Seymour Native Establishes Lawrence University Scholarship with $2.5 Million Gift

APPLETON, WIS. -- During a 30-year career with United States' Central Intelligence Agency, Marjorie Freund clearly understood the importance of being discreet. In fact, she mastered the art of discretion so well, she caught Lawrence University officials by surprise recently when they learned she had left her alma mater a $2.5 million gift in her will.

A native of Seymour, Freund graduated from Lawrence in 1935 with a degree in history. She spent most of her adult life living in the Washington, D.C., area where she enjoyed a 43-year career as a librarian, first for the Library of Congress and later for the CIA. When Freund passed away last December, she left provisions for the establishment of a student scholarship fund -- the Marjorie M. Freund Endowed Scholarship -- through a bequest of $2,523,647.

It is the largest single individual gift for a scholarship fund Lawrence has ever received. The college currently maintains a portfolio of nearly 400 scholarship funds.

"Miss Freund's gift certainly came as a wonderful surprise and we're exceedingly grateful for the magnitude of her generosity," said Lawrence President Richard Warch. "Establishing an endowed scholarship fund is one of the most meaningful ways to create an enduring legacy at Lawrence and we're honored Miss Freund has done so. Her gift will enable scores of future generations of Freund Scholars to obtain a Lawrence education. Her generosity is just the latest example of how alumni and friends of the college are reshaping and impacting philanthropy at Lawrence through generous bequests."

As a student at Lawrence, Freund was elected president of Mortar Board and the Women's Association, a former governing body for women attending Lawrence, played field hockey, served on the college's Judicial Board and was voted one of the college's "Four Best Loved Girls," a tradition begun in 1925 as part of a colonial-style banquet.

After graduating from Lawrence as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Freund pursued a master's of arts degree in public law at Columbia University, graduating in 1936. That same year, she began working at the Library of Congress, where she was a librarian for 12 years before joining the CIA in 1948 as a reference librarian. While at the CIA, Freund also attended Strategic Intelligence School, American University Institute of Information Storage and Retrieval and took numerous courses at the Foreign Service Institute. She retired from the intelligence agency in 1979.

"Marjorie was very fond of Lawrence," recalled Annadel Edwards, an Oskhosh native now living in Chevy Chase, Md., and long-time close friend, frequent travel companion and CIA colleague of Freund's. "She was a lady of the first degree. She always took a keen interest in what was going on in the world. She was a wonderful friend and a generous person."

Although she never had any children of her own, Freund "adopted" the children of Marian and Ellis Orr, who lived in the tiny border town of La Feria, Texas, a frequent travel destination of Freund's.

"We got to know Marjorie because she was a close friend of my sister's," said Marian Orr. "She liked coming down here on vacations. She more or less adopted us as her family. She'd buy the kids Christmas presents and take us to dinner when she was here visiting. She enjoyed people and was a good person to be around."

Freund died December 30, 2000 in Washington, D.C., at the age of 87.