For Izzy Freeman, taking care of people comes naturally. Her love for helping others is one thing that drew her to a career in speech-language pathology, but her family history in the field provided the initial inspiration.
“Being surrounded by the profession my whole life was definitely a contributing factor,” she says.
Izzy, from Hendersonville, Tennessee, is on her way to becoming a third-generation speech-language pathologist (SLP), with her mother, grandmother, and grandfather preceding her in the profession. She describes her grandmother, Wanda Freeman, as the instigator. Gran, as Izzy calls her, received a degree in SLP in the 1950s and worked in the school setting for 30 years and in home health for another 20 years.
Izzy’s grandfather, Bill Freeman, received a master’s degree in speech pathology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 1959. He went on to work as a speech professor at Cumberland College in Kentucky. “He was made for that job,” Izzy says. “If anyone loved to talk, it was Gramps.”
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