Robert Parke Freeman

Introductory Remarks to a Gathering at Balancing Rock, Bristol, Rhode Island

Chas W. Freeman, Jr,  October 18, 2025

My brother, Robert, lived for eighty years – about fifteen years longer than our sister, Hope.  I miss her and I miss him.  Others here will have a lot to say about Robert.  So, I will be brief.

I cherished and admired my younger brother, whom most of you knew as “Rob.”  He was two years and one month younger than I.  He grew into a welcoming member of our extended family and a risk-acceptant businessman, but my first memory of him was as a tiny fiend in human form.  Shortly thereafter, he metamorphosed into a guileful sibling rival with an unmatched talent for getting me into trouble with our parents while exonerating himself.  For some reason, despite my impeccable character and notorious innocence, that’s how Robert also described me.  As age mellowed us, we came to revel in imaginative accounts of mutual perfidies.  Then we put all that behind us.

Robert had a gentle spirit.  He was kind and respectful to dogs as well as men.  Although he was easily mistaken for Mitt Romney, as far as I know, Robert never tied a dog to a roof rack.  And, when confronted with a hurricane, he seldom advised ordinary folk in its path to retreat to their second or third McMansions or to their villas in Tuscany.

Robert inherited our father’s entrepreneurial energy and imagination and our mother’s architectural and artistic taste.  He has left behind many monuments to both aspects of his character.  Everyone gathered here knows where at least some of them are.

In recent years, Robert had a series of strokes.  These progressively incapacitated him.  They also revealed the undisguised affection he had for his family and friends.

Robert’ first wife, Sandy Ruhanen, died tragically fourteen years ago but she lives on not just in our memories but in Robert’s and her two wonderful children and granddaughters.  Robert was rightly devoted to Sandy, but it is fair to say that it was his second wife and now widow, Inge Anna Maria Jackson [Reist], who gave him the happiest twelve years of his life.

I am thankful that Robert brought Inge into our extended family, a status from which she, like Mike Hudner, will never escape.  But most of all, I am grateful to Inge for who she is and all she did for my brother, the father of her stepchildren, Small Robert and Stunning Saurin.

When I was a kid, I thought that the young should supersede the elderly as soon as possible.  I still believe that.  So, Robbie and Saurin, will you now take charge?