After high school, Marjorie worked for the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington, DC. She married Louis Ragosta, and left the CIA when she became pregnant with her daughter, Christine. Three years later, her son Steven was born and, shortly thereafter, Marjorie divorced her husband, raising the children on her own.
When her children were old enough to be in school, Marjorie attended the University of Florida where she earned her Ph.D. She worked for twenty years at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J. and retired as a Senior Research Scientist.
When her father died, Marjorie brought her mother, Ella, to live with her. They visited Champney’s West most summers for many years, eventually purchasing a home in the community so they could spend more time there.
Marjorie began doing genealogical research at that time but, following Ella’s death, she became dedicated to tracing the genealogies of both her parents, doing extensive research in England for her mother’s people and in Sweden for her father's people. She was extremely successful in this endeavor, and the results of her efforts are now available at both the Ella Freeman Heritage House and Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
In 2008 Marjorie donated her Newfoundland home to the Champney’s West Heritage Group, whom set to work to renovate it and create a museum to house local artifacts, documents and audio – visual displays. In 2010 the facility was official dedicated as “The Ella Freeman Heritage House” in memory of Marjorie’s mother. The grand opening took place during Champney’s West Come Home Year in a ceremony attended by hundreds of people. Marjorie’s daughter Christine and husband Tom Ingle attended the grand opening and delivered a speech on behalf of her mother and family.
The Champney’s West Heritage Group and the entire community feel very fortunate to have a remarkable person such as Marjorie among the descendants of our community. We will be forever grateful to Marjorie for her valuable work, her dedication in recording the history our people and for the tremendous generosity she was shown us.
Creating The Heritage House
During 2008 - 09, the local members of the foundation and community volunteers embarked on a fund raising drive and garnered support from government departments to restore the house in traditional flair. This was successfully concluded. Yet, even before the house restoration efforts were complete the volunteers began a quest to gather additional information and collect artifacts from the local area. Much material was kindly donated by many people, cataloged and prepared for display prior to the opening. This work continues today, with new material arriving from donations each year.
Another big part of archive work was conducting direct interviews with our oldest residents, aimed at recording history using the words of those who remembered it. These records will compliment the research and taped interviews conducted Dr. Ragosta and together with the artifact displays, will always be preserved at the Ella Freeman Heritage House for future generations to enjoy, to learn from and to continue to enlarge upon in the years to come. Read More
