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The Innocence of “Bicycling Freddie” Dittoe

“Bicycling Freddie” Dittoe

UPDATE - 11am July 15

Graveside Services for Freddie Lee Dittoe will be Thursday, July 21st at 2:30pm at Glen Haven Cemetery. A celebration of his life will be held immediately afterwards at the Moose Lodge 2464 on Gerlaugh Rd. Covered dishes are welcomed and appreciated.

Medway and the surrounding community lost a legend recently when Freddie Lee Dittoe, known locally as “Bicycling Freddie,” passed away at 69 on June 30.

Freddie, who was mentally challenged, is mostly remembered as being the happy “son” of his younger guardians, Mr. and Mrs. Ron and Julie Martin. According to those who knew him, Freddie always had a smile on his face. He also loved people, and riding his bicycle everywhere gave him plenty of opportunities to socialize. “He was always in a good mood!” say the Martins.

However, before being “adopted” by the Martins, what is known of Freddie’s early life is bleak.

Freddie was born in 1947 to George and Mary Dittoe. His twin sister passed away at birth. No one really knows what caused Freddie’s mental disability, but Mr. Martin believes it may have been caused Freddie’s father committed suicide while four-year-old Freddie sat on his lap, “I think that traumatized Freddie so much, he never recovered from the shock of it and just put up a mental block that stayed with him the rest of his life,” says Ron.

His mother eventually remarried, but her new husband, Charles Hensley, didn’t accept her son and Freddie wasn’t allowed to sleep in the house. Instead, young Fred slept in the well-house on a broken-down recliner with the only heat being provided by the pilot light on the water heater.

As a child, Freddie was made to go out and work mowing grass and doing other odd jobs. Ron says Fred had to hand all of his earnings over to his parents. Astonishingly, in spite of this, Fred developed a real love for cutting grass that stayed with him throughout his lifetime and would later introduce him to his future guardians.

Freddie came into the Martins’ lives when he was riding his bicycle and stopped to ask Julie if she would like him to mow the yard. “He was almost 40, but he was eight-years-old,” says Julie, “I asked him how much he would charge and he said ‘$75.00.’ When I said that seemed a little steep, Fred said, ‘Ok...$3.00!’ That was how we met him and we just grew attached to him,” she laughs.

By the time Freddie met the Martins, Fred was helping his widowed mother at her store, “Mary’s Bait Shop,” located on Crystal Lake. Ron says they received a call one day from Freddie, asking them to come to his house, saying, “I think my mommy’s dead.” Julie explains, “Mary had told Fred that if anything ever happened to her, that he should call ‘those people’ because we would take care of him.”

Ron says at the time it was protocol for mentally-challenged individuals who had no family to care for them to stay in jail while they were given a mental evaluation. Then, pending those results, be sent to a state-run hospital or group home.

“His mom died on a weekend, so Fred would have had to stay in jail until Monday. I told Sheriff Kelly that the guy had just lost everything in the world...and there was no way they were taking him to the jail. So Sheriff Kelly gave us temporary custody. On Monday we sat in front of Judge Trempe, who said that unless someone was willing to step up and take responsibility for Freddie, he would follow protocol. I asked the judge how I could do that, then looked back at Julie, who was crying and holding Freddie’s hand. The Judge asked if she was in agreement and Julie could only nod yes. The judge said that we had already been checked out and just had to sign the papers. So we did...and that’s how we ended up with Fred...and we’d do it all over again!”

At the time, Julie Martin was 25 and Ron Martin was 33. Freddie was nearly 40.

After they gained guardianship over him, Freddie began calling Julie “Mommy,” and Ron became “Daddy.” Fred also loved Ron’s two children, becoming very protective of Ron’s daughter.

Julie laughs, “We would be out in public and Freddie would call out ‘Mommy’ to me, and we would get the strangest looks, but I didn’t care. Mentally, Freddie was a child of eight and very innocent, and if it made him happy to call me ‘Mommy,’ I wasn’t going to worry about it.”

The Martins bought a small house for Freddie to live in near them and Julie taught him how to cook, do his laundry, and other things that gave Freddie a measure of independence. One of Julie’s favorite memories of Freddie took place while he was learning to cook.

“Freddie was making macaroni and cheese one day. I had taught him how to use measuring cups and spoons to measure the milk and butter for it. Well, I looked into the pot to see how he did, but something didn’t look quite right. I couldn’t figure out what it was though. I checked the date on the box and it was fine. Then I asked Freddie to bring me the milk so I could check that. He brought it to me...and it was chocolate milk. He had used chocolate milk in the macaroni and cheese! When I asked him why he had used chocolate milk, he said, ‘Well...milk’s milk...ain’t it?’” remembers Julie, laughing.

Ron says Freddie could fix practically any mower he laid his hands on, “Our (family friend) had a Toro mower that had broken down and no one at any shop had been able to get it running. Freddie offered to fix it, but our friend told him to let it be...it was an expensive mower and he didn’t want anything to happen to it. Well, our friend took off one day and when he came home, he found Freddie at his house with that Toro mower and a small container of pieces and parts he hadn’t put back on it. Our friend wasn’t too happy, and when he asked Fred what thought he was doing, Freddie said he had fixed the mower. I don’t think he really believed Fred, but when that string was pulled it started right up. That was 10 years ago and that mower hasn’t broken down yet!” beams Ron.

The one thing Freddie is most famous for is his bicycling. Ron says Freddie received a new bike every Christmas, “Lord knows how many hundreds of miles he put on those things. He rode everywhere...and I do mean everywhere. He got so excited when he received a bike, you’d think he won a million dollars.”

Julie says in the days since Freddie passed away, people from all over the area have called, letting the Martins know that Freddie had left a bike at their homes, “He literally had bikes stashed everywhere!”

What many people don’t know about Freddie is that he felt deeply and faith was important to him. The Martins say whenever he heard someone was sick, Fred would pray for them and when he heard anyone had died he would cry. Sundays he could be found attending different church in the community. He would also do whatever he could for anybody; unfortunately, sometimes his generosity was taken advantage of. When that happened, Freddie wouldn’t tell anyone who it was, he just said, “It’s ok.”

Bicycling Freddie’s unending smile, generous heart, and innocent spirit will be sorely missed throughout Medway, New Carlisle, and the surrounding communities.

A fund has been set up at Security National Bank that will help pay for Freddie’s cremation and burial costs. The Martins say any unused funds will be donated to the “Make a Wish” Foundation.