Sorting Through the Museum – Back to the Beginning of Inspiration

It’s the beginning of a new month again! While I aspire to update this blog more often, for now I will be content with a small amount of progress. I may not have reached my goal but if I have learned anything from working on this project, it is that little steps are still steps in the right direction. Things might not be happening as quickly as we would like, but it is still progress. And that is good! I think we all need to remember that we aren’t living in our time; we are living in God’s time. I’ll be sure to write that on a sticky note & put it on my mirror as a reminder for this upcoming weekend as Daylight Saving Time ends. (Not my favorite time!)

So, what are some of the things I have been doing? A lot of my time has been spent researching the family and sorting through old documents. It really is like a museum around that place! The problem is that things are not documented, organized or stored properly. The Frisbie family has such a rich history and much of it has been documented by many people over the years. Many thanks go out to the Frisbie-Frisbee Family Association of America, Inc. (FFFAA) for their work in the Frisbie genealogy, cataloging information and documents, publishing reports & keeping the family connected. (You can find them at http://www.fffaa.org). I never realized it until now, but the FFFAA is a major source of my inspiration for the Maplecroft project. Another major source of inspiration for this project is my dad!

When I was a child my father showed me the books compiled by Nora Frisbie about Edward Frisbie of Branford and His Descendants & the Frisbie family quarterly newsletter, The Frisbie-Frisbee Family Bulletin, published by the FFFAA. He told me how Edward Frisbie is credited with being the first Frisbie in America. I remember being impressed to see my family lineage printed and bound in hardcover and indexed with a genealogic numbering system! This inspired me to someday publish a book of my own; a story of the Frisbie family at Maplecroft. (I’m still working on that “someday” dream! Progress; one [small] step at a time!) 

As a child, the Frisbie family stories sparked my wild imagination. The notion of my ancestors being present in this country before the famous Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock conjured up images of that traditional Thanksgiving propaganda we learned at school. I thought about how that translated to a more recent day story when my great-great-grandfather traded goods with the Kaw Indians on Traverse Creek, now called Muddy Creek, and I wondered if he sold any of those goods in his general store at Grantville, Kansas. I was curious to know if he traded and sold buffalo pelts and if so, why weren’t they still here at the house? (To a young child like me it sure seemed that everything else under the sun was in that enormous house!) I considered the possibility that perhaps the famous Daniel Boone had been here visiting family (yes, we are related to Daniel Boone; I thought it was a tall tale for many years, but it is true) and maybe they were given to him as a gift. It was a possibility in the mind of a child.

The family origin can be traced back to England, appearing as the name of two manors in Leicestershire in the Doomsday Book from 1086. I often thought of how the village of Frisby-on-the-Wreake could be similar to what we referred to as our small “village” of Grantville. I imagined that the stone houses in that faraway country could resemble our stone home. I thought about the day when I would travel to all the places of our ancestors, especially back to England, where the oldest roots are found. (Someday!)

In the meantime, I will continue to sort & organize & catalog & find the proper way to preserve all of these memories, documents & antiques. I will continue to write my story and to seek out the stories of others. I am in the process of contacting people who have spent time at Maplecroft and might have stories of their own to share. It would be wonderful to interview those people & document their stories and memories in their own words. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a documentary crew that could film it all! 

If you are reading this & have stories, memorabilia, photographs, or other items of interest that you would be willing to share then please leave a comment or send me a message. Additionally, if you know people who have stories that need to be documented then please let me know who to contact. I am specifically seeking out information about the Frisbie’s of Maplecroft, of Grantville, Kansas, however, any information about the farm, the neighbors, or the community might be helpful. Thanks in advance!