I will miss Frasier. He was a great friend. In many ways, I regarded Frasier as a surrogate father. He seemed to be always there when I needed to share thoughts and ideas, or if I was in a quandary about handling certain situations.
I mostly will miss our field trips as we called them. Frasier’s idea of sharing local history was to show you where history happened. When we arrived at one of those sites, he would spill his memories. He then vividly described who did what or who influenced whom, and what that event did to spur other events. His stories were rich and first-hand narratives. When you heard him, you felt that you were there when whatever it was happened. I especially remembered sitting in Tom
Varn Park eating a picnic lunch on one of those field trips. We always stopped and bought a sandwich to split, and as we munched, Frasier explained how a quarry mine worked, and then after lunch we visited a local out-of-way cemetery, and he would provide descriptive biographies of the folks he once knew. On another field trip we took a driving tour of Croom Road. There was so much information and history there, we had to do that trip twice. Each time Fraiser focused on different aspects of the rich history found on or near that Road.
His photo collection was a vast source for all in our community. Fraiser loved to share his photos of the people and places in and around Brooksville and Hernando County with everyone who was interested. What made that collection so amazing was he could share the history and significance of each photo. Frasier knew Brooksville and Hernando County. He was a first-hand expert of the people and events of this area. He lived and experienced life right here from the late 1920s, through the Great Depression, during mid-twentieth century to our most recent events. He witnessed when the City of Brooksville flourished. He was a proponent of its restoration as the “Center” of Hernando County as a cultural place to share its past and to promote new ideas. Fraser Mountain was “living history.” He both experienced it, and was extremely generous in sharing those experiences.
I will miss Frasier, and I know many others in Brooksville and Hernando County will also miss him. He was a mentor and friend to many folks here. If there was a problem that he thought he could help solve, he jumped right in and advocated for you or promoted whatever you did that he supported.
Fraiser was known throughout the area as the local history expert. He was a friend to just about all of the historical and genealogy groups in the County. Frasier Mountain loved history. He loved to talk about history, to share his memories with others about our local history, and he loved to take people on his “field trips.”
I will really miss Frasier, as my mentor, as my local historical resource, and especially as my wonderful friend.
- Virginia Benson