Charles Cleveland Freeman
A Truly Amazing Life
Updated edition, November 2026
Charles Cleveland Freeman was born on March 6, 1938, on the Freeman family farm near Joaquin, in Shelby County, Texas, a few miles from the Sabine River and the Louisiana line (Charles C. Freeman — An Amazing Life). Over the next eight decades he became a coach, a rehabilitation therapist, a pioneer in prosthetics and orthotics, a Veterans Administration medical center director, an Army Reserve colonel who served in Operation Desert Storm, a United Methodist pastor, and, in his later years, the steward of the land his grandfather bought in 1910. Through all of it he stayed rooted in two places: the small East Texas town where he grew up, and his marriage to Frances Ruth Jackson, his wife of 67 years.
A Family of Pioneers
Charles comes from a long line of people who kept moving west in search of land. The first of his Freeman ancestors reached Jamestown, Virginia, in 1623–24, and later generations moved on to North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Through his great-grandmother, Nancy Caldonia Swinebroad, he also descends from the Boones of Devon, England, and Pennsylvania. Her great-grandfather, John Boone Sr., was raised by his uncle and aunt, Squire and Anne Morgan Boone, and moved with their family, including his young cousin Daniel Boone, to Hunting Creek in North Carolina. John married Rebecca Bryan, the aunt of Daniel's wife, also named Rebecca Bryan (The Freeman Family Farm).
Charles's great-grandfather, Ruben Benton Freeman III, was a school teacher who married Nancy in Tennessee in 1858 and took her to Arkansas the next year. In 1864 he joined Davies' Battalion of the Arkansas Cavalry as a sergeant and fought in Missouri and the Trans-Mississippi campaign until his company surrendered in May 1865. He died on December 3, 1876, at 37, leaving Nancy with six children. She took them home to her mother, Elvira Boone Swinebroad, in Tennessee, and by 1885 she had brought the family to Shelby County, Texas. Her son Cullen Henry Freeman, Charles's grandfather, was 15 (The Freeman Family Farm).
Cullen's early adult years were hard. His first marriage, to Emma Lee Webb, the girl next door, ended soon after the birth of their son, David Tillman Freeman, in 1902. That same year his brother Ed died, and Cullen, who had helped raise Ed's two little boys, Basil and Benton, became the only father they had. In the fall of 1902 the family set out by covered wagon for Oregon, led by Cullen's oldest brother, stopping to raise a crop in Oklahoma along the way. There his sister Callie died in October 1903, two months after giving birth. Cullen gave up his dream of Oregon and brought his mother, his brother-in-law, and five small children back to Shelby County. On December 29, 1904, he married Mattie Pearl Thompson, and they raised seven children (The Freeman Family Farm). On November 1, 1910, at 40, Cullen finally bought land of his own: 73 acres in the Sabine River bottom near Joaquin, for $600. His down payment was $50 in cash, a mule worth $50, and a horse worth $100. In 1915 he bought a small "home place" next to the farm and built a house there; the crepe myrtles Mattie planted still bloom beside the old chimney. The family grew cotton and corn, tobacco, peanuts, sweet potatoes, watermelons, and fruit, kept hogs, goats, cows, and poultry, and ran trot-lines in the river. Cullen took his son Larnell out of school after the fifth grade to help on the farm and at the Haslam lumber mill (The Freeman Family Farm).
Roots in Joaquin
Charles was the fifth of six sons of Larnell Lee "L. L." Freeman and Britt Annie "Shug" Nunley Freeman, who married on August 7, 1926, in Logansport, Louisiana (An Amazing Life). All six boys were born on the farm: Travis Lee (1928–1964), Billy Rae (1930–2012), J. C. (1931–1955), Verlon Dale (1933–2025), Charles Cleveland (born 1938), and Harold Dennis (1940–2007) (The Freeman Family Farm). Charles was born in 1938, the same year his grandfather Cullen died (on July 28) and his father took over the farm. That year L. L., a master carpenter, built a three-bedroom house for his family on an acre and a half he had bought from his father, and he managed the farm for his widowed mother for the next 20 years (The Freeman Family Farm).
When Charles was a small boy, his father's appendix ruptured. For weeks it seemed the family might lose its only provider, and when L. L. recovered he was too weak to go back to the sawmill. He moved the family to Houston, where a kind foreman in the wartime shipbuilding industry gave him light work while he regained his strength. The family lived in a motel converted into housing for war workers, and returned to Joaquin in time for Charles to start first grade (An Amazing Life). Growing up on the farm meant hard work for every Freeman boy. L. L. raised tomatoes for market, a crop that took many hands, and he had "a home-grown labor force in his six sons." The tomatoes were picked green and shipped from the railroad depots at Logansport and Timpson. When tomato prices fell, L. L. built a chicken house from wood cut on the farm and recycled tin, and broilers became the farm's main income for two decades. Feeding and watering the chicks and catching the grown birds were all done by hand, by the whole family, and the chicken business ended about the time the boys left for college. L. L. also raised corn and hay, hogs in the river bottom, a couple of milk cows, and a dozen head of beef cattle (The Freeman Family Farm). Charles's cousin Marilyn Jones, orphaned at four, was raised on the farm by his grandmother Mattie, with help from L. L. and Shug, who taught her to sew (The Freeman Family Farm).
Charles's earliest memories were of sitting on the back pew of the Joaquin Methodist Church with his mother and his older brothers. His mother taught Sunday School there for almost 40 years, worked in every Vacation Bible School, and was known to children all over town as "Mama Shug." His father was not a member when Charles was young, but when Charles was baptized at 13, L. L. was baptized with him and joined the church the same day (A Lifelong Member of the Joaquin Methodist Church Remembers, by Charles C. Freeman).
