Asa Roy Freeman was born on the west side of Bloomington, to son of a hardware salesman, on October 18, 1884. The family lived at 710 W. Mill Street for about fifty years. Asa's brother, Theodore, left home to make his way in the publishing business in Kansas City and then New York City. His older brother, Litney, put up a shingle as a chiropractor in 1926, but in 1930, his stated occupation was restaurant manager. Litney had a rough time in 1935, when he was sentenced to 7 months in Vandalia for public drunkedness. Asa's sister Ruth was a school teacher and followed that career in Chicago after working in Bloomington for a few years. She was educated at the Moody Bible Institute at at the University of Illinois. Ruth had an adventurous spirit that took her to Helena, Montana in 1914 to be an educator at the YWCA.
Asa was the golden son of the Freeman family. He entered medical school in 1904 in Vincennes Medical School, after graduating from Bloomington High School. He married Muriel Van Schoick in 1906, and they soon had a daughter they named Muriel. They bought a home on the East Side and took part in the social life there.
During the Great War Asa enlisted and traveled to England to lend his help as a doctor at the front. He was first assigned to help the British hospitals, probably because the American hospitals could not be organized as quickly as needed and the British so desperately needed doctors. It was after Asa received word that he was being transferred to an American hospital and while he was moving between hospitals, that he was struck in the head by a shell fragment.
His life was in danger for some time and after he was returned to the States with a medical discharge, Asa was in a New York hospital for two months. Like so may men, he had been left with "shell shock." His wife and daughter traveled to New York to be with him and care for him.
Asa eventually returned to Bloomington and joined in the activities of a doctor and business man. He attended the funerals of other men he had served with. He joined the American Legion Post. He treated his patients and kept his office hours in his downtown office. Asa was even taking flying lessons and hoped to buy his own plane so he could "go for a spin" whenever he liked.
But on June 21, 1923, at midnight, Asa was ticketed for cutting a corner on the courthouse square. On July 16, 1923, his automobile was found on a secluded road outside Carlock, crashed into a bridge and burned down to the wheels. On February 21, 1925 his secretary left the office for lunch. When she returned, the examination room door was closed, and there was a slight smell of gas. She was not alarmed because gas was used by the doctor to treat certain illnesses. But as the smell grew stronger, she became alarmed and knocked on the door. It was locked, so she sought the help of men in the office building. The door was broken down and Asa Freeman was found with a hose nearby and a white cloth over his face.
The Pantagraph never asked why Dr. Asa Freeman took his own life. Perhaps everyone knew too well that Dr. Freeman had not been himself after the war.
Mrs. Freeman and daughter Muriel stayed in the home at 204 Woodland for just two more years. When Muriel was a Senior at BHS she was a poet and short story writer. Her final composition for the Aegis was a short story, about a short-tempered surgeon who was adored by a young nurse. Muriel left Bloomington for Northwestern University in 1927 and graduated from Northwestern before marrying Major Harvey Hopp. Asa's two Muriels lived the rest of their lives in the suburbs of Chicago. When Muriel VanSchoick Freeman died in 1952 they buried her in the Van Schoick family plot, leaving Asa Freeman alone at the Park Hill Cemetery west of Miller Park.