Entity | Orville Freeman

Orville Lothrop Freeman (May 9, 1918 – February 20, 2003) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 29th Governor of Minnesota from January 5, 1955, to January 2, 1961, and as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1961 to 1969 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He was one of the founding members of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and strongly influential in the merger of the pre-DFL Minnesota Democratic and Farmer-Labor Parties. Freeman nominated Kennedy for president at the 1960 Democratic Party national convention. Freeman was born on May 9, 1918, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Orville and Frances (Schroeder) Freeman. He attended Central High School in Minneapolis. Freeman then went on to attend the University of Minnesota, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1940 and met his lifelong friend and political ally, Hubert Humphrey. He also met his wife, Jane Charlotte Shields (May 25, 1921 – March 23, 2018), in college. They married on May 2, 1942. They had two children: Michael Orville and Constance Jane Freeman.