That same year, 1951, Charles, his father (a carpenter), and his brothers Billy and Dennis helped the men of the church tear down the 1905 frame building and put up the brick chapel that still stands at 105 Faulkville Road. Travis, J. C., and Dale were away in the Air Force and Army during the Korean War, so they sent money for supplies instead. Charles's first job on the project was pulling nails, so that both nails and boards could be used again in the new building, while the women of the church served meals and carried jugs of cold water to the workers (Charles C. Freeman, A Lifelong Member Remembers).
As a teenager Charles was active in the Methodist Youth Fellowship. When the Martha Stewart sub-district met at Joaquin about 1954, he gave a talk on Lakeview, the Methodist youth camp near Palestine, Texas, and his mother sang a solo (Freeman family clipping collection, "MYF Subdistrict Meets at Joaquin," about 1954). He planned to farm with his father, and hoped to teach agriculture and coach while running a farm of his own (The Freeman Family Farm), so he threw himself into the Future Farmers of America. He was president of the 58-member Joaquin FFA chapter and FFA district president, represented his district in public speaking, and traveled to the National FFA Convention in Kansas City (Freeman family clipping collection, "Joaquin FFA Receives New Pick-up," about 1955–56).
The six Freeman boys all played football. At 135 pounds, Charles played center on Joaquin's district championship football team and also played on a bi-district basketball team; in his senior year his younger brother Dennis was the team's star running back. Neither of his parents had finished high school, but they wanted more for their sons. Charles, born between Dale and Dennis, learned early to be the family negotiator and peacemaker (An Amazing Life). He graduated from Joaquin High School in 1956 (Freeman family clipping collection, "Local Couple Takes Positions in Caddo-Bossier Area," 1961).
In the summers he worked as a lifeguard at Crystal Lake, a favorite gathering place for young people from both sides of the state line. There, on May 29, 1957, he met Frances Jackson of Logansport (An Amazing Life).
College, Marriage, and Coaching
Charles started college at Panola Junior College in Carthage in 1956, where he played catcher on a baseball scholarship and drove the bus that carried students from Logansport and Joaquin to campus. After earning his associate degree, he transferred to Northwestern State College (now Northwestern State University) in Natchitoches, Louisiana, partly because Frances was already a student there and partly because the college offered him a job as a lifeguard at its natatorium. He later took a better-paying job with the intramural athletics program and then joined the campus security force (An Amazing Life). He was treasurer of Phi Epsilon Kappa, the national physical education fraternity (Freeman family clipping collection, "Local Couple Takes Positions," 1961), and in the spring of his junior year the Theta Sigma Upsilon sorority named him its "Theta Beau" at its spring formal (Freeman family clipping collection, "Charles Freeman Receives Award," about 1959).
Charles and Frances were married on August 18, 1959, at the First Baptist Church of Logansport (The Shreveport Journal, August 1959; The Freeman Family Farm). Rev. Orville Behm performed the ceremony. Charles's father, L. L., was his best man, and his groomsmen were his brothers Billy and Dennis and Frances's brother, Jacky Jackson. Billy's wife sang, and Katherine Thomas, who later married Dennis, was one of the bridesmaids (54th Anniversary: Bittersweet Memories). They set up housekeeping in "Vet Village," the married-student housing at Northwestern. Their first daughter, Jacqueline Lee, was born in May 1960, and the following week Charles received his bachelor's degree in health and physical education. Two weeks later he left for Memphis State University (An Amazing Life), where he completed training and certification in corrective therapy that summer (Freeman family clipping collection, "Local Couple Takes Positions," 1961).
That fall he became head basketball coach at St. Mary's High School in Natchitoches, replacing Joe Sampite, who had moved to Jesuit High School in Shreveport, while he worked on his master's degree (Freeman family clipping collection, "New Tiger Coach," 1960). The Alexandria Town Talk noted that St. Mary's had "a new coach and practically a new team" when the defending champions opened the Menard Invitational Tournament in December 1960 (The Town Talk, December 8, 1960). At homecoming his Tigers beat Colfax 62–51, with his brother Dennis, then a speech major at Northwestern, serving as master of ceremonies for the halftime show (Freeman family clipping collection, "Tigers Victorious at Homecoming," about December 1960). By the end of the year his basketball teams had won 30 games and his baseball team had won the bi-district championship. Frances coached debate and forensics at the same school (Freeman family clipping collection, "Local Couple Takes Positions," 1961; Curriculum Vita, Frances Ruth Jackson Freeman).
Charles received his master's degree from Northwestern in August 1961 (The Shreveport Times, May 4, 1966). That summer, a local paper announced that he had been hired as director of physical education at Bossier City High School and that Frances would join the Speech Correction Center in Shreveport (Freeman family clipping collection, "Local Couple Takes Positions in Caddo-Bossier Area," 1961). Before either job began, Charles was offered a corrective-therapist position at the Veterans Administration hospital in Dallas that paid considerably more. He accepted, and the young family moved to Texas instead.
The Veterans Administration: Dallas and Shreveport
Charles started at the Dallas VA hospital in the summer of 1961 (Freeman family clipping collection, "Charles to VA in Dallas," 1961; The Town Talk, spring 1987). By coincidence, his older brother Dale worked in the same department (An Amazing Life). The family made its home in Duncanville, where their second daughter, Denise Ruth, was born in January 1962, and where Frances taught ninth-grade English and then started the district's speech-language program (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita).
Charles was still working in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was shot there on November 22, 1963. About two weeks later he transferred to the VA hospital in Shreveport. Frances stayed behind with the girls to finish her contract with the Duncanville schools, and the family joined him in Shreveport in January 1964. Frances became a speech-language pathologist with the Caddo Parish schools (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita), and by 1966 the family lived at 3239 Reisor Road (The Shreveport Times, May 4, 1966).
