CLAREMONT — A 50-year-old Claremont man who was about to start a new “dream job” was killed over the weekend in a motorcycle crash on Second New Hampshire Turnpike in Unity, according to New Hampshire State Police.
John Wittemann, a Long Island, N.Y., native who lived with his family on Spring Farm Road in Claremont, apparently failed to negotiate a curve in the roadway. He crashed and sustained serious injuries and died at the scene around 4:50 p.m. Saturday, police said in a news release. Speed was believed to be a contributing factor, police said.
Robin Wittemann said on Monday that her husband regularly took a ride from their home south to Unity and back.
She had been canning in the kitchen that day, and he had cut the lawn “to stay out of my hair,” then decided to ride to Unity Elementary School and back.
“He was a man of habit,” she said. “It’s something he’s done 100 times, and that one time there …”
The Wittemanns had moved to Claremont in 2005 from Long Island. “We came after 9/11. We had planned to retire up here,” Robin Wittemann said “It was a good place to raise our little daughter Amanda.”
The family threw themselves into life in the Claremont area. Wittemann worked at a variety of places, including Whelen Engineering and St. Pierre Inc, she said. He was just two classes shy of a master’s degree and was about to start “his dream job” on Nov. 1 at GKN Aerospace, a North Charlestown defense contractor that helps build unmanned aerial vehicles, aka drones, his wife said.
Robin Wittemann has also been part of the Claremont-area community, turning a 4-H project collecting winter clothing for the needy into the nonprofit Baby Steps Family Assistance Program.
Amanda, their daughter, graduated in June from Stevens High School and is attending the University of New Hampshire. Her father joked in a Facebook post in August that he had a new job as “enforcer for my daughter.”
“John was family first,” Robin Wittemann said.
Police said the crash remains under investigation, and anyone with information was asked to contact Trooper Eric Fosterling at 603-223-8494 or by email at Eric.J.Fosterling@dos.nh.gov.
Services for Wittemann will be held on Saturday at Trinity Episcopal Church at 120 Broad St., in Claremont, and a Celebration of Life is planned at the Elks Lodge at 54 Summer St.
John Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com or 603-727-3217.