Maybrook centenarian publishes her second book

By Audeen Moore
Posted 10/26/22

It’s been quite a banner year for Rita Freeman of Maybrook. She celebrated her 102nd birthday in October and had her second book published in August, a book she started writing in 2020 when the …

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Maybrook centenarian publishes her second book

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It’s been quite a banner year for Rita Freeman of Maybrook. She celebrated her 102nd birthday in October and had her second book published in August, a book she started writing in 2020 when the COVID pandemic first broke out.

Freeman celebrated her milestone birthday October 9 during a party for about 50 family members at the Maybrook Senior Center. Another 23 family members joined in the festivities via Zoom. Mayor Dennis Leahy had a prior commitment and couldn’t attend the party, but did drop off flowers.

Born October 14, 1920, in Washington, Indiana, Freeman then divorced, moved to Maybrook in the late 1980s to help her sister Colleen. She now lives with her niece, Casey DeHoney.

“We needed each other,” DeHoney said. “It’s nice to be with family.”

Freeman says everyone asks her the secret to her long life.

Being active,” she said, noting she waited to retire from her working life until she was 72. She has held a “lot” of jobs through those working years, including her first, a secretary, and her last, legal secretary. Freeman has one child, a now-retired doctor, she says proudly.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Ms. Freeman’s later life is her avocation: author. Her first book, “Which One Are You?” was published in 2019. Her second, “Rita Tours the World”, which she began writing when the COVID pandemic first hit in 2020, was published earlier this year. Both are available from Amazon.

“My first book is about my family and growing up in Indiana,” Ms. Freeman explained. Ms. DeHoney said the family calls it her aunt’s “masterpiece”. The second book, billed as a sequel to “Which One Are You?” and titled “Rita Tours the World” is “her work of art”, adds Ms. DeHoney. It describes Ms. Freeman’s frequent trips to various world locations.

“My first book covered the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression and World War II,”. Freeman writes. Of the second book, she writes: “I often think of all the things I have seen, the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been while traipsing the planet the last 101 years. Funny things stick in my mind, like ‘You mess with the bulls and you get the horns’.”

And now, she says, “I’m thinking of writing another book.”