Over the next seven years Charles served the Shreveport hospital as chief of corrective therapy, chief of recreation therapy, coordinator of rehabilitation medicine, and finally chief of prosthetics and sensory aids (The Town Talk, spring 1987; Freeman family clipping collection, "Freeman Named to Wyoming Post," 1977). In 1964 he was one of seven VA employees in the nation chosen for postgraduate coursework in prosthetics and orthotics at the University of California Medical Center in Los Angeles. At the time he was serving as assistant chief of both corrective therapy and prosthetics and sensory aids (Freeman family clipping collection, "Charles Freeman Completes Post Graduate Work," about 1964–65).
His colleagues recognized his leadership early. He served as secretary-treasurer of the Texas-Louisiana chapter of the Association for Physical and Mental Rehabilitation in 1962–63, and in May 1966 the chapter elected him president at its Houston convention (The Shreveport Times, May 4, 1966). In April 1967 he presided over the chapter's two-day convention in Kerrville, Texas, with sessions on prosthetics, psychiatric rehabilitation, geriatrics, and nursing-home care (The Shreveport Journal, April 27, 1967). At that meeting his brother Dale, director of rehabilitation at Linden Municipal Hospital, succeeded him as president, and Charles was elected to represent the chapter in the association's national assembly in Little Rock in 1968 and New York City in 1969 (The Shreveport Journal, May 4, 1967).
About 1970, Shreveport hospital director E. P. Whitaker presented Charles with the director's commendation award for his work as chief of corrective therapy (The Shreveport Times, about 1970). One patient from those years stayed with him for the rest of his career. He had promised a cowboy who had lost his limbs that, if he worked hard enough, he would ride in the Houston Fat Stock Show parade. When VA administrators worried about liability, Charles arranged official leave so the veteran could go. The man rode in the parade, became a role model for hundreds of amputees, and was the subject of a television documentary (An Amazing Life). The Shreveport Journal told his story on its front page under the headline "Learns to Ride Again" (The Shreveport Journal, date not shown). It was work like this that drew Charles into prosthetics.
Pioneering Prosthetics in New York
In 1970 Charles moved to the VA Prosthetics Center in New York City as research and education officer and special assistant to the director (The Town Talk, spring 1987). The family settled in Port Washington, on Long Island, and Frances began her doctoral studies at the City University of New York and commuted to her research at Haskins Laboratories (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita).
At that time, metal hooks and wooden legs were still standard equipment, and quadriplegic veterans often lived short lives confined to bed. Charles recruited a group of out-of-work aerospace engineers into prosthetics and turned their skills to the needs of severely disabled patients, work that helped lead to the "bionic" artificial limbs of later years. Until then, artificial limbs and braces had been made by tradesmen with no formal training. Charles traveled the country helping to set up the first college programs for prosthetists and orthotists, a field that now grants bachelor's and graduate degrees. It was also his idea to recruit artists from New York art schools to design facial prostheses for people disfigured by accidents or surgery, which helped give rise to the profession of cosmetic prosthetics (An Amazing Life).
He loved proving that disabled veterans could do more than anyone expected. In 1974 he helped organize, and joined, the first amputee skiing trip at Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He also served as a policy consultant on legislation protecting people who used wheelchairs, amputees, and people with paralysis, and he studied the safety of driving equipment adapted for disabled drivers (An Amazing Life). His paper "Evaluation of Adaptive Automotive Driving Aids for the Disabled" appeared in the Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine in April 1974 (ERIC), and researchers still cite it, including a 1979 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study of vehicle safety for special driving populations (McKnight and others, 1979), a 1980 Texas Transportation Institute report (Texas Transportation Institute, 1980), and a 2022 review of automotive accessibility research (Archives of Automotive Engineering, 2022).
In 1976, in recognition of his work in prosthetics research and education, the VA selected Charles for its medical center director training program (An Amazing Life). He completed a one-year internship in hospital administration at the New York VA hospital (Freeman family clipping collection, "Freeman Named to Wyoming Post," 1977).
Assistant Director: Wyoming, Chicago, and Dallas
On July 18, 1977, Charles became assistant director of the 350-bed VA hospital in Sheridan, Wyoming (Freeman family clipping collection, "Freeman Named to Wyoming Post," 1977). Frances, who received her Ph.D. that year, went with him, working from home in Sheridan and flying to Connecticut for hands-on work at Haskins Laboratories (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita).
About 1978 the family moved to Glen Ellyn, Illinois, when Charles became assistant director of the Westside VA Medical Center in Chicago. In 1980 they returned to Duncanville, where he served as assistant director of the Dallas VA Medical Center (The Town Talk, spring 1987) and Frances joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Dallas at its Callier Center (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita).
Director in Puerto Rico
On July 25, 1982, Charles became director of the San Juan VA Medical and Regional Office Center in Puerto Rico (The Town Talk, spring 1987), serving as both medical center director and regional office director and managing annual budgets of more than $400 million (An Amazing Life). The family lived at Fort Buchanan. To make the move, Frances gave up her teaching position at UT Dallas but kept her grant-funded research, working from home in Puerto Rico and flying to Dallas for intensive work periods (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita).
Charles believed in taking care to veterans where they lived. In the Caribbean he opened outpatient clinics on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and in Ponce, created a Center for Blind Veterans, and built facilities for aging veterans (An Amazing Life). He was state director of the American Academy of Medical Administrators' Puerto Rico chapter and served as president of the Federal Executives Association of Puerto Rico. He continued his own education with graduate study at Harvard University and at Baruch College in New York City (The Town Talk, spring 1987).
