The Manfred family lived in Bloomington on the Minnesota River bluffs for the first fifteen years of Freya's life.
In 1959, the family moved to the prairie town of Luverne, Minnesota, where they built a home which is now the Interpretive Center for Blue Mounds State Park.
[2][circular reference] Freya attended Macalester College, where she majored in Art and English and graduated in 1966, summa cum laude.
[7] Her sixth collection, Swimming With A Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle, won the 2009 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award for Poetry.
Philip Roth says, "This rare book about the intimacy between a father and his daughter is notable for its affection, sensitivity, generosity, and gratitude.
In a larger sense it is the revealing examination of an American writer's lifelong struggle with his material and with his cultural fate."