His mother was a Knox, and his maternal
grandfather was James Knox of Washington's Life Guard. James Freeman
was, as we should expect, an elder of the Presbyterian church.
The mother, Elizabeth Josephine Higley, "had unusual executive
ability and a strong disposition to improve social conditions
around her. She interested herself in temperance, and in legislation
for the better protection of women and children." Their little
daughter Alice, the eldest of four children, taught herself to
read when she was three years old, and we find her going to school
at the age of four. When she was seven, her father, urged by his
wife, decided to be a physician, and during his two years' absence
at the Albany medical school, Mrs. Freeman supported him and the
four little children. The incident helps us to understand the
ambition and determination of the seventeen-year-old daughter
when she declared in the face of her parents' opposition, "that
she meant to have a college degree if it took her till she was
fifty to get it. If her parents could help her, even partially,
she would promise never to marry until she had herself put her
brother through college and given to each of her sisters whatever
education they might wish--a promise subsequently performed.
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