Like many hospital directors, he was named in his official capacity in lawsuits against the institutions he led. In one, Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico, a federal court found no evidence of personal involvement on his part and dismissed all claims against him on September 16, 1987 (Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico, Justia). A second 1987 federal decision, in a case the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico brought against the VA, also identifies him as the San Juan center's director (Commonwealth of Puerto Rico v. Walters, 1987).
The Puerto Rico years also brought one of the stories Charles's family treasures most. In 1984 he noticed a young man, Jose Morillo, working four jobs after being turned down by medical school, and hired him as a physical therapy technician at the San Juan hospital. That chance led Morillo into physical therapy, hospital administration, and eventually work as a hospital chief executive in Florida. On August 2, 2021, nearly 40 years later, Morillo found Charles through Frances's blog and wrote to thank him. Charles's "kind word" and willingness to "offer someone a chance," he wrote, had changed his life, and he had made it his own mission to "impact other people's lives in a positive way" (An Amazing Life).
Director in Alexandria, Louisiana
As his parents grew older, Charles used his seniority to seek assignments closer to Joaquin (The Freeman Family Farm). In the spring of 1987, Administrator of Veterans Affairs Thomas K. Turnage appointed him director of the Alexandria VA Medical Center in Pineville, Louisiana. By then he was a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve Medical Service Corps and a graduate of the Army Command and General Staff College (The Town Talk, spring 1987). The Alexandria Daily Town Talk introduced him to Central Louisiana as a "people person" (Alexandria Daily Town Talk, March 30, 1987). Frances again continued her grant-funded research from home, now in Pineville, with regular work trips to Dallas (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita). The Pineville house soon filled with family. When their daughter Jackie and her husband, Angel Perez, finished their U.S. military service and began civilian life, they and the Freemans' first grandchild, Veronica, came to live with Charles and Frances in Pineville (family records).
He quickly became a familiar figure in the community. At the American Legion state convention in June 1987, he began by speaking as a veteran rather than as a hospital director, and he worried aloud that so many elected officials had never served and did not understand veterans' problems (Alexandria Daily Town Talk, June 21, 1987). That July he joined the mayors of Alexandria and Pineville on the Gillis Long Bridge as they proclaimed National Cemetery Month for the 125th anniversary of the National Cemetery System (The Town Talk, July 1987). He was a guest speaker at American Legion posts around Rapides Parish (Freeman family clipping collection, "American Legion").
His ideas reached veterans far from the hospital. A mobile outreach program, which the Town Talk credited to him, sent nurses into towns such as Winnsboro to screen veterans in their own communities (Alexandria Daily Town Talk, December 17, 1987), and he opened an outpatient clinic in Crowley (An Amazing Life). He saw the aging veteran as the nation's greatest challenge (The Town Talk, February 1988 or 1989). When the VA became a Cabinet department in March 1989, he told the Town Talk that the change would put veterans "at the president's right hand" and promised, "We'll continue to offer the very best service" (The Town Talk, March 1989).
The hospital was also recognized for hiring disabled workers. In 1988, 10.87 percent of its workforce had disabilities, far above the VA's goal (Freeman family clipping collection, "VA Recognized," 1989). By 1989 the center served about 68,000 veterans in 27 parishes, with an operating budget of $44 million and more than 1,000 employees. Its plans included a unit for homeless veterans, chemical-dependency and detoxification units, a nursing home, and a new domiciliary (The Town Talk, about September 1989). Charles cared just as much about everyday quality of life. He built a fishing lake on the hospital grounds, encouraged pet, gardening, music, and art therapy, and created a chaplain training program, work that would later shape his own path (An Amazing Life). He was still leading the Alexandria center in February 1990, when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission wrote to "Charles C. Freeman, Director" about a radiation-safety inspection at the hospital (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, February 14, 1990).
Operation Desert Storm
Charles had joined the Army Reserve Medical Corps as a second lieutenant in 1963. Over three decades he watched military medicine change dramatically: Army corpsmen became the nation's first trained emergency medical technicians and later its first physician assistants, and medical evacuation helicopters made the old MASH units obsolete (An Amazing Life).
In the winter of 1990–91 the 94th General Hospital, an Army Reserve unit, was called up for Operation Desert Storm, one of the first mobilizations of a large reserve medical unit in American history. Charles took leave from the Alexandria hospital to serve as executive officer of the 1,000-bed hospital. Nurses left infants at home, doctors arranged care for their private patients, and military couples arranged care for their children (An Amazing Life). The unit mobilized at Mesquite, Texas, in early January 1991, processed at Camp Bullis near San Antonio, and flew to Frankfurt, Germany. There its members were divided into groups of 15 to 20 and sent to hospitals across Europe (Army Nurse Corps history). Charles led the 972 members of the unit, who were spread among hospitals in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Great Britain to replace active-duty staff sent to Kuwait and Iraq. Based in Frankfurt, he traveled constantly to check on his scattered troops and stayed until the deployment ended (An Amazing Life). The unit came home in May 1991 (Army Nurse Corps history), and by his own account Charles was the last man off the final flight home. He retired from the Army Reserve as a colonel in 1993 (An Amazing Life).
Bonham and the Final VA Years
In 1992 veterans and friends in Central Louisiana gave Charles a farewell reception as he left for the VA center in Bonham, Texas (The Town Talk, about 1992). Charles and Frances made their home in McKinney, and Frances returned to the Callier Center at UT Dallas (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita). It was a happy time to be close to family: their grandson Patrick McGrade was born that year, and their granddaughter Sarah followed in November 1994. At the Sam Rayburn Memorial Veterans Center, Charles established a domiciliary for homeless veterans and a recreational park (An Amazing Life).
