The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
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Local woman dies in crash
Ella Fridman was an assistant professor at University of Toledo
By Brian Cox, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: June 26, 2008
A Saline woman was killed the afternoon of June 19 when she was involved in a head-on collision with a Ford F-350 pickup on State Road near Michigan Avenue in Pittsfield Township.
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Ella Fridman, 57, was driving home from University of Michigan Hospital, where she had spent the night tending to her ailing father, said her husband of 36 years, Isaac Fridman.
Police said Ella Fridman was southbound on State Road at about 1:30 p.m. when her Pontiac Aztek crossed the yellow center line and struck head-on a red pickup truck traveling northbound.
The driver of the truck was not injured but a passenger was taken by ambulance to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Fridman died at the scene.
An assistant professor and graduate program director of mechanical engineering technology at the University of Toledo, Fridman received her doctorate in mechanical engineering from Kiev University in 1989.
Fridman, her husband and their son, Alex, emigrated from Russia to the United States in 1990, arriving in Connecticut and speaking little English.
As a computer programmer, Isaac Fridman was able to get work fairly quickly in New York, he said, but his wife had a more difficult time finding a position in her field.
At one point, she worked as a bank teller while continuing to search for a job in academia.
She got creative. When she came upon a list identifying various recent award winners in mechanical engineering, she decided to send each of them a congratulatory letter, not failing to mention that she was looking to get back in the field. She received two replies. One wished her luck in her pursuit; the other came from the University of Toledo, where they had an opening.
Fridman jumped at the opportunity. While her husband stayed in New York, she relocated to the Toledo area and began her professorship. Isaac Fridman joined her 18 months later after he found a job in Troy.
In 1995, the couple moved to Saline.
"She was one of a kind," said her husband. "She always thought not about herself but other people."
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