Nellie Jo Freeman

Full Name: Nellie Jo Jefferson Freeman
Date of Birth: February 29, 1932
Age: 80
Gender: Female
Current Address: 32 Shropshire Place
City/Town: Market Harborough
County/State: Leicester
Country: England

Hair Colour: Silver.
Eye Colour: Dark brown.
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 120 lbs.
Distinguishing Marks: Both of my ears are pierced once. I have no other scars or birthmarks.

Please list position(s) for which you are applying:

I am applying for a teaching position.

Please explain why you are applying for the position(s):

I was released from my last position due to "budget cuts", but I still have at least fifteen good years of work left in me. Additionally, I was widowed less than a year ago, and I no longer feel any ties to Market Harborough.

Why do you feel you would be the best candidate for the position(s)?:

I know how to handle children of all ages, intellectual capabilities, and disciplinary issues. Moreover, while I may be eighty years old, I still retain all of my mental facilities and a fair amount of strength.

Do you posses the necessary qualifications for the position(s) for which you are applying? If yes, please list them below:

I received a Bachelor's Degree in Education from Hunter College, New York, NY in 1954, and have kept my degree up to date by attending yearly seminars, both in New York and since my move to England. I have been teaching secondary education since September of 1955.

What other qualifications or skills do you possess which you feel will aid your performance in the chosen position(s)?:

I raised four children, six grandchildren, and twelve foster children, including a child who was addicted to drugs and two with developmental delays, so I am used to dealing with children of the sort that are in your facility.

Have you worked in this type of position or facility before? If so, where and when?:

I have never before worked in a home for troubled youth, but I have, as mentioned, been teaching for nearly sixty years.

Please describe your most recent employment experiences, including your positions there, company names, and locations:

My first teaching assignment was at Clearview Colored High School in Easley, South Carolina, U.S.A.; my most recent position was at Robert Smyth School in Market Harborough, Leicester, England.

How do you think your previous education and employment experiences will aid your performance within the chosen position(s)?:

If, after sixty years, there is a class out there I cannot handle, I will tender my resignation immediately.


Please describe yourself to the best of your ability, in only five words. ('And' will not count towards these.):

She Who Must Be Obeyed. (My husband hung that appellation affectionately on me, and three generations of students have used it with equal affection.)

What methods would you employ in order to relax during times of stress, and how effective do you think these have been in the past?:

I quilt and knit (and have since I was ten years old, so it is hardly the occupation of an old lady). The simple, repetitive motion of both enables me to relax and clear my mind of stress, and when I am concentrating on a difficult stitch or a particularly intricate piecing, I tend to forget all else.

Please list three traits about yourself that you consider negative, and three traits about yourself that you consider positive. Explain these choices if necessary:

Three of my traits I consider negative are that I have a slight stammer (which gets worse when I am agitated), that I have an irrational and intense dislike of the clicking noise produced by retractable pens, and that I still sometimes resort to rapping a disobedient child over the knuckles with a ruler or a pointer (often for flagrantly and deliberately "clicking a pen" at me). Three traits I consider positive are that I can fight through any adversity, that I am patient with children (until they push me to using my ruler), and that I am always willing to try new methods of teaching and living.

Describe one event in your life that you would change if you could, and why:

When I was ten, my brother Thomas was walking me home one night from my friend Etta Jane's house, and we were talking about some nonsense--I don't even remember what--when he saw a group of white men coming towards us, obviously drunk. He hid me in a clump of bushes and told me not to move, then made like he was still walking. The men stopped him and demanded to know where the "little Pickaninny gal" was. Thomas refused to tell them about me and insisted that he had been alone the whole time. They got more and more frustrated and finally lynched him. I would rather not go into details. Anyway, he was only seventeen. If there had been any way to save him, I would have.

If a superior gave you a task to complete, to which you were wholly, morally opposed, what would you do?:

I would refuse, flat out, until my superior could give me one good reason why I should set aside my morals and do it. I have not lived eighty years by throwing aside my morals on a whim, but I have also not lived those eighty years by being a fool.