About 1995, before Bonham became part of the VA North Texas Health Care System (North Texas e-News), Charles took his last VA post, regional coordinator for veterans' organizations, with his office at the Shreveport VA Medical Center. He and Frances moved into the Logansport home they had inherited from Frances's parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Jackson, and he drove to Shreveport from there. From 1996 to 1998 Frances taught at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, also traveling from Logansport (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita). Charles retired from the VA's Senior Executive Service in 1999, 38 years after he started as a GS-7 therapist (An Amazing Life).
A Second Calling
Charles's mother had always hoped that one of her six sons would become a preacher. His brother Billy answered that call in 1991 and served as pastor of the Joaquin United Methodist Church from 1992 to 2001, and during Billy's ministry four members of the congregation, including Charles and Frances, were called to become local pastors (An Amazing Life; Cynthia Webster's History of the United Methodist Church of Joaquin). Charles received his call in 1996, and Mama Shug was overjoyed. In 1997, while he was still working for the VA in Shreveport, he became a local pastor in the United Methodist Church (An Amazing Life).
Charles and Frances served together as pastors. In 1998, in the Texas Conference, they served two small churches near Nacogdoches that shared their pastors: Melrose United Methodist Church, on State Highway 21 about nine miles southeast of Nacogdoches (Handbook of Texas), and Simpson Campground United Methodist Church (Texas Annual Conference records). In 1999 they transferred to the Louisiana Conference and were appointed to Bethel United Methodist Church near Logansport, where they served until 2004 (An Amazing Life). The Louisiana Conference's journal for 2000 lists Charles and Frances together as local pastors at Bethel (Journal of the Louisiana Annual Conference, 2000). On September 18, 2000, Bro. Charles Freeman officiated at Bethel for the funeral of Betty Marjorie Price, a retired Boeing engineering aide who had worked on the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs and on the hand tools astronauts used on the Moon (Freeman family clipping collection, obituary of Betty Marjorie Price, September 2000).
He also served his fellow veterans in Logansport. As commander of American Legion Post 157, he joined with Bethel to hold a remembrance of the September 11 attacks at Riverfront Park, with a daylong tolling of the bell, candles, and Taps (Freeman family clipping collection, "Riverfront Program Planned," about 2002). In 2005, when his mother died, Charles and Billy, both local pastors, assisted their cousin, the Rev. Lee Gaines Nunley, at her funeral in the church Charles had helped build (Charles C. Freeman, A Lifelong Member Remembers). As late as 2018 he helped lead a funeral service at Bethel (Gene Guillotte obituary, Rose-Neath Funeral Homes). Charles has called his years in the pulpit among the most rewarding and cherished of his life (An Amazing Life).
The Frisco Years
On August 11, 2003, the Freemans' son-in-law, Stephen Joseph McGrade, died of esophageal cancer at 42 (Stephen McGrade obituary, Dallas Morning News). Charles and Frances went to Frisco, Texas, planning to help their daughter Denise for a few weeks, and stayed for nine years. Charles became a father figure to his grandchildren, Patrick and Sarah, until both had finished high school (An Amazing Life). Through 2004 the couple drove from Frisco to Logansport to keep serving the Bethel congregation. Frances taught at the University of North Texas (Frances Freeman's curriculum vita) and then returned half time to the University of Texas at Dallas to lead its faculty diversity work (UT Dallas News Center), retiring for the second time in 2012 (family records). They moved back to East Texas in the fall of 2012, at the start of Sarah's senior year, and Sarah graduated in May 2013.
Freeman Farms
The farm was always Charles's spiritual home. His grandfather, Cullen Henry Freeman, bought 73 acres in Shelby County on November 1, 1910, paying $50 in cash, a mule worth $50, and a horse worth $100 as his down payment. L. L. Freeman later added to the land, and after L. L. died in 1990, Shug inherited it (The Freeman Family Farm).
In 1988, planning ahead for his own retirement to the farm, Charles built a new home for his parents on the site of the house his father had built 50 years before, and L. L. and Shug lived there for the rest of their lives. While the family moved around the country, Jackie and Denise spent their summers and holidays with their grandparents in Joaquin and Logansport, helping Shug with an acre garden that fed the whole Freeman family and much of her church. Charles's brothers Billy, Dale, and Dennis, a four-term mayor of Logansport, lived on or near the farm and helped their parents in their later years (The Freeman Family Farm).
With his mother's approval, Charles bought his brothers' shares of the estate, and after her death in 2005 he became the farm's owner. He then bought 80 adjoining acres, bringing all of Cullen's original land back into the family. Under his care the cattle herd more than doubled, moving from Longhorns to Angus and then to Brangus. He replanted the orchards his father and grandfather had started, planted pecan trees, built spring-fed ponds for catfish, experimented with honey, and ran the Freeman Hunting and Fishing Club in the bottomlands along the Sabine River (The Freeman Family Farm). In 2010, the farm's centennial year, Charles was living in a log cabin he had built near the mayhaw pond and the old home place. Many of L. L. and Shug's grandchildren and great-grandchildren have lived and worked on the farm, including Charles's grandchildren Veronica, Patrick, Sarah, and Carlos; Carlos spent a year living with his grandparents and working the land. Charles's hope has always been to pass the farm intact to his children and grandchildren as a working farm that stays in the family for another century (The Freeman Family Farm). After leaving Frisco in 2012, Charles and Frances lived in the Logansport house while they worked the farm and remodeled the farmhouse in Joaquin. In 2021 the Texas Department of Agriculture honored the Freeman Farm, founded in 1910 in Shelby County, in its Family Land Heritage program.
