Freeport Authors: F

[Biography found on the D'Brickashaw Ferguson Foundation website] 

D’Brickashaw Montgomery Ferguson was born on December 10th, 1983, to Rhunette and Edwin Ferguson Sr. Raised in Freeport, a suburb in Nassau County, D’Brickashaw would attend Freeport High School, where he would realize his passion for football. D’Brickashaw chose to attend the University of Virginia in 2002. A four year starter, he would make his mark on the college football landscape. D’Brickashaw would set many records at Virginia, including one for the most starts by a freshman with 14 starts. He would also beat Ray Robert’s long-standing record for most starts by offensive linemen, starting 49 consecutive games. D’Brickashaw would earn All-American as well as All-ACC 1st team honors throughout his tenure, all while earning a B.A. in Religious Studies in three and a half years. The New York Jets selected D’Brickashaw Ferguson with their first pick (4th Overall) in the 2006 NFL draft. D’Brickashaw would pick-up where he left off, earning All-NFL rookie honors his first year in the NFL.  D’Brickashaw is a 3-time NFL Pro Bowler and has started every game during his 10 year career with the New York Jets, a mark few can claim. D'Brickashaw lives with his wife, Kirsten Ferguson and two daughters,  Eden and Emery in NJ.

Biography by Cynthia J Krieg, Village Historian

Robert Finch was born in Freeport and his family moved to a ranch in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.  He was educated at the University of Toronto (B. A. Honour Moderns in French and German) and did post graduate work at the Sorbonne.  He was a poet, literary critic and professor of French at the University of Toronto from 1928-1968.

Biography by Cynthia J Krieg, Village Historian

Gerald Fink was a Freeport resident who attended Atkinson school and graduated from Freeport High School in 1958.  He attended Amherst College where he earned a B.A. in biology in 1962 and an honorary Doctor of Science in 1962.  His M.S. (1964) and Ph.D. (1965) are both in genetics from Yale University.  From 1990 to 2001 he was the director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research/MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he continues as the American Cancer Society Professor of Genetic.  He has also instructed in the summer program at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which presented him with an honorary doctorate.  He is an expert on yeast biology and has written articles for scientific journals that are too numerous to mention.  In an email he states that his “fondest memories of Freeport are the lazy summer days when I fished out in the bay and brought home summer flounder for dinner.”

Biography by Cynthia J Krieg, Village Historian

Rosalie Lewis Fink graduated from Freeport High School in 1959.  Her Ed.D. is from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  She is presently a professor of literacy at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts,  She has written many articles about reading and trains teachers on the Interest-Based Model of Reading.

Biography by Cynthia J Krieg, Village Historian

Charles Fishman was born in Freeport.  His B.A. (1964) and M.A. (1965) are from Hofstra and a D.A. from U at Albany in 1982.  He taught high school literature and moved on to SUNY Farmingdale as an associate professor of English.  He has conducted advanced workshops in writing poetry.

Biography by Cynthia J Krieg, Village Historian

Maurice Forge trained and worked as a commercial artist until the great depression.  He took odd jobs to provide for his family: elevator operator, waiter, private club manager and school bus driver.  In the latter business, he rose through the ranks to become president of a bus system.  Throughout the time, he wrote poetry, essays, fiction and attended workshops.  He was associated with the Institute for Retired Professionals of the New School for Social Research.  In Freeport he wrote for the Freeport Leader and was a trustee of the Freeport Historical Society.

Click here for books by this author.

Rachel France edited and wrote the introduction for the book A Century of Plays by American Women.

Biography by Cynthia J Krieg, Village Historian

A Boston native, Richard France dropped out of high school.  He lived in Mexico, Japan, Europe and Australia for a considerable period of time.  He became a graduate fellow as a playwright at the Yale School of Drama and went on to earn a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in theatre history.  He received a Rockefeller Production Grant and a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship award.  He has worked at the Music and Art Institute of San Francisco, the University of Pittsburgh, a film critic for WQEDF-TV.  His was chairman of the Department of Theatre and Drama at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, CUNY,s City College Center for Worker Education and UCLA.  In 1982 he was the chair of the Drama Department at Hofstra University.

Click here for books by this author.