If you caught a friend and co-worker stealing from your place of employment, breaking rules, and/or endangering the safety of others, what would you do?:

The correct--and partially true--answer would be to say that I would report said co-worker to his superior. However, to be honest, I would more than likely make that report in the presence of said co-worker, while holding him firmly by the ear. I am a bit old-fashioned at times, and while I am patient, there are some things I will not tolerate.


Where did you grow up, and what was it like there?:

I was born in Liberty, South Carolina, a small town in the northwest of the state. I was the fifth of seven children, four boys and three girls, and considering I was born to a colored family during the Great Depression, we didn't exactly live in palatial splendor. Matter of fact, we lived in what amounted to a three-room shack. Despite all that, and despite the fact that we were living in one of the most racially charged areas in the country, I actually enjoyed growing up. I attended Liberty Colored High School from first grade up through twelfth, then went to Hunter College in New York City, New York. That was perhaps the best four years of my life--the first time I was surrounded by women of my own intelligence, and the first time I was not treated as though I was somehow inferior because I was colored. In fact, I joined a sorority while I was there, Phi Sigma Sigma, and had sisters who were white, Jewish, and colored.

When I graduated with my teaching certificate, I returned to Liberty. The old Liberty High School had combined with another school in Easley, but I got a job at the new combined school, Clearview Colored High School. I enjoyed it thoroughly and taught there for five years before I met my husband, Lewis Freeman. We got married, and I moved with him twice. He was a businessman. I taught in Birmingham, Alabama, and then in Chicago, Illinois, before he was transferred to a firm in the Leicester district in England. At that time we had two children, a boy and a girl, and after the move to England I had two more before getting involved in the foster care system. I taught at three different secondary schools before taking a job at Robert Smyth School, shortly before my husband's retirement. That was twelve years ago, and I have taught there ever since.

What are/were your social interactions like? Do/did you have many friends and/or relationships?:

Growing up I had a few friends--my sisters, Ella May and Mary Rose, and a few other girls who went to "Lib" with me. At Hunter College, most of my friends were in my sorority, and I still correspond with several of my sisters who are still alive. My best friend, and my first and only love, was my husband, Lewis Freeman. After I started having children, most of my friends were the parents of their friends. I had, as I mentioned, four children--two boys, Lewis, Jr. and Martin, and two girls, Rosa and Tamsin--and they between them gave me twelve grandchildren, the oldest of whom, Sarah, recently gave birth to my first great-grandson.

What prompted you to pursue the career path you are now following?:

I graduated high school in 1950. There were not many other career options open to women at that time. Beyond that, I have always enjoyed working with children and imparting my knowledge to them, and I hoped I could make an impact on the next generations.

Were you ever a member of the armed forces or of a law enforcement or security agency? If yes, please list rank and branch, or company name and location:

I was not.

Do/Did you ever abuse controlled substances, including but not limited to alcohol, prescription medications, street drugs and tobacco?:

Never. My mother would have skinned me alive.

Have you ever been convicted of a crime? If yes, please list conviction(s) and served sentence(s) below:

Shortly after we married, Lewis and I participated in a "sit-in" at a Birmingham lunch counter. We were both arrested and spent a few nights in jail, but that was it.


Is there anything your character isn't telling us? Do you have more information to add about your character that they would not tell the representative about? Please explain below:

What you see is what you get. Nellie Jo has never been one to conceal anything about her life, be it her participation in the American Civil Rights movement or her tendency to swat students with rulers. She was at the 1963 March on Washington, along with her husband and oldest daughter, Rosa, who was an infant; to this day she can--and will--still quote most of the speeches that were made.

The only thing she really doesn't talk about much is that she and her husband specifically requested the transfer to England in April of 1968, wanting to get out of the U.S. following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the riots taking place. She can count the number of times she has returned to the States since then on one hand (her mother's funeral, her father's, and the funerals of two older siblings).

She is, as she stated, in remarkably good health for her age, and if you didn't know she was eighty years old you would never believe it. In fact, as a "leap baby", she often points out that she has only just celebrated her twentieth birthday.

Character Playby: Nichelle Nichols
Player Nickname: Bre
Chatango Username: BreS13