Family
Charles and Frances raised two daughters. Jacqueline "Jackie" Lee Freeman Perez, a retired English teacher, is married to retired Army Colonel Angel Louis Perez, and the couple have a home on the Freeman farm (An Amazing Life; The Freeman Family Farm). Denise Ruth Freeman McGrade is a dentist; she married Steve McGrade on August 18, 1984, her parents' 25th wedding anniversary (An Amazing Life). That same day, in the same First Baptist Church where they had married, Charles and Frances renewed their own vows. Rev. Behm performed both ceremonies, and friends came from New York, Wyoming, Chicago, and Puerto Rico (54th Anniversary: Bittersweet Memories).
Their four grandchildren have made them proud. Veronica Lee Perez Mueller is a dentist in Prosper, married to John Christian Mueller, a Plano firefighter, and Carlos Louis Perez, named for his grandfather Charles, is an artist (The Freeman Family Farm). Patrick Stephen McGrade became a physician, trained at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Temple (The Freeman Family Farm), and is now an interventional cardiologist. When he married Samantha Ann Duran on January 2, 2016, his grandparents officiated. Sarah Katherine McGrade earned her bachelor's degree at the University of North Texas in 2017 and her master's degree at the London College of Communication in 2021, and works as a media planner (family records). Veronica and Patrick have both married and started families of their own (family records).
Charles is now the last of the six Freeman brothers. J. C. died in 1955, soon after coming home from Army service as a military policeman, and Travis, an Air Force master sergeant, died in 1964 (The Freeman Family Farm). Dennis, the longtime mayor of Logansport, died in 2007, Billy in 2012, and Dale on May 2, 2025 (Shelby County Today obituaries; Verlon Freeman obituary, Watson & Sons Funeral Home).
The Golden Years
Charles and Frances stepped into retirement in stages. They left their lifelong professions at the close of the 20th century and crossed into the 21st in their second careers in ministry. For the next two decades their main calling was one they took on gladly: caring for two generations of their descendants, first their grandchildren and then their great-grandchildren. Frances likes to call it being "grandparent slaves," and both of them count it among the greatest blessings of their lives (family records).
T hey had special chances to love and nurture each of their four grandchildren. Veronica lived with them in Pineville as a little girl. Patrick and Sarah grew up with them in Frisco after their father's death. When Charles and Frances returned to the Freeman farm in 2012, their grandson Carlos came to live with them and helped them get their farm projects started. In the middle of the decade the same three, Charles, Frances, and Carlos, lived together in Frisco as each of them moved into a new stage of life (family records).
The next generation arrived soon after. Veronica and John's son, John Christian "J. R." Mueller Jr., was born in 2016, and just before the COVID years Charles and Frances moved to Prosper, Texas, to live with Veronica, John, and J. R. They stayed as the family grew to include Vivienne Lee, called Vivi, and Evelyn Grace, called Evy. They celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on August 18, 2019, while living in Prosper (The Freeman Family Farm). In 2026, when J. R. was 9, Vivi 4, and Evy 2, they moved back to Frisco, into the pool house at Denise's home, which she had turned into a "senior" apartment for her parents. That is where they live today (family records).
Retirement also gave them time to travel, as a couple and with their family. The whole family sailed together twice, on a Caribbean cruise for Charles and Frances's 50th wedding anniversary and on a Disney cruise. They also took a European vacation to visit Sarah while she was studying in London. It was a wonderful trip until the very end, when Veronica broke her leg on a Swiss ski slope and everyone flew home to Texas for her surgery. Smaller groups of the family have traveled together on trips along the Rhine and Danube in Central Europe, a tour and cruise in Ireland, and a vacation in Hawaii. Sometimes Charles and Frances took grandchildren along, and sometimes their daughters and grandchildren took them. The two of them took several Viking river cruises on their own, to Russia, Egypt, and Germany and Central Europe. Most recently, Denise took Frances and Sarah on an extended weekend in New York City (family records).
Charles and Frances have lived to see things many parents never see. Both of their daughters married, raised children, succeeded in their professions, Jackie in education and Denise in dentistry, and retired to rewarding lives of their own. Their grandchildren have graduated from high school, college, graduate school, and professional school. Two of them are married with children, and Charles and Frances have high hopes of seeing the younger two do the same (family records).
Above all, they have spent their eighties delighting in their great-grandchildren. As of November 2026, J. R. is 10 and in the fifth grade, Vivi is 5 and in kindergarten, and Evy has just turned 3 and started pre-K. The newest, Patrick and Samantha's son, Wyatt McGrade, is 9 months old and learning to walk and talk. Watching these little ones grow and thrive has been the joy of Charles and Frances's lives and the most fulfilling part of their golden years (family records).
They are also surrounded by a close extended family of nieces and nephews, and cousins who grew up like nieces and nephews, who share their lives and love with them. And though their number grows smaller each year, they still have many friends from childhood, from their careers, and from retirement (family records).
Charles is a life member of the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, AMVETS, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Forty and Eight, and an honorary member of the Marine Corps Veterans Association and the Paralyzed Veterans' Association. He and Frances were long active in the First United Methodist Church of Joaquin and the Logansport Chamber of Commerce (An Amazing Life).
In 2024 the Joaquin church faced a crisis. Its pastor, the Rev. Robert Ortigo, was terminally ill, and the congregation waited for him before deciding whether to leave the United Methodist denomination, missing the December 31, 2023, deadline for disaffiliation. After he died, the members voted to leave and become Joaquin Community Methodist Church, and they were told that they would have to pay $75,000 to keep the building or hand over the keys (KSLA News 12; KLTV). The congregation, which holds six property deeds filed at the Shelby County Courthouse, prepared to worship in the brush arbor in the church's memorial garden (From Church of the Year to Seizure and Sale).
