I
was born on Pa’s 73rd birthday, reportedly because there was a lot
of fresh corn on the cobb at his party and the corn and I couldn’t both fit.
I
can’t remember my first memory of Pa. My
earliest memories would be sitting at the coffee table eating dinner on
Christmas Eve and trying to touch the moose’s beard in the living room. Pa was
just always there, and for years I figured he always would be.
There
was the Sanka, the Buckwheats, the sweeping the leaves from the dirt, the
hunting stories. I never worried about writing any of them down because he
would always be there. Grandma Cilley
did, so once at the Cabin at Tom’s place she hid a tape recorder by her side in
her chair and tried to get Pa to tell some stories. He had recently had surgery to remove some
melanomas from his ear though, and he had become quiet and self-conscious. So, to the best of my knowledge, no stories
were ever recorded.
He
always lived his life occupied and with something on his mind. It was the best
lesson I’ve ever learned. Creativity is nothing more than the mindset never to
be bored and filled with self-pity.
F. Frazee Colorful
Character
By DAWN GARCIA
Staff Writer
OCEANSIDE
– This former coastal farming town has lost an historic and dear friend:
90-year-old Frank Frazee.
An
industrious flower grower, an avid outdoors-man and storyteller par excellence,
Frazee was the oldest man born in Oceanside still living here. He died in his
sleep Tuesday night, only a block from where he was born.
Although
not a public figure like his son – Assemblyman Robert Frazee R-Carlsbad – his presence
in Oceanside will be missed nonetheless.
Frazee
could be seen caring for the trees and flowers on his 10 acres next to
Interstate 5 long after his children and grandchildren took over the booming
Frazee Flower business. And up until just a few years ago, he continued to ride
a tractor to plow his field.
In
expressing his love for Oceanside, he used to say he’d had “the heart out of
the melon,” friends remember, meaning he had seen Oceanside’s best years.
He
used to tell stories of the days when the Frazee family cow delivered enough
milk to sustain the people of Carlsbad and when Oceanside was nothing more than
farms and ocean.
Storytelling
was one of his favorite pastimes, with some of the tales maybe just a little “tall,”
his families says, claiming he went by the old adage: “never let the truth
stand in the way of a good story.”
His
father was Oceanside’s first city clerk and his grandfather touted the beauty
of the area to friends before the city was even a city.
“His
grandfather was quite the advertiser,” said David Meikle, Frazee’s son-in-law.
Frazee
used to live where South Oceanside School now sits before he moved 46 years ago
to a large homestead at the corner of Cassidy and Stewart streets.
His
life spanned the horse and buggy era as well as the first moon landing. Between those times, he saw Oceanside change
dramatically.
The
small coastal farming community grew into a city of more than 80,000 people and
his 40 acres of flower-covered land was whittled down to a 10-acre lot by the
construct of a freeway and busy streets.
It was here Frazee lived out his final years, enjoying his family and
his flowers.
(In)
A family photo taken more than 30 years ago there shows a man with strong
farmer’s hands clutching a hoe, his smiling, beard-stubbly face peeking out from
a wide-brimmed felt hat with rows of flowers behind him.
His
face and activities changed little for many years from what that picture showed
while Frazee continued to farm his lot, seemingly oblivious to the changes time
has brought to his native land. When asked if he minded the noisy freeway
nearby, he once said, “It’s all right. It has to go somewhere.”
He
once agreed that Oceanside’s next-door-neighbor Carlsbad was changing just “a
little too fast.”
A
pine tree he planted as a child now raises its branches to 120 feet from his
land to the sky above Oceanside. This tree and the acres of rainbow-colored
gladiolas that cover North County are living monuments to one of the area’s
first fans.
Frazee
is survived by a sister, Alma Bonds, five children – Marjorie Meikle, and
Edwin, Ernest, Elmer and Robert Frazee – and 11 grandchildren.
Services
will be held at Eternal Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary on Saturday at 11 a.m.
Blade Tribune June 24, 1982.
