Freeman Benjamin "Fred" Zeserson

Freeman "Fred" Zeserson passed away peacefully at Oak Hill Manor, Feb. 1, 2017. Born in Boston Sept. 3, 1917, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Fred (the youngest of four siblings) led a colorful life characterized by ardent obsessions. He was immersed in political action all his life, first as a Socialist in the ‘30s and ‘40s and subsequently as a civil rights and anti-war activist. In World War II Fred served in the U.S. Army in Okinawa as a reporter for "The Corps Courier." Upon his return he graduated from Northeastern Law School in Boston but never practiced that profession, instead opting to work as a reporter for a Socialist news outlet Federated Press in New York City.

He and his first wife Ruth and their two young boys Kenneth and Alan were living in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan where they got involved in the struggle to integrate this apartment complex. They succeeded but were subsequently thrown out by irate management. So Fred and family bounced to Parkway Village in Queens where he led a rent strike. This effort was also successful but as a result the family got booted by management again and wound up living in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. Fred at this point ran a small PR firm in midtown Manhattan focusing on consumer product promotion and subsequently medical marketing. In 1967 he and his second wife Patricia (who had family in Dublin) took their children to live near Sligo in the West of Ireland where they eventually established two lovely cottages on the wild coast of Skreen. Thus, Fred became a long-distance commuter living in Ireland several weeks at a time and alternately journeying to Manhattan to help his various partners produce communications projects.

These were his dancing days as Yeats once put it. While Patricia became a local treasure singing in pubs and painting beautiful landscapes, Fred indulged his then current obsession, the plays of Samuel Beckett. He produced Waiting for Godot Endgame, and Krapp's Last Tape utilizing dazzling local talent. In that era, both Fred and Patricia became enthralled in Zen Buddhism which led to their setting up house in London where they were very active in the local Buddhist Society, a practice that continued the remainder of their lives.

Living in Ithaca in the early ‘90's Fred developed a passion for cross-country skiing. Returning to Ireland one summer, he brought a pair of conventional cross-country skis to the beach near their cottages and pioneered "sand skiing." The practice proved to be eccentric enough to entice local residents to join in thus inspiring Fred to create The Irish Sand-Skiing Association. Soon locals and tourists alike were plowing furrows in the wet sands of Dunmoran Strand several times a week.

Fred loved to sing not only in Irish pubs but wherever his meanderings took him, even entertaining in a piano bar in Matsuyama, Japan, where he regaled astonished patrons with a song he wrote, "Everybody's Crazy Including Me." He also loved crooning jazz standards at Oak Hill Manor, the establishment in which he spent his last several years. Many thanks to the staff there for the kind and professional care they rendered him and Patricia throughout.

Fred was predeceased by his first wife Ruth in 1957, his son Alan in 1988, and his second wife Patricia in 2014. He leaves two children, Kenneth (Jan), a daughter Katherine and his three grandchildren, Eli (Melissa), Johanna (Tom Stebbins), Joshua Gabila Green plus five great-grandchildren (Lyla, Declan, Grayson, Owen and Chloe).

For those inclined to make a donation in Fred's memory, please consider the ACLU (aclu.org) or the Southern Poverty Law Center (https://www.splcenter.org).

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