Freda M. Eliason went to be with Jesus on November 18, 2025. She was born on February 13, 1935 in Zodiac Springs, Missouri to Hubert and Mary Thomas. She was the second oldest of eight children in a loving family. She got an excellent early education in a one room schoolhouse where she competed for the top spot in spelling, math and geography. That little school across the street from the little store her dad operated gave her a lifelong love of reading. The library van from a nearby town would drop off a new batch of books each week and she would devour them. She passed her love of reading on to her children! She spoke all her life of the friends she had from her growing up years in that small, close-knit community.

Mom traveled twice as a child to the west coast of the United States and all the way up to Washington State, picking fruit and vegetable crops. She remembered sleeping out under the stars in the American west and seeing the ocean.

At 16, Mom committed her life to Jesus Christ after a preacher came to the one room schoolhouse for evangelistic meetings and was baptized in a nearby creek. She traveled all the way to Pasadena, California to attended a small Bible college along with a friend. There she met Vic Eliason, her future husband.

In 1959, she came to Milwaukee with her husband where they served in ministry for nearly sixty years. She did everything from floor scrubbing, to bookkeeping, to cooking for youth camps, cooking for dinners and banquets, and raising three children in the midst of it. She got little notice , but without her constant labors and prayer, it would not have been possible. God noticed, however.

Most importantly, Mom was a woman of deep faith and constant prayer. Her Scripture memory and prayer lists, always in evidence, showed her belief that God answers. Her life was one of constant love and sacrifice for others. She left a precious legacy to her loved ones.

Freda is survived by her three children, Andy, Ingrid (Tom), and Lisa. Also survived by ten grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, her sisters June (Paul), Betty (Bob), and Louise, and nieces, and nephews. Further survived by her brother-in-law, Vern and his wife, Delores.

A private memorial will be held.