It's hard to write today. I feel like a wrung dishrag. And no details will be forthcoming because it's fine for me to talk about myself, but I need to do a better job of honoring other people's boundaries, not airing their issues in this electronic venue. Suffice to say I'm confused, hurt, desperate and exhausted.
So what to talk about today? Surely there is something! Maybe this is a good time to tell you the story of the Frisbies. About five years ago, friend Carol (I talk about her a lot, don't I?) who is an avid genealogist, asked me about my father, Joseph Frisbie, who died when I was 16 months old. When he died, we rarely spoke of him, knew very little about him or his side of the family - my mother cut off ties with them, so I had little to tell Carol. With just his name and approximate age, she found records of him and then excitedly called me one evening. "Sarah, you have FIRST cousins living an hour away from you in Elgin!" My response, "I guess I have to call them sometime." "Now!" she said and because I always do what Carol tells me, I called my first cousin Judy who was overjoyed to hear from the missing branch of the family. She was the daughter of my father's eldest brother - a real first cousin. She regaled me with stories of my father who I didn't know, other family members, and that night word got to my father's one living brother, Uncle Ken. I had been sent to live with him for a time while my father died and he and his wife, Sylvia asked my mother if they could keep me - she said no. Uncle Ken called me that night in tears to have found me again
Turns out Frisbies are one of the founding American families, even pre-dating the Pilgrims. In this country, all Frisbies of any spelling (Frisbee, Frisbye, Frisby, etc) descend, almost without exception, from Edward Frisbie who was born in Jamestown. If you remember your grade school history, you remember Jamestown failed. The folks that didn't perish there, hightailed it back to England. Edward's family was among the ones that went back. When he was 15, his family returned to America, New England this time, and only Edward survived the trip (smallpox). He and 19 other settlers founded what is now New Haven, Connecticut. His house still stands and is a pilgrimage to current day Frisbies. And even though genealogy has only in recent years become fashionable, the Frisbies have had a family association since about 1950. Serendipitously, there was a reunion scheduled a few months after I reconnected with them.
Steve, Madeleine and I went to the reunion in New Delhi, NY. It was a poorly attended affair and the main agenda was was whether to fold up the group or not. Cousin Judy volunteered that she and I would do the next reunion in Chicago in two years - so they didn't fold. By "we", Judy meant "Sarah". For the next two years I labored every day to breathe new life back into the Frisbie Frisbee Family Association of America. I put up a beautiful website, entered much of the geneology into a geneology database, send out 20,000 postcards, called thousands of Frisbies, drummed up support and attendance for the reunion and rekindled interest in Frisbies. I worked on it for hours most every day for two years.
The reunion was a huge hit - about 30 states represented. The Chicago Tribune ran a half page article about us because of the connection to the Frisbie toy. One of the Frisbie ancestors had a business that mass marketed pies around New England in Frisbie trucks. One client was Yale and the students there used the empty pie tins as flying toys. The tins were stamped with the name "Frisbie" and had cut out holes to promote browning of the bottom crust. Later Whammo commercialized the game and tried to change the name of the object to the Pluto Platter, but it never stuck. Frisbie did. The Tribune sent a reporter to my home. By then I was Madame Frisbie President and I was photographed standing in front of a Frisbie pie tin I kept on my kitchen wall. The headline of the article, something cute like, "Frisbies are Flying in From All Over the Country!"
After the reunion my sister and I decided to do a DNA test. She and I were both in therapy and there were clues that made us question whether we had the same father. The doubts were well-founded because, when the test came back, there was less than a half a percent chance that we were fathered by the same man. It was clear she was the Frisbie. I was not.
The irony!!! The president of the Frisbies is not, after all, a Frisbie! Scandal in Frisbie-land. I immediately resigned and I've never had contact with them since.
One interesting footnote. Growing up, I longed to be French. Today, a chunk of my repertoire is singing French cabaret songs. Turns out my biological father was French Canadian from a family who was brought over from France for an American version of the famous Folies Bergere. So it seems I come by the French Cabaret thing honestly!!! His name was Aldei Gregoire and the picture today is of him. It is a huge regret of mine that he and I never knew each other as father/daughter. He lived alone and childless until I was 32. He could have had a loving daughter and, at that point, two grandchildren to give him love and solace in his old age. Apparently it was not meant to be. It is a personal tragedy.
All for today. The challenge today can ONLY be to steal some time and get outside to enjoy the day. I'll do my 10,000 steps along the lakefront later in the day. Tonight I sing at the Blue Star Wine Bar in Bucktown. I think, because of today's post, I will sing a French song and think of my father. I hope he would have been proud of me.
Peace,
Sarah
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