Jim Sleeper, Phil Brigandi, Esther Cramer (2008)
Photo Credit: Nola Sleeper
Last week, the Orange County history community lost one of the very best, as author and historian Phil Brigandi passed away on Thursday, Dec 12. The shock of his sudden passing has left his friends and colleagues struggling to make meaning of such a devastating loss. This is my humble attempt.
Phil Brigandi was a history geek.
I say this with a heart full of great respect and admiration. No one knew Orange County history better. No one. He wrote thirty books, gave countless speeches and when you had a question, he was finer than any internet browser.
In this era of virtual friends and online meetings, Phil was a refreshing throwback to a simpler time. He preferred to do things as his mentors did, with solid research methods and disciplined attention to detail. To Phil, the facts were the foundation, but the beauty was in the stories they told.
Phil was a master storyteller. He spoke in a relaxed, folksy tone with a voice you’d expect to hear on a 1930’s radio broadcast. Anyone who says that history is boring has never heard Phil Brigandi present it. He could captivate an audience for an hour with limited notes and no pesky “new-fangled” power-point presentation to get in the way of a good tale.
He was a gentleman and, most definitely, a scholar. I was always happy to see him walk in the room because I knew I would learn something. When I started to give local history talks myself and Phil would walk in, nervous butterflies would kick in because I knew I’d have to be on top of my game. I soon learned that he was there as an encouraging supporter, not a nit-picking critic.
Seeing Phil at my talks became a great comfort, because I knew that if I couldn’t answer a question, I could happily defer to him and he would modestly tell them all they needed to know.
Phil Brigandi was the heir apparent to a long line of local historians who have preserved the history of Orange County for over a century. That is exactly how I like to imagine him now; in a lively, discussion with Sleeper and Stevenson, Meadows and Pleasants, Armor, Cramer and Friis. His membership in that heavenly fraternity is fitting but comes way too soon.
Those of us who are left behind lament the unwritten words, the unspoken speeches and the unfinished research projects that were still percolating inside of him. The loss is immeasurable, but the blessing was greater. We were so very lucky to have known him and to have been the grateful beneficiaries of what he loved to share.
More than most professions, local historians stand firmly on the shoulders of the scholars who went before them. This is certainly true in Orange County, where connections from historian to historian take us back more than a century. I am honored to be a link in that chain, and so want to share something of the story of the men and women who have done so much to preserve our local history. All books make more sense when you know something about the author.
--Phil Brigandi
