When James ‘Russ’ Fitch’s beloved wife Fredda Cole passed away suddenly in January, he felt lost and was floundering. Fitch and Cole had been married for three years, together for seven, and shared a passion for Ural motorcycles and paying it forward.
Fitch, a resident of Sterling for more than 50 years, decided to turn his grief into action, in honor of his late wife’s generous spirit. On August 26, he led over 500 motorcycles in the annual Ride for Kids to benefit Pediatric Brain Tumor Research at Bose in Framingham. His passenger in his motorcycle, which has three wheels and a side car, was 18-year-old Ryan Blakely, the “poster child” for the cause who had ridden with Cole for three years in the same annual fundraiser.
“Fredda was a big supporter of Ride for Kids,” says Fitch. “I was so proud to be a part of what she loved, and I want to carry on her ideals.”
A large number of vendors donated prizes and offered support to the ride, as well as the Framingham Fire Department and Massachusetts State Police escorts. Fitch personally donated a large sum of money to the cause, which raised over $65,000 this year alone.
“Fredda started riding in it in Washington State, and raised thousands of dollars there,” Fitch says. “She joined the New England Ride for Kids chapter before I met her, and then I joined in with her. She had her bike, I had my bike.”
Fitch and Cole met because of Ural motorcycles – she saw a photo of him on Facebook on a Ural motorcycle and reached out to him.
“She looked right past me in the photo and saw the Ural motorcycle,” Fitch recalls. “She contacted me and was disappointed it wasn’t my bike, but she agreed to meet me, and the rest is history.”
Cole was an adventure seeker with a brilliant mind. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate in mathematics, standing a petite 4 feet and 4 inches, she held the land speed record on a Ural at 110 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Fitch says she bailed out the Ural Motorcycle Company in Russia when it was struggling financially, paying the employees’ salaries, and that she wrote the computer program that allows people to transfer funds.
“She never had kids of her own, but she loved my grandkids and her nieces and nephews,” Fitch says. “She paid for her godchild’s college, she was very generous.”
Fitch also has a giving spirit and supports the arts and other causes. Together they owned three Ural motorcycles; Fitch still has them, and says he plans on selling one and keeping Cole’s and his own. They lived in Stow, and also have a home in New Hampshire. They were at their home in New Hampshire last winter when Cole fell ill with the flu.
“One minute she was talking to me, and the next she stopped breathing,” he says. “I did CPR on her for 45 minutes before the paramedics got there, but by the time she got to the hospital it was too late.”
Fitch and Cole went on many expeditions together. They rode their Ural motorcycles to the Arctic Circle in Russia several years ago to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis, which Fitch’s grandson has, and went on a cross country trip last year that totaled 4,700 miles. They were planning a trip to Alaska right before she died, and next year was supposed to be New Zealand together.
“I miss my best friend,” Fitch says.