Jean M. Freese

A memorial gathering, including refreshments, between two and six on Saturday afternoon, March 19, at the Freese home at 121 North 12th Street in Miles City.

Jean Marie Bartley Freese, 84, died Saturday morning, March 12, 2011, at her home in Miles City. She was born April 23rd, 1926 in Miles City to William Hickman and Mary Maitland Bartley. In 1933, the family moved to Great Falls, and on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, she was graduated from Great Falls High School. She graduated from the University of Montana School of Journalism in the spring of 1948 and joined the newsroom staff of the Great Falls Tribune as a reporter and photographer. She worked briefly as editor of the Western Livestock Reporter in Billings, before being married to Dr. Martin L. Freese in Great Falls on March 10th, 1951.

They lived for a short time in Roundup, moving to Miles City to live in a house which had been in the family since 1928. He joined the staff of the Veterans Administration Hospital which was being prepared to open. From 1952 to 1956 Mrs. Freese was on the newsroom staff at the Miles City Star, a job she left to raise Bill, Amorette and Bart. When Bart entered school in 1967, she returned to the newsroom staff at the Star, working part time, a job which gradually grew to be full time. She retired in 1991.

In this same period, she had been drafted, as many people were, into the Barn Players Summer Theater, where she appeared in over twenty major and minor roles, in addition to directing, building sets, handling publicity and programs, serving as an officer of the organization and serving coffee and tea during intermission. The Barn brought many friends into the family through four generations, from grandfather Bill Bartley, through the entire Freese family and now including Bart's daughter Cecelia representing the fourth generation.

Jean was preceded in death by her husband, her four siblings, Patricia Stevens, Kathleen Black, Bill and her twin brother John Bartley, and two nephews, Danny Black and Jonathon Connelly.

A memorial gathering, including refreshments, will be hosted by Bill Freese, Amorette and Steve Allison, Bart and Shelley Freese and their daughters Cecelia and Lila between two and six on Saturday afternoon, March 19, at the Freese home at 121 North 12th Street in Miles City. Should friends desire, memorials may be made to the Miles City Public Library, the Miles City Historic Preservation Office, the Evelyn Cameron Gallery of the Prairie County Museum in Terry, or the Barn Players.
[Jeans final report was this dictated obituary.]

Stevenson & Sons Funeral Home of Miles City is in charge of the arrangements. Condolences may be sent to the family by visiting: www.stevensonandsons.com.