At 86, Charles wrote a letter about what the little brick church meant to him. He remembered the funerals held before its altar, under the stained-glass window of Jesus: his brother J. C. in 1955, his grandmother Mattie Thompson Freeman in 1959, his brother Travis in 1964, his father, and his mother in 2005. He had not voted to leave the denomination, but he accepted the will of the majority, and he could not believe that the conference he had served and loved would seize and sell a historic Methodist church. "For many years," he wrote, "I have assumed that my funeral would be held in the little church I helped build when I was 13" (Charles C. Freeman, A Lifelong Member of the Joaquin Methodist Church Remembers).
In the end the dispute was settled when the congregation bought the church property from the conference. The little brick church Charles helped build when he was 13 still belongs to the people of Joaquin (family records).
Legacy
Charles Cleveland Freeman helped shape whole professions, including prosthetics and orthotics education and cosmetic prosthetics. He rose to the senior ranks of both the Veterans Administration and the Army Reserve, directed hospitals with budgets reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, led nearly a thousand reservists through a war, published research that is still cited, and answered a late call to preach. Yet the people whose lives he touched remember him for smaller moments: a promise to a cowboy who wanted to ride again, a job offered to a struggling young man in San Juan, a nurse sent out to a small-town veteran, a sermon in a country church. Wherever his work took him, from Long Island to Wyoming to Puerto Rico, he came home to Joaquin, to the farm his grandfather founded, and to Frances, his partner in every move and every pulpit for 67 years. Now 88, he counts his family, from his daughters to his youngest great-grandson, as the richest harvest of an amazing life.
References
Sources are cited in the text by the short title shown in bold.
Published and online sources
- An Amazing Life. Freeman, Frances Jackson. “Charles C. Freeman — An Amazing Life.” Communicating Life2, November 23, 2015; updated 2021 with the letter from Jose Morillo. http://communicatinglife2.blogspot.com/2015/11/charles-c-freeman-amazing-life.html (also the source of the colonel and late-career portraits).
- The Freeman Family Farm. Freeman, Frances Jackson. “The Freeman Family Farm” (the family’s 2020 Family Land Heritage application). Communicating Life2, March 25, 2020. http://communicatinglife2.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-freeman-family-farm.html
- A Lifelong Member Remembers. Freeman, Charles C. “A Lifelong Member of the Joaquin Methodist Church Remembers.” Communicating Life2, November 15, 2024. https://communicatinglife2.blogspot.com/2024/11/
- From Church of the Year to Seizure and Sale. Freeman, Frances Jackson. “From Church of the Year to Seizure and Sale in 4 Years: The Sad Story of a Methodist Church.” Communicating Life2, November 21, 2024. https://communicatinglife2.blogspot.com/2024/11/from-church-of-year-to-seizure-and-sale.html
- 54th Anniversary: Bittersweet Memories. Freeman, Frances Jackson. “54th Anniversary: Bittersweet Memories.” Communicating Life2, August 18, 2013. https://communicatinglife2.blogspot.com/2013/08/54th-anniversary-bittersweet-memories.html
- Cynthia Webster’s History of the United Methodist Church of Joaquin. “Cynthia Webster’s History of the United Methodist Church of Joaquin — 140 Years.” Communicating Life2, May 18, 2019. http://communicatinglife2.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-history-of-first-united-methodist.html
- Frances Freeman’s curriculum vita. “Curriculum Vita, Frances Ruth Jackson Freeman, Ph.D., C.C.C.” Communicating Life2. https://communicatinglife2.blogspot.com/2026/11/curriculum-vita-frances-ruth-jackson.html
- UT Dallas News Center. “New Assistant VP to Promote Faculty Diversity.” https://news.utdallas.edu/faculty-staff/new-assistant-vp-to-promote-faculty-diversity/
- ERIC. Freeman, C. C. “Evaluation of Adaptive Automotive Driving Aids for the Disabled.” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 50, no. 4 (April 1974): 536–544. Bibliographic listing in ERIC document ED150792. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED150792.pdf
- McKnight and others, 1979. McKnight, A. James, Molly A. Green, Frank Masten, and Rodger J. Koppa. Assessment of Vehicle Safety Problems for Special Driving Populations. Final report, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, February 1979. https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/1245/dot_1245_DS1.pdf
- Texas Transportation Institute, 1980. Texas Transportation Institute. Human Factors Analysis of Automotive Adaptive Equipment for Disabled Drivers. Report TTI-1980-35. https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/TTI-1980-35.pdf
- Archives of Automotive Engineering, 2022. “Historiography of the Development of the Automotive Industry Dedicated to Drivers with Disabilities.” Archives of Automotive Engineering – Archiwum Motoryzacji 98, no. 4 (2022): 5–24. http://www.aaejournal.com/Historiography-of-the-development-of-the-automotive-industry-dedicated-to-drivers,158041,0,1.html
- Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico, Justia. Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico, 669 F. Supp. 1188 (D.P.R. 1987). https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/669/1188/2369808/
- Commonwealth of Puerto Rico v. Walters, 1987. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico v. Walters, 660 F. Supp. 1230 (D.P.R. April 21, 1987). vLex. https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/com-of-puerto-rico-894429591
