The story below is from our March/April 2019 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
Three Roanoke women who made a difference in social awareness, business and education.
One may think the last 100 years saw more change worldwide than any other time in history. Advancements in technology, education, medicine and human rights changed the world before our eyes. Though Millennials through Gen Z-ers know little to nothing of life pre-internet, Baby Boomers watched as technology shot from slide rule and space pen to smartphone and artificial intelligence. In the United States, we witnessed a shift from a racially segregated society to electing our first black president. And though several states still have not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, an increase of over 200 percent of women entered the labor force during the 1900s.
None of these advancements would have happened without people working to make a difference. From doctors and politicians to college students and housewives, Americans from coast to coast have worked to make our nation a better place for everyone. Included in the long list of movers and shapers of this change are many Roanoke women.
Here, we look at three of them who stand out as forward-thinking and dedicated to their fields. Women who sacrificed self for the common good. Women who paved the way...
...For social awareness
Katie Zawacki grew up Roman Catholic in a rural part of New Jersey where no Catholic church existed. This upbringing exposed her to other faiths from a young age.
“The smaller Catholic community met in the village firehouse for 10 years,” she says, “until the Presbyterian minister donated the land on which the Catholic Church was eventually built.”
Growing up in a community where “different Christian traditions worked together for the benefit of all,” made a lasting impression. After high school, Katie continued her education at Newark State College (now Kean College) and then received a degree in fashion merchandising from Tobe-Coburn School for Fashion Careers in New York City. But marriage to John, and traveling for his job as an electrical engineer, postponed any aspirations for the fashion industry.
Living for five years in places like South Africa, Holland, Spain and France, however, nurtured Katie’s small flame of awareness of people who lived and worshiped differently than she did. And, as God would have it, babies started coming during these years, laying the foundation of awareness in their lives, as well.
In 1968, the Zawackis moved to Roanoke where Katie worked to raise her five children. When the time was right, she returned to school and, in 1991, earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology/Sociology from Mary Baldwin College. For 16 years, she worked as a prevention specialist for Blue Ridge Behavior Healthcare’s Community Service Board teaching substance abuse and violence prevention to children and youth. After John retired, the Zawackis joined the Peace Corps as prevention specialists on St. Lucia island in the Caribbean.
“There was a heavy emphasis on character education in the schools,” she says. Although Katie performed virtually the same job in St. Lucia that she did in the States, living as a minority increased her social awareness even more.
“But the people were really kind,” she says, “and we made so many friends, it was hard to say goodbye when our service ended.”
After returning from St. Lucia, Katie wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Though her age said it was time to retire, her energy and drive to make a difference said otherwise. She tried doing consulting work, but that didn’t pan out.
“So, I asked my pastor, ‘What can I do now?’” Katie says. He suggested an interfaith program the diocese was just beginning. After attending training workshops in Richmond, in 2008 she and her husband took charge of the Roanoke region’s Voices of Faith, a grassroots organization designed to promote understanding between people of different religions. That was just the beginning.
“It’s been an adventure,” she says, “I’ve met people I never would have met before.”
Through community meals, women’s groups and book readings, Voices of Faith has paved the way to a greater understanding among the citizens of Roanoke.
From Voices of Faith came Points of Diversity. Under the umbrella of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities (VCIC), Points of Diversity “goes beyond faith, to other differences like race, ethnicity and sexual orientation,” Katie says.
Youth programs from both groups put Katie back into the classroom, laying pavement for our youth to be more culturally and socially aware and training them to communicate with those different from themselves.
“If you can’t communicate,” says Katie, now 73 years old, “you’ll never understand your differences.” And understanding is what paves the way for the next generation.
...For women in business
Like many women in the 1940s, Edna “Kitty” Freeman sewed her own clothes. She even made belts and covered buttons that matched her dresses. At that time, matching accessories was all the rage in fashion. But when her friends started asking her to make their accessories, and her husband, Francis, saw the money-making potential in this hobby, he encouraged Edna to start her own business in the basement of their Roanoke home.
Starting a business is hard work no matter who you are or the era in which you live. But for Kitty, her outgoing personality did it all—at least at first.
“She was a go-getter,” says Greg Freeman, Chairman of the Board of Roanoke Custom Products about his mother. She spread the word to her friends, whom she later hired, and the next thing they knew, Freeman & Freeman Manufacturing was so busy, it enabled Francis to leave his job with the Norfolk & Western Railway to work full-time with his wife.
“My father took care of the sales and expansion of the business and mother managed the women,” says Freeman. “To her, it was just keeping busy with friends.”
And busy they were. According to Freeman, they had six women working in their basement when they decided to move to a commercial location. They bought more sophisticated equipment. Then, the purchase of a similar company in Illinois allowed for a geographical expansion west. Before long, Freeman & Freeman products were in every department store from New York to California.
“Because of the unique work, the business grew rapidly,” says Freeman, “and the department stores jumped on the idea.”
In an age when women primarily were confined to the home, performing domestic duties and taking care of children, Kitty Freeman forged ahead. She started a business and she had a blast doing it.
Born February 29, 1916, this firecracker of a woman continued to serve in her community long after Freeman & Freeman Manufacturing quit producing fashion items. Volunteering for many activities with Woodlawn Methodist Church and the various women’s clubs to which she belonged, kept Kitty active until she passed away at the age of 93. Her legacy lives on as a lasting influence in her family and friends, and any woman wanting to earn a living while keeping busy with friends.
...For black education
Lucy Addison paved the way not only for women, but all people of color. Born enslaved on December 8, 1861, she was the third of Charles and Elizabeth Addison’s six children. She grew up in Fauquier County where, after emancipation, her father was able to purchase a small piece of land to farm.
After Lucy acquired some education in Virginia, the Addisons sent their daughter to study at the Institute of Colored Youth, a private school in Philadelphia. She graduated with a teacher’s diploma in 1882. After a few years in Loudoun County, she moved to Roanoke to teach at the First Ward Colored School. With a short stint as interim principal, Addison remained at First Ward (later named Gainsboro Elementary) as a teacher for 31 years. Though other teachers and principals would come and go, Addison’s devotion to her students and their education never wavered.
Dedicating her life to teaching others meant Addison spent her summer breaks continuing her own education at schools like Howard University, the University of Pennsylvania and Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now named Hampton University). Likely, these continuing education courses and the travel involved cost more than she could afford.
In 1918, Addison accepted the position of principal of the Harrison School. Since this school offered coursework only through the eighth grade, with no Roanoke school for African-Americans offering a high school diploma, Addison continually lobbied for a curriculum that would bring secondary-level education to the city’s black population. Thanks to her tireless efforts, in 1924, the state board of education accredited the Harrison School as a high school. It was the largest black high school in the state with a female principal.
Addison’s work didn’t stop with the public school classroom. As a noted educator in the black community, she was a founding member of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Roanoke and their superintendent of Sunday School. Single her entire life, she boarded in the home of a church elder, Dr. Isaac Burrell, founder of the historic Burrell Memorial Hospital.
In 1929, the Roanoke school board opened the new city high school named after Miss Addison. She died on November 13, 1937, in Washington, D.C. where she retired—a legend and way paver for Roanoke, African-Americans and women everywhere.
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