SUN CITIES AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY – JANE FREEMAN

Jane Freeman Interviewed by Beverly Brown on August 5, 2007
Transcribed by Belva McIntosh on August 30, 2007

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Today is August 5, 2007. I am Beverly Brown, and I am interviewing Jane Freeman in her home for the Sun Cities Area Historical Society.

BROWN: Jane, if you would state your name, then tell us a little about yourself and how you came to Sun City.

FREEMAN: My name is Jane Freeman. Before we came to Sun City I was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania I still have a twin brother living back there Education wise – after high school I went to college. I came through with degrees in bachelors and masters and a doctorate at the University of Virginia From there I went to New York State took a position up there and ended up at a brand new community college. At that time it was called Director of Student Personnel, but it was ultimately changed to Dean of Students. I was there about ten years.
My husband and I decided it was time to retire. He got to checking his income and he decided he would get more money retired than he was working. So we started looking around at retirement areas in Florida, Colorado. In the meantime his sister had moved to Sun City so we thought we would come and see what that was all about. We decided we didn’t want to live with all those old people but we came back the next year and it looked pretty good so we did sign up for a house. We moved out here in 1970. The first few years, like everybody else we were involved with a lot of golf and activities at the recreation centers, primarily in silver craft and lapidary. Then my husband died in 1977, not too long after we moved here. That is when I became involved in community volunteer work.

BROWN: So what did you start with? What was the first thing you did – first volunteer activity?

FREEMAN: I don’t know what the first thing was but I know I became involved with Meals on Wheels, and I am now in my twenty seventh year for that. But in the early ’80’s the Daily News Sun and the Sun City Independent formed what they called a press council. It was composed of about ten or twelve people in Sun City, sort of an ombudsman sounding board.

At one of the meetings it came up that we didn’t have a city hall, we didn’t have a chamber of commerce, there was no place of central information where people could go. I said, “We’ve got an anniversary coming up,” that was about in 1982 or ’83. Nobody has got any history, nobody has collected anything. Somebody said why don’t you write one and I said oh sure, like I am an author. But Glenn Sandburg was on the committee and he had done some writing and was doing a newspaper column, so I just facetiously said well, Glenn, how about it, and he said, sure let’s do it. Fools walk in where angels fear to tread. We took on the 25 year history which turned out to be a book called Jubilee.

To read the complete oral history, click on the following link: Oral History Transcription