Harrison Arnold Fitch

Harrison A. Fitch passed away peacefully, with family by his side, on September 19, 2018, after a brief illness. Born July 4, 1943, in Elizabeth, New Jersey to Harrison E. and Violet E. (Hart) Fitch, and known in childhood as Birdie, Harrison was raised in Irondale, Ohio and Elizabeth, New Jersey.   Harrison attended middle school in Baumholder, Germany, at the U.S. Army base, and there made lifelong friendships many of which he happily rekindled through social media.  As an undergraduate at Columbia University, Harrison met Barnard student Ruth Ellen (McKinney), his future wife.  Harrison and Ruth Ellen married in 1964, and, following his 1968 graduation from Columbia Law School, they moved to Boston, where he began his forty year practice of law.  He was the first African-American lawyer hired in a Boston law firm when he joined Goodwin, Proctor & Hoar in 1969.  In the early 1980s, he went on to found Fitch, Miller & Tourse, a minority owned law firm.  He and Ruth Ellen raised two children, son Harrison, Jr., “Chip” and daughter Robin.   Happiest fishing from his Boston Whaler out on lake Cobbesseecontee in West Gardiner, Maine, reading his Louis L’Amour, Ed McBain books, or watching his beloved Celtics and Patriots (go, Steve Grogan!) Harrison will be greatly missed.  He leaves behind his wife, children, daughter-in-law Carrie, and two grandchildren, Daniel and Caitlin, as well as extended family and friends.

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