Vernon Joe Freeman

Vernon Joe Freeman, beloved husband, father, educator, public servant and 27-year veteran of the United States Armed Forces passed away peacefully on April 27, 2025 after having lunch with his beloved wife Shyrlee of 69 years. He was 95 years old.

Vernon was born the 5th of eight children to Byron Arthur Freeman and Lee Anna Walton Freeman in Palestine, Texas on the 21st day of June, 1929. An increasingly confident and precocious boy, Vernon attended the Frederick Douglass Elementary school in a building previously destroyed by fire and rebuilt by his grandfather William, himself a former slave and skilled mason, along with other Palestine men. The Douglass school would see three generations of Freemans including Vernon’s grandfather William, his father Byron and brother Jack serve as principals and would instill the traits in Vernon which would become dominant themes in his life — love of community, family and education.

In 1947 after graduating high school and completing his freshman year at Hawkins College in Texas Vernon took advantage of the G.I. Bill to enlist in the Army then two years later reenlisted in the Air Force and began a lifelong career of military service which would find him stationed in bases around the world including Randolph (Texas), Peterson (Colorado Springs), Osan (Korea), Tachikawa and Yakota (Japan) and Ramstein (Germany). During this time Vernon completed his bachelors degree in business commerce from the University of Maryland and in March 1956 through the introduction of his sister Patsy, Vernon met and married Shyrlee Arbaugh, a gifted teacher and piano player from Oklahoma whose love of faith and music Shyrlee shared with Vernon’s sister Patsy while the two sang together in the choir at Holman United Methodist church in Los Angeles. In 1958, Vernon and Shyrlee’s first child Norwynne Jo was born in Tokyo followed soon after by sons Paul in Colorado Springs and Lauris in San Antonio (Texas).

Over the next several years Vernon climbed Air Force ranks eventually achieving the rank of Command Chief Master Sergeant where he served as Senior Airman Advisor to the two-star general tasked with command of some 25,000 Air Force personnel and their dependents stationed throughout Europe while Shyrlee, who had received her bachelor’s degree from Los Angeles State College (now Cal State Los Angeles), secured jobs teaching elementary school overseas along the way. The two were a productive match, enduring a life of frequent travel with their young family while building lifelong friendships and enjoying access to many different peoples and cultures around the world, cultures and friendships which would have a lasting impression on Vernon and his family.

Vernon retired honorably from military service in 1973 and chose Sacramento’s South Land Park community to continue the next stage of his life in public service beginning in 1974 with the establishment of the Senior Day Care Center, an early prototype in adult care for the state, and in 1979 establishing the non-profit United Christian Centers (UCC) at Broderick, Del Paso Heights and the Lincoln Christian Center for disabled, disadvantaged and underserved members of the community as a viable alternative to the institutional and social isolation these members often faced. From 1979 to 1992 with Vernon serving as its executive director UCC graduated more than 1500 students who went on to be placed in unsubsidized employments at an astonishing rate of eighty to eighty-five percent. In 1985 Vernon established the Rosenwald C. Robertson Adult Day Health Care Center which taught skills of independent living. In 1990, through a collaboration of public and private partners he established the West Sacramento Resource Center which offered job skills, housing, food, medical and social therapy. In 1991 he established a Transitional Shelter that provided up to 6 months of temporary housing for 9 families until they could transition into permanent housing, and a before and after school program to provide a safe place for up to 25 children ages 5-12 to do homework and have access to recreational activities under the leadership of a licensed teacher.

Always with the goal to grow his community through participation Vernon was active in many civic, social and faith organizations including Parkside Community and Christ Unity churches, National Ministries American Baptist Churches, Toastmasters, a William T. McKee Consultation Fellow, 100 Black Men of Sacramento, the Links of Sacramento, Sacramento Black Educators Association, Concerned Citizens of Greater Sacramento, the National Urban League, NAACP, Sons In Retirement (SIRS) whose members became a valued part of his weekly group of golf buddies, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (President, 1995) as well as being appointed to serve on the Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education from 1979 to 1985 endorsed by his friend and neighbor the honorable United States congressman Robert T. Matsui and on which he became president in 1984. His friendship with Mr. Matsui would prove instrumental as Vernon, at a prayer breakfast, introduced him to a prominent group of Sacramento area Black ministers to discuss issues important to the community such as youth unemployment and government assistance for small businesses, among others. Mr. Matsui, who was interned along with his parents during WWII, would prove himself to be a worthy advocate of Vernon’s goals to strengthen communities by providing services to youth and its most vulnerable members to gain access to opportunities and create equity in their own lives.

Vernon retired from public service in 1994 and enjoyed many activities with his friends and family including travel, golf outings, attending civic and social events with Shyrlee, supporting his favorite local politicians, always with a personal office visit, growing and cultivating his fruit, vegetable and flower gardens including an adventurous but regrettable foray into making home brewed plum wine (aka ‘Plumshine’), listening to his favorite jazz and gospel recording artists which also saw Vernon, Shyrlee, his brother Byron, sisters Patsy, Mitzi and Marian traveling annually to the Monterey Jazz Festival down the coast, chatting with his many neighbors and passersby from his favorite perch inside his garage and watching his young grandchildren play in the pool on hot Sacramento summer days. But the retirement activity Vernon enjoyed most was sitting in his chair across the table from Shyrlee every morning and bringing laughs and smiles to each other’s faces. And for 69 years each of those mornings would begin the same way — when Shyrlee walked into the room Vernon looked up at her, his face brightening, and would say “Good Morning, my love.”

Vernon passed just 2 months short of his 96th birthday. He is preceded in death by all 8 of his treasured siblings, his daughter Norwynne (d. 2002) and survived by his wife Shyrlee, sons Paul of Davis, Lauris of Los Angeles and grandchildren Alex of Washington D.C., Ella of Oakland, California and Aaron of Davis, California and a not so small community of cousins, nieces and nephews throughout the state.

Acknowledgments

Vernon and Shyrlee cultivated lasting roots in Sacramento. Our family would like to extend deep thanks and gratitude to each member of this very special community who continue to come together throughout the generations to share the common belief that love and community always circle back to the origins from which it came. We’d also like to extend our deep thanks and gratitude to the special group of caregivers at home and at Carlton who cared for, looked after, charmed and were charmed by our one of a kind dad like he was their own.