Virginia Allen Freeman, 86

Virginia Allen Freeman, 86, passed away Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012.

Born Jan. 4, 1926, in Irwin, Tenn., to Wert and Mabel Allen, Freeman grew up a coal miner’s daughter in the Appalachian Mountains with four siblings, Drusilla, Reginald, Linda and Louise. She left Lynch, Ky., to attend Northwestern University and, later, George Washington University. She worked as a secretary for Carl M. Freeman Companies of Montgomery County, Md., eventually marrying real estate developer and company CEO Carl M. Freeman.

At the family farm, Tusculum, in Sunshine, Md., Virginia Freeman wrote, created and collected art and entertained guests. She even wrote two books on their family’s heritage and Jewish roots. Freeman was known as a skilled sculptor, painter and poet who kept a fine garden and loved world travel, especially to her ancestral Scotland.

Freeman was remembered as a warm, welcoming and spiritual person and a driving force behind the establishment of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation in 1960. Through the foundation, the couple contributed to hundreds of philanthropic causes, including the Kennedy Center, Corcoran Gallery, Washington National Opera, Montgomery College, Montgomery General Hospital and Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.

Freeman was preceded in death by her husband, Carl, who called her “Ginger,” and her son, Joshua, who thought that she was absolutely perfect.

She leaves behind three step-daughters, Susan Freeman McGee and her husband, Todd, Lisa Freeman and Carla Freeman; step-grandchildren Todd, Ava and Brita McGee, and Naomi, Seth and Ethan VanDinter; a son-in-law, Don Percious, and a daughter-in-law, Michelle DiFebo Freeman; grandchildren Nicholas, Benjamin and Juliana Freeman; a sister, Louise, and a brother-in-law, Charles Gambill; and many extended friends and family members. The family extended gratitude and thanks to the caregivers during her final years.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Joshua M. Freeman Foundation; 36097 Sand Cove Rd., Selbyville, DE 19975, or at www.freemanfoundation.org.