Robert C. Frazee 435

I think to Uncle Bob, I was the relative who crawled out of the woodwork. Dad would take me to work when I was little and I would never have anything to do. Usually I would watch Lyle and Micky in the shop just to smell Lyle's pipe (Sadly he died of cancer) and hear Micky's laugh. Sometimes they told me it was too dangerous and I had to find something else interesting.

I might wander over to the offices where Wes would not be glad to see me, but I don't remember much about Wes because he died when I was so young and Bob took his place. Bob, as I remember it, was always on the phone. Whether there was actually someone on the other end, I'll never know. Often someone would chase me out so I couldn't interrupt him, but other times I'd just look around his office. It had two things which to me were really fascinating. One was the selection of large color photographs of gladiolas with (often) cartoon characters of hula dancers or leprechauns or 1890's piano players - that reminded me of Farrel's Ice Cream Parlor. On the opposite wall there was a huge framed road map of the United States on cork board with hundreds of colored pins. Three or four of the pins also had colored flags. Looking at the map opened up the world for me. The pins meant that our family had a connection all over the country, and albeit only my name and the flowers represented by those photographs, part of me had visited every major city - like Sioux Falls, Kalamazoo, and Gallup.

Bob, Dad, Grampa, and I would talk about roads, hotels, people, restaurants. We had a brotherhood of the road.

Obituary: Robert Frazee; saw politics as means to solve needs of residents
By Michael Burge
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. January 27, 2009

Robert Frazee
CARLSBAD — Former Carlsbad mayor and longtime Assemblyman Robert Frazee died while on a cruise in the South Pacific, family members said yesterday.
Frazee, 80, was first elected to the Carlsbad City Council in 1972, then as mayor in 1974. In 1978, he was elected to the state Assembly, where he represented North County and part of Orange County.
He retired from the Legislature in 1994.
Susan Kurner, Frazee's daughter, said she received a call from her mother Sunday morning that her father had died suddenly of an apparent heart attack after her parents' ship had left Bora Bora. She said the couple were avid travelers.
Frazee, a Republican, was known for his soft-spoken but persuasive style.
“He told me one of the reasons he moved to the state Assembly was because he didn't think there were enough businesspeople” in Sacramento, said Richard Ledford, Frazee's longtime chief of staff.
“Politics was just a means of solving community needs” to Frazee, Ledford said. When Frazee's Assembly district was redrawn to take in part of Orange County, Ledford said, the lawmaker walked the streets of San Clemente and Dana Point to become familiar with constituents' concerns.
Ledford said Frazee crossed party lines to vote for measures he thought were good for the state, such as aid for the disabled, and was a coastal advocate.
“He viewed (coastal preservation) as one of those quality-of-life issues in North County,” Ledford said. “He worked with (U.S. Rep.) Ron Packard to restore sand on North County beaches.”
Frazee was instrumental in the construction of Carlsbad's sea wall and promenade that extends between Tamarack and Pine avenues. That section of beach is named Robert C. Frazee State Beach, and a road in Oceanside's San Luis Rey Valley is also named after him.
“He was my mentor; I followed in his footsteps,” said Packard, who served on the Carlsbad council with Frazee and succeeded him as mayor. “There's “fewer men I've held in higher esteem than Bob Frazee.”
Packard said Frazee's quiet but firm hand made an imprint on the Carlsbad City Council and administration that persists to this day. Frazee also set policies in motion that diversified the city's economy and broadened its tax base, Packard said.
Frazee also helped found the North County Transit District and was one of its original board members.
Frazee was born Sept. 1, 1928, in the San Luis Rey River Valley and was a 1946 graduate of Oceanside High School.
Kurner said he met his future wife, Dolores Hedrick, while he was attending college classes that were held at Oceanside High and she was a high school student. They married in 1951.
Frazee served as a radio technician in the Marine Corps from 1950 to 1952, during the Korean War, Kurner said, but he didn't go overseas.
He was the president of Frazee Flowers, the shipping arm of the Frazee family's flower-growing enterprise.
Frazee sold his share of the business to other family members after he was elected to the Assembly to eliminate any possible conflict of interest, said John Frazee, Robert Frazee's nephew and business associate.
“He was well-respected, very honest and straightforward with people,” in business and politics, John Frazee said.
Frazee is survived by his wife; his two daughters, Kurner and Nancy Frazee; son-in-law Rick Kurner; and two grandchildren. Memorial services are pending.