The first thing to know about this family is that the men are generally the key players.  The women don’t seem to stick around, perhaps because the same intensity that drives these men to great success also keeps people at bay.  Or maybe it’s that a certain kind of women doesn’t – or can’t – stick around, and so she leaves: to another man, to an institution, to death.  It’s not anyone’s fault that this happens.  It just is what it is. 

Of these women who leave, what remains gets buried, either literally or internally.  Afterwards, if it rare that the men speak their names.

The Freeman men have always been drawn to a certain kind of woman: smart and beautiful, but with a darkness inside. They either marry up or down, but rare within the same social class as they were raised. These pairings have led to generations of ambitious and brilliant offspring, dark-humored, determined, but unsure of where this determination is best directed. They generally fail at the initial attempt at cohabitation, often at subsequent attempts as well.  The children brought forth from these failed relationships become lasting reminders of what is, to these men, an example of uncharacteristic failure at a given task; for this reason, they are best moved on from.

This is the relationship between RGF III and his son, RGF IV.