famous kit.
Fred's time at the Toon was brief, he suffered a leg break - possibly a double leg-break, Victoria thinks - and may never have turned out for the first team. Nonetheless, the evidence of her dad's time in the limelight was special to the US-based mum and her family.
Speaking to ChronicleLive, Victoria - who works as a studio teacher - said she and her son London, 20, are massive Newcastle fans, even from five thousand miles away - and loved watching the Carabao Cup final and subsequent trophy parade in the early hours on the West Coast of the US.
This love for the Toon, she said, stems from dad Frank's brief time in on the books of NUFC. She told ChronicleLive: "I don't have loads of memories, my dad died when I was 10, but he was so passionate [about football] when I was a child.
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"He started the AYSO [American Youth Soccer Organisation] in our hometown. I never played though. It was his passion - he must have signed when he was 16 or so, I think."
Victoria said that later, after her father's death and when her mother moved home, she had discovered a stack of clippings and cuttings related to Fred's football career. She said: "It was so amazing to see, these things I don't think he had ever shown me. Somehow he had brought them all the way to America from Newcastle."
She said that though he had died young and never met her children - his grandchildren - the attraction of the round-ball was something passed on. "Especially for my kids, they never met him but both played soccer. My son and I are avid Newcastle fans, we woke up early to watch the game and to watch the parade!
"My son can tell you any statistic you like - and of course we love big Dan Burn!
"My understanding is that my dad was playing on a [reserve] team and broke his leg - and that ended his career pretty early. I think he had always wanted to come to America, and he did with his first wife, but I'm not sure if maybe she didn't like it. They went back, but he came over again and he met my mother!"
Later, Fred would sponsor siblings to come over and he spent the rest of his life stateside. Decades later, the last records of his football career remaining to Victoria were lost in the Eaton wildfire that destroyed her home north of Los Angeles.
Victoria explained about that awful day. She said: "It was January 8 - we were part of the Eaton fire, not the Palisades one. And really at first it was the 90-to-100mph winds. We thought if we could just get through that...
"But we just got the 'go' signal and went. We could hardly think what to take with us." She said that by the time they returned later than day, the fire was still raging and they had lost everything. Though they spent more than a month in a hotel, the family has now found somewhere more permanent to live.
As a result, Victoria's hope is that Geordie football fans might have long memories - and that someone might have newspaper cuttings, clippings or some other record of Fred's brief time kicking a ball about on Tyneside. Among the items lost, Victoria said, were newspaper clippings marking his signing.
If you have any pictures or documents relating to Fred's time at NUFC, contact sam.volpe@reachplc.com and ChronicleLive will share them with Victoria. To support the family's recovery after losing everything in the wildfire, click here.
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