- U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, February 14, 1990. Letter to Charles C. Freeman, Director, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Alexandria, Louisiana. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2001/ML20012D065.pdf
- Army Nurse Corps history. “Army Nurse Corps Activities in Europe and the CONUS in ODS,” chapter 20, Borden Institute, U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence. https://medcoe.army.mil/pfw-images/borden/nurse/NurseCorpsch20.pdf
- North Texas e-News. Sam Rayburn Memorial Veterans Center and the VA North Texas Health Care System. https://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publish/article_147305.shtml
- Handbook of Texas. Texas State Historical Association. “Melrose, TX.” Handbook of Texas Online. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/melrose-tx
- Texas Annual Conference records. Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Melrose and Simpson Campground charge records. https://www.txcumc.org/files/fileslibrary/C_ZZXN2VBM.pdf
- Journal of the Louisiana Annual Conference, 2000. Journal of the Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, 2000 (appointments and clergy directory). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/stream/journalofsession2000unit/journalofsession2000unit_djvu.txt
- Gene Guillotte obituary, Rose-Neath Funeral Homes. “Gene ‘Jim’ Guillotte” obituary, 2018. https://www.rose-neath.com/obituaries/gene-guillotte
- Stephen McGrade obituary, Dallas Morning News. “Stephen McGrade” obituary, 2003. https://obits.dallasnews.com/us/obituaries/dallasmorningnews/name/stephen-mcgrade-obituary?id=28105967
- Shelby County Today obituaries. “Dennis Freeman” obituary, November 2007, https://scttx.com/obituaries/obituaries-2007-november; “Billy Freeman” obituary, January 2012, https://scttx.com/obituaries/obituaries-2012-january
- Verlon Freeman obituary, Watson & Sons Funeral Home. “Verlon Dale Freeman” obituary, May 2025. https://www.watsonandsonsfh.com/obituaries/verlon-freeman
- Texas Department of Agriculture. “2021 Family Land Heritage Honorees.” https://texasagriculture.gov/Portals/0/forms/COMM/FLH/2021_FLH_Honorees.pdf
- KSLA News 12. Bennett, Trent. “Joaquin congregation parts ways with United Methodist Church Conference, will lose their historic building.” November 15, 2024. https://www.ksla.com/2024/11/15/joaquin-congregation-parts-ways-with-united-methodist-church-conference-will-lose-their-historic-building/
- KLTV. “Joaquin congregation parts ways with United Methodist Church conference, will lose their historic church.” November 15, 2024. https://www.kltv.com/2024/11/15/joaquin-congregation-parts-ways-with-united-methodist-church-conference-will-lose-their-historic-church/
Newspaper clippings (Freeman family clipping collection)
- “MYF Subdistrict Meets at Joaquin.” Newspaper not identified, about 1954.
- “Joaquin FFA Receives New Pick-up.” Newspaper not identified, about 1955–56.
- “Charles Freeman Receives Award” (Theta Beau). Local column, about 1959.
- “Freeman-Jackson Nuptials Held in Logansport.” The Shreveport Journal, August 1959.
- “New Tiger Coach.” Newspaper not identified, spring 1960.
- “Two Games Tonight as Menard Meet Opens.” The Town Talk (Alexandria), December 8, 1960, p. 15.
- “Tigers Victorious at Homecoming.” Newspaper not identified, about December 1960.
- “Local Couple Takes Positions in Caddo-Bossier Area.” Newspaper not identified, summer 1961.
- Item on Charles Freeman joining the Dallas VA hospital (“Charles to VA in Dallas”). Local news column, summer 1961.
- “Charles Freeman Completes Post Graduate Work.” Newspaper not identified, about 1964–65.
- “C. C. Freeman Will Direct Therapy Unit.” The Shreveport Times, May 4, 1966, p. 10-A.
- “C. Freeman Chapter Pres.” Newspaper not identified, May 1966.
- “Shreveport Man to Preside Over Association Meet.” The Shreveport Journal, April 27, 1967, p. 26.
- “APMR Chapter Elects Freeman.” The Shreveport Journal, May 4, 1967.
- “VA Hospital Volunteers Get Awards.” The Shreveport Times, about 1970.
- “Learns to Ride Again — Rider Overcomes Major Handicaps.” The Shreveport Journal, date not shown.
- “Freeman Named to Wyoming Post.” Newspaper not identified, 1977.
- “New VA Medical Center Director a ‘People Person.’” Alexandria Daily Town Talk, March 30, 1987, p. A-2.
- “Charles Freeman to Be Appointed Director of VA Medical Center in Pineville Today.” The Town Talk, spring 1987.
- “Legionnaires Hear Talks on Veterans’ Benefits.” Alexandria Daily Town Talk, June 21, 1987, p. A-13.
- “Cemetery Proclamation Signed.” The Town Talk, July 1987.
- “On the Road — VAMC Staffers Take Health Care to Veterans in Area Communities.” Alexandria Daily Town Talk, December 17, 1987, p. C-1.
- “VAMC’s Future: Geriatric, Substance Abuse Demands.” The Town Talk, February 1988 or 1989, p. A-8.
- “Local Support Expressed for VA Secretary.” The Town Talk, March 1989.
- “VA Recognized.” Newspaper not identified, 1989.
- “VAMC Hopes for More Funds to Enhance Drug Treatment.” The Town Talk, about September 1989.
- “Vets, Friends Honor VAMC Director — Freeman Being Transferred to Facility in Bonham, Tex.” The Town Talk, about 1992.
- “American Legion” (Shelby Williams Post No. 256, Forest Hill). Newspaper not identified, about 1987–92.
- Obituary of Mrs. Betty Marjorie Price. Newspaper not identified, September 2000.
- “Riverfront Program Planned.” Newspaper not identified, about September 2002.
Family sources
- family records. Recollections and family records of Frances Jackson Freeman, provided November 2026: residences, ministry appointments, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, family travel, and the couple’s homes and caregiving from 2000 to 2026.
- Freeman family photographs supplied by Frances Jackson Freeman, November 2026, with her captions.
