Wayne "Zorro" Fox Bidwell

Wayne Fox “Zorro” Bidwell was born in 1936 to Howard E. Bidwell and Corrine V. Bidwell (née Clapp) in East Hartford on Naubuc Avenue, where he and his brother, Howard D. Bidwell, were surrounded by farms and tobacco fields. The Bidwells were avid sailors, and the family sailed on their boats, including Wayne’s prized “Wild Goose”, on the Connecticut river and Long Island Sound, and enjoyed ice boating the winter time on Hamburg Cove.

He graduated from East Hartford High School in 1954, and shortly after joined the Air Force Guard, doing his basic training in Amarillo, Texas, where he worked on jet planes and discovered country and western music. In 1957, he went to William Jewell College in Missouri, joining the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity where he made many deep and lasting friendships, including Mike Maloney, who he admired greatly. He later transferred to RISD College in Rhode Island to study interior architecture, and there met his dearest friend, Phil Stevens, with whom he shared a lifetime of laughter and inside jokes. While he was at RISD he married his first wife June, and bought a Lambretta scooter, beginning his lifelong passion for exploring the world on two wheels. Wayne started his own business as an interior decorator and installer in 1968, and was fortunate to work with the finest home designers, seamstresses, upholsterers, painters, and framers in Connecticut, collaborating to produce beautiful window treatments and fixtures that he was proud to install in many Connecticut houses. A man of great integrity, he took great care to ensure that the people he worked for were happy and delighted in their homes. Always an adventurous soul, in 1971, Wayne purchased a 1965 BMW R69S, affectionately known in the family as “The Black Camel” for its perseverance over 200,000 miles, and from then on his enduring allegiance to vintage BMW motorcycles was set. With his vast network of motorcycle friends, he rode all over North America, Canada, even visiting France and Germany for a BMW motorcycle trip. He met his second wife, Martha Perez-Bidwell who hailed from Colombia, in 1974, and she opened up his world, sharing with him her home country and showing him what good food and love could be. He brought Martha into his motorcycle world and she bestowed him with the nickname “Zorro”, meaning fox in Spanish, for his middle name. They welcomed their daughter Amelia Grace Bidwell in 1979, who was the light of his life, and who in time became his constant motorcycle companion. Wayne continued riding on one vintage BMW bike or another, attending rallies, markets, campouts, and visiting friends across the country throughout his life, winning prizes for riding the oldest bike, always looking forward to the campfires and community. He was always thinking of his next ride and the winding roads he knew he would take, or ones yet to find. Wayne made so many cherished friends through the motorcycle community, and enjoyed attending a wide variety of music concerts and intimate backyard jams, volunteering at the Podunk Bluegrass festival, visiting historic and archaeological sites with his wife and daughter, always driven by his thoughtful and playful mind, telling stories with a sparkle in his eye and a grin on his face. Wayne's love ran very deep, and his thoughts were committed to family and memory. He was fond of history and cultivated his own unique brand of offbeat philosophy. He was proud of his family's long Connecticut history that stretched back to the founding of Hartford. It was his tradition to visit family graves and plant flowers every Memorial Day, and he never missed a single year. He cared deeply for his nieces and nephew, following their lives, and kept in touch with his cherished cousins, always honoring birthdays and family events. Wayne was never one to follow the rules. He marched to his own vibrant, stubborn beat and had his own ideas about how to go about the world, making him endlessly exasperating and endearing. He could be counted on for a smile and support, and his eyes lit up when he saw someone he loved, and he loved everybody. Wayne was a gentle soul and a kind man with a fun and boundless energy to live life to its fullest, and a curiosity that inspired the many adventures he lived. His warmth made him welcome wherever he went, and he carried with him a lifetime and a half of stories to tell. He departed the world doing the work he loved, with his closest family by his side. Wayne was far greater than his presence, the best dad, and a true and loyal friend. He remained eternally young and made the world around him brighter, and he will be profoundly missed by all whose lives he touched.

Wayne is predeceased by his second wife Martha Perez Bidwell, and his brother Howard D. Bidwell. He is survived by his adored daughter Amelia Grace Bidwell and her husband Patrick James Murphy of Farmington, CT; his first wife June Swift; his cousins Grace MacFarland, Alison Latham, and Walker Bidwell, and their children; his nieces and nephew Becky and Kurt Bender, Bud and Ellen Bidwell, Susan and David Williams, and Tracy Bidwell, Julie and Melissa Bidwell, and their many beautiful children and grandchildren; Kathy and Denny Maynard and their beloved family adopted through Martha as his own; his dear friends Ray Becker, Scotty Opperman, and countless other treasured members of the northeast BMW motorcycle community; his close friends Ken and Helen Karpowicz; and the many decorators, craftspeople, clients, and people along the way who inevitably became friends.

A memorial service will be held at Newkirk & Whitney Funeral home in East Hartford on Sunday March 22, 2026, from 1-4pm. Memorial donations in Wayne's name can be made to the Windmill Hill

Pinnacle Association in Westminster, Vermont (https://windmillhillpinnacle.org/) and celebratory margaritas are encouraged at any time in his honor.