| Notes |
- California Birth Index, 1905-1995
Name: Robert B Freeman
Birth Date: 29 Sep 1918
Gender: Male
Mother's Maiden Name: Martinor
Birth County: Los Angeles
U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947
Name: Robert Buchanan Freeman
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age: 22
Relationship to Draftee: Self (Head)
Birth Place: Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth Date: 29 Sep 1918
Residence Place: Tehachapi, Kern, California, USA
Registration Date: 16 Oct 1940
Employer: Self
Weight: 190
Complexion: Light
Eye Color: Hazel
Hair Color: Brown
Height: 6 1
Next of Kin: Robert Buchanan Freeman
Household Members:
Name Relationship
Robert Buchanan Freeman Self (Head)
Robert Buchanan Freeman Father
U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014
Name: Robert B Freeman
BORN: 29 Sep 1918
Died: 9 Mar 2012
State (Year) SSN issued: California (Before 1951)
Obituary:
Robert Buchanan Freeman, Jr.
1918-2012
Lifetime Tehachapi resident and a descendant of one of Tehachapi's pioneer families, Bob Freeman passed away March 9, at the age of 93. He was born in Los Angeles on Sept. 29, 1918, to parents Edna and Robert Sr. Robert Sr. was born in 1881 in the Old Towne area on Woodford-Tehachapi Road.
Robert B. Freeman, Jr. graduated from Tehachapi High School in 1936. Prior to the start of World War II, Bob was working in Alaska; but he returned home before the war began and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1941. He was in training when the war started and eventually became an aerial photographer, serving in the South Pacific, seeing action in Guadalcanal and Tulagi in 1943-44.
Bob met his future wife, Betty, while he was stationed in San Diego and Betty was working at the Consolidated Aircraft Plant, assembling B-24 Liberator bombers. They were married in Yuma, Ariz., on December 19, 1942, just two weeks before he went overseas. Bob returned in 1944 and was stationed at El Centro, El Toro, and Miramar, before being discharged in October 1945.
After the war, Bob and Betty moved their new family to Newhall, where Bob worked on a thoroughbred race horse ranch as a foreman until 1950. At that time, they moved back to Tehachapi, where Bob started his career with Monolith Portland Cement Company, where he retired after 25 years as Quarry Foreman in 1975.
Bob Freeman loved the outdoors. He always enjoyed raising cows and horses on property he owned east of town, near the cemetery. He was an avid hunter and fisherman, spending considerable leisure time exploring fishing areas in the Eastern Sierra Mountains, and later at Brite Lake. He also loved to hunt birds, small game, and deer locally. He also loved to hunt deer and elk in Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Oregon, and Wyoming.
Robert Buchanan Freeman is survived by his wife of nearly 70 years, Betty; sons, Bob and his wife, Betsy of Elizabeth, Colo.; Bill and his wife, Loreen of Hillsboro, Ore.; and Tom and his wife, Jenny of Tehachapi. He is also survived by nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The family would also like to extend a special thank you to Cathy Reece, Bob's caregiver during his last illness.
A private interment was held at Bakersfield National Cemetery on March 15. A private celebration of life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Optimal Hospice in Bakersfield.
Wood Family Funeral Service, Inc. of Tehachapi was in charge of arrangements.
Friday, Mar 23 2012 03:48 PM
Bob Freeman: member of a pioneering family who loved Tehachapi
By JON HAMMOND, Contributing Writer
The patriarch of one of Tehachapi's oldest established families left us on March 9 with the passing of Bob Freeman, 93, whose father was born in Tehachapi in 1881. Bob, who worked at the Monolith Portland Cement Company as a quarry foreman for many years and was also involved in ranching, had been in declining health for past year and died in his own Tehachapi home with his family present.
Bob was a big, cheerful man who was quick to smile and he enjoyed his family, friends, animals and being outdoors. He spent four years in the Marine Corp during World War II, participating in the fierce fighting at the infamous Guadalcanal, and he also managed a thoroughbred brood mare farm for the Newhall Ranch for five years after he got out of the service, but he loved Tehachapi and returned in 1950 to live out the rest of his days here.
