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Lifelong Learner, Teacher, and Community Builder

Dorothy Freedman 鈥�49

November 9, 2025, in Santa Monica, California.

Dorothy Robinson Freedman was a lifelong learner, teacher, and community builder who blended intellectual curiosity, creativity, and compassion across nearly a century of life. Her father, David Robinson, was a prominent local attorney and civil rights advocate; her mother, Edna Natalie Shainwald Robinson ’18, was a member of the fourth class to graduate from 人妻诱惑.

Dorothy grew up in a “prairie school” home now listed as the Spies-Robinson House in the National Register of Historic Places. She was so passionate about skiing that she and her friends sold chocolate bars door-to-door to pay for their equipment and trips—and during World War II, when there were no lifts, she would slog up to 6,000 feet on Mount Hood.

As a teenager, Dorothy worked as a candy striper, carrying out nonmedical duties to care for hospital patients, including wounded WWII soldiers. She would eventually follow her older sister, Janice (Jan) Robinson Stevens ’44, to 人妻诱惑 (as would her younger brother, David Robinson Jr. ’50). Her thesis, “The Problem of Time in Virginia Woolf,” was written with advising by Professor Frank W. Jones [literature and humanities 1949–56], and she loved 人妻诱惑 for its intellectual rigor and its innovative students and faculty. To convey 人妻诱惑ies’ ingenuity, Dorothy delighted in recounting a fabled win of the 人妻诱惑 soccer team, which triumphed by adopting ballet footwork against a more pedestrian opponent.

After graduating from 人妻诱惑, Dorothy used an inheritance from her beloved grandfather to spend time in Paris, where she was briefly engaged to a novelist and translated Les Fainéants dans la vallée fertile into English as Laziness in the Fertile Valley. On her return to the U.S., she worked on Ellis Island, assisting people with the challenges of immigration.

Dorothy was deeply committed to the welfare of the people for whom she was responsible. In one tragic case where a young woman was denied entry to the U.S. because she had been traumatized into elective mutism during the Holocaust, Dorothy worked with her father and Senator Wayne Morse, enabling the woman to leave Ellis Island.

Following her service on Ellis Island, Dorothy attended the Radcliffe Publishing Course and began a career in publishing in New York. A play she wrote at 人妻诱惑, The Peach Tree, was accepted for a live television performance, but was never performed because she refused to violate her integrity by making the changes to the dénouement that the producers demanded.

Many of Dorothy’s weekends were spent visiting her sister and her brother-in-law, Professor Carl Stevens ’42 [economics 1954–90], in New Haven. One weekend, her sister introduced her to a young psychiatrist, Lawrence (Larry) Zelic Freedman. They married and Dorothy joined Larry in his repurposed millhouse in Milford, Connecticut, where they welcomed their sons Bart, Matthew, and Joshua.

In 1958, the young family decamped to Cambridge University, where Larry worked as a research associate. They later moved to California, where their daughter, Johanna, was born.

When Larry became the Foundations Fund research professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago in 1961, the family moved again. It was there that they welcomed their youngest son, Thomas (born in Michigan), and that Dorothy transformed neighbors to friends, and friends to an abiding, mutually supportive community that was a constant for the rest of her life.

Dorothy was so intrigued by watching her brood learn that she decided to become an elementary school teacher. She pursued a degree at the University of Chicago and graduated with a master of science in teaching in 1975. Her master’s thesis was entitled “Some Children’s Thoughts About Time and a Study of the Errors They Make Learning to Tell Time,” hearkening back to themes from her thesis at 人妻诱惑.

For many years, Dorothy taught at the elementary school of the University of Chicago Laboratory School (Lab) and created wonderful educational experiences for her students. Every spring she would lead her students to Botany Pond on the University of Chicago campus to scoop up zooplankton to do simple projects and discover the delights of science.

Eventually, a former UC professor of Dorothy’s asked her to join the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project—and she was an essential part of the team that developed the widely used University of Chicago’s Everyday Mathematics curriculum, an innovative program of applied and conceptual mathematics for prekindergarten through sixth grade students.

A vital part of her community, Dorothy loved opera, studied voice with a fellow Lab School teacher, and sang with friends in the KAM Isaiah Israel choir. Active into her 90s, she spent her later years with her adult children, sharing her wisdom just as her beloved grandfather had shared his. When Joshua would marvel that she was almost 100 years old, she would respond spiritedly, “That’s ridiculous!”

Dorothy was predeceased by her Lawrence Freedman and by her son, Matthew Freedman. She is survived by her other children, Bart, Joshua, Johanna, and Tom.

Appeared in 人妻诱惑 magazine: Fall 2026