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Freeman, Dora Newell (Mrs. Arthur M.)

4/18/1963

MRS. ARTHUR M. FREEMAN

September 3, 1883-April 18, 1963

Mrs. Arthur M. (Dora Newell) Freeman passed away at her home in Montevallo, Alabama, on April 18, 1963, after a brief illness. She had been in declining health, however, for several months. She was in her eightieth year.

Mrs. Freeman, nee Dora Newell, was born in Dadeville, Alabama, September 3, 1883, the second of a family of six. Her mother and father were active member of the Methodist community. She and her five brothers and sisters were initiated early into a lifetime of devotion to church work. She finished Dadeville High School and had extensive training in the University of Alabama and other state teachers colleges. Graduate work in her chosen field of child education was pursued at later dates at the University of Chicago and at Columbia University. She continued to work and study advanced methods in church school child education until the age of fifty.

Mrs. Freeman taught for ten years after finishing school, mostly in Dadeville. She was known and loved as a particularly outstanding teacher for the first and second grades. Many of her pupils were launched on successful careers and throughout Mrs. Freeman’s life they returned to see her in considerable number. This provided a major satisfaction of her middle and later years.

In 1915 she married Reverend Arthur M. Freeman who was the pastor of the Dadeville Methodist Church at the time. They had three children: Arthur M., III, born in 1917; Miriam, born in 1921; and Frances, born in 1922. Their youngest child died in 1924.

Throughout her career she was a most active participant in the affairs of the church in which her husband was pastor. She always interested herself in children, particularly the age group in Sunday School encompassed by the first and second school grades. She was particularly successful in organizing the training of Sunday School teachers, especially those of the Junior Department, and achieved considerable success in the over-all educational enterprise of the church school. Her assistance moreover in the total operation of the church school and in community activities represented by her husband’s several pastorates, both in Alabama and Louisiana, was of outstanding quality and of much greater than usual value to her husband in his work. Mrs. Freeman was active in church school work throughout her life until 1960. She was able until her late seventies to participate frequently in teacher training programs.

She is survived by her husband, Dr. Arthur M. Freeman, Sr., of Montevallo, Alabama and her two children, Mrs. Frank P. Cantwell of Morristown, Tennessee and her son, Dr. Arthur M. Freeman, Jr., a physician in Birmingham, Alabama.

Source: Journal Louisiana Conference, 1963; p. 274 By Arthur M. Freeman, Jr.

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Freeman, Dora Newell (Mrs. Arthur M.)