Individual Details

Death

Ruth Vonbora Bowman Tisinger Freese, 88, of Mount Jackson, Va., passed away on Jan. 3, 2004, at Shenandoah Memorial Hospital in Woodstock.

Mrs. Freese was born in Mount Jackson on Jan. 30, 1915, and was the daughter of the late Charles C. Bowman and Dooney Furr Bowman. She was a sister to Maxine Compton, Jean Pence, Helen Steadman and Cortland, Gordon, Lorain, and Willis Bowman, who have all predeceased her.

Ruth Bowman graduated from The Triplett High and Vocational School in 1931 and received a Bachelor of Science in High School Teaching and Administration from The State Teacher’s College (now James Madison University), Harrisonburg, in 1935. At the age of 20, she began teaching at Hamburg School near Conicville. She received her Master of Arts Degree in Education from Columbia University in 1943. She taught at Triplett High School until 1959, and then at Stonewall Jackson High School and Triplett Tech until 1967, except for the overseas teaching assignments. She was a Girl Scouts leader, a basketball coach, and was active in her church clubs and the book club.

On June 5, 1943, she married Marion Erb Tisinger, who predeceased her May 7, 1948.

In 1958, Ruth Tisinger accepted a one-year Fulbright exchange teaching position in Korat, Thailand, teaching English as a second language in a teacher training college. In 1963, she joined Teachers for East Africa for a two-year assignment in Kenya, teaching English as a second language in teacher training colleges, first in Nairobi and then in Machokos. In 1967, Ruth went to Guam, where she taught English at John F. Kennedy High School until 1975. In September of 1974, she married Karl A. Freese, a Lt. Col. in the USAF stationed on Guam. They both retired and remained on Guam, their tropical paradise. Mr. Freese predeceased her on May 6, 1984. Mrs. Freese remained on Guam until November of 2000 when she had a massive stroke and returned to California to live with her daughter and son-in-law. In November of 2002 the three of them returned to the Shenandoah Valley, where Mrs. Freese was a resident of Tandem Health Care in Woodstock until her death.

Mrs. Freese was a member of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, Mount Jackson, and then the Lutheran Church of Guam, Agana. She was an avid reader. She loved traveling and sharing her knowledge of the world, as she did through several hundred slide presentations after her teaching assignments overseas. She loved being with people and spent many years of her life caring for others. Her sense of adventure was inspirational.

Mrs. Freese is survived by a daughter and son-in-law, Mary Ruth and Jerry Parsons of Mount Jackson; a grandson and his wife, Chad and Laura Parsons and their new baby daughter, Emma, of Gilbert, Ariz.; a granddaughter and her husband, Erin and Peter Marietta of Oakland, Calif.; and a grandson, Evan Parsons of Burbank, Calif. Also surviving are sisters-in-law Hilda Grove of Strasburg, Virginia Bowman of Virginia Beach, Marguerite Tisinger of Woodstock, and Janeva Tisinger of Hagerstown, Md., and brother-in-law, Robert Tisinger of Woodstock.

A Celebration of Life will be held at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church on Saturday, Jan. 10, at 1 p.m. reception following. Burial will be private.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the following organizations: Mount Calvary Lutheran Church of Mount Jackson; The Las Cumbres Volunteer Fire Department, c/o Gloria Laird, 19127 Old Vineyard Road, Los Gatos, Calif. 95033; or The Lutheran Church of Guam in Agana, Guam.