The Freeman family arrived in the Tehachapi Valley when Bob's grandparents, Farmer and Susan Freeman, moved from Havilah to Tehachapi in the 1870s. The Freemans ran a small dairy located on Green Street, about where the St. Vincent De Paul Thrift Store is today.
"My grandmother would turn her cows loose after the morning milking, and they would wander down the canyon by the railroad tracks and eat the meadow grass," Bob told me. "It used to be a lot wetter down there (in the vicinity of the Tehachapi Creek Bridge, which you drive across if you use the Tucker Road exit or onramp to Highway 58) and the cows could find good feed. In the afternoon she'd gather them back up again."
Farmer and Susan Freeman had eight children who grew up in Tehachapi -- besides Bob's father Robert, there were brothers Jon Ban and William and sisters Lottie, Nellie, Grace, Cora and California. When Bill was only in his 20s, he was killed by a horse in downtown Tehachapi on Aug. 6, 1897, while trying to stop a runaway wagon and team. His was one of the first burials at Tehachapi Eastside Cemetery, and the Freeman family plot of 12 grave sites is one of the oldest at the cemetery.
While still a boy, Robert Freeman went to work for Charles Asher at his dry goods store, which was located about where Centennial Plaza is today. Robert worked there for many years and eventually bought the store from Asher's widow in 1935 and renamed it R. B. Freeman's Store, whose motto was "Once a customer, always a customer."
Robert went out of his way to accommodate his Tehachapi clientele. "He carried everything you can imagine: hay, grain, dynamite, groceries, clothing, guns, ammunition . . . and if he didn't have it in stock, he could order it," Bob remembered.
Growing up in Tehachapi, Bob helped his father in the store and worked in local orchards for $1 a day. He was the student body president of his senior class at Tehachapi High School and captain of the Warrior football team. His senior class of 1936 at THS had just 17 students, and the only surviving member now that Bob has passed is believed to be Esther Valdez Blair, who still lives in Tehachapi.
Bob later worked and lived at the old cinnabar mine near Broome Road. The mine and adjacent processing mill ran three shifts around the clock, extracting mercury (also known as quicksilver) from the reddish cinnabar ore.
Bob worked as a miner, drilling and blasting rock. He then went to work on the old three-mile long railroad that used to carry ore from the quarry to the plant at Monolith.
"I always liked to work outside," Bob once told me with a characteristic smile on his handsome face, "I couldn't stand working inside. If I had liked working inside, I'd have been a grocer like my Dad."
Ranching, horseback riding, hunting and fishing were outdoor passions that Bob continued for almost all of his long happy life.
Bob joined the Marine Corps in 1941, thinking it was going to be for just a year.
"Supposedly it was going to be for one year, but then the war broke out and that one year part was long gone," Bob said. "I stayed in for four long years. The best thing I got out of the Marines was Betty."
While stationed in San Diego, Bob met a pretty young woman who was working soundproofing B-24 bombers, and the two were married on Dec. 19, 1942.
Bob and Betty returned to Tehachapi after Bob left the Marine Corps and then worked five years at the Newhall Ranch. They raised their three boys -- Robert B. Freeman III, Bill and Tom -- here in Tehachapi.
In addition to working at Monolith, Bob cowboyed with Ben Sasia, Bud Cummings and Pete Vukich, and after his retirement in 1975 he and Betty visited their children and grandchildren and actively enjoyed their life together.
A military service was held for Bob at the Bakersfield National Cemetery on March 16.
Bob was a happy, uncomplicated man and he lived a very long and contented life. He exemplified the friendly, down-to-earth attitude typical of kids raised in Tehachapi. The Freeman family has lived in the Tehachapi Valley for 140 years, and Bob was a great example of a native son. His originality, positive attitude and warm spirit will be missed.
Courtesy The Tehachapi News
JON HAMMOND has written for the Tehachapi News for more than 30 years.
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1918 - 2012 (93 years)
