Jane Freeman, who with her husband and future governor Orville Freeman was among the founding forces of the modern DFL Party in Minnesota, died Friday at the age of 96.

"She was an amazing Minnesotan," said former Vice President Walter Mondale, noting how the Freemans, along with others such as Hubert and Muriel Humphrey, Donald and Arvonne Fraser and Mondale and his wife, Joan, were key figures in the early years of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

"But she also was part of a new development, which is now in full force, of women who looked at themselves as having their own qualities and not just those connected with their husbands."

Betsy O'Berry of Ramsey got to know Freeman well while running for state treasurer in 1998.

"She's always been smart, classy, strategic and just fun to be around," she said. "For a number of us active in DFL politics, we've all thought when we grow up, we want to be just like Jane Freeman."

Freeman also was the mother of Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman...

...Mike Freeman, a teenager then, recalled how their home had a second phone connected directly to the White House. One night it rang, and his father answered. “Someone said, ‘This is the White House operator,’ and he said, ‘This is Secretary Freeman.’ Then she asked, ‘Is Mrs. Freeman there?’ The president was calling to thank Jane on what a great job she’d done.”