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Helen DeBellis
Wife of Michael DeBellis

     Helen Patricia De Bellis, who was 80 years old at the time of her interview, was the fourth child in the Barberio family of Elmhurst, Queens. She was born at home (with her mother assisted by a midwife) on March 17,1926 (St Patrick’s Day). She spoke of having had three sisters (Haydee, Hedwig and Enid) and a “wonderful brother” (Euclid). She recalled in detail all the games she played as a child and where each game was played. She talked about the old neighborhoods changing. 
        She gave a romantic account of how she met Michael De Bellis (who later became a Brentwood legend) at a Newtown High School dance. Their formal introduction, by a beloved teacher, Miss Grundy, began their courtship and they married after WWII in 1948. She spoke of how her nickname of “ Little Nell” (given by Mike) took hold.
        Arriving at maturity before the age of women’s liberation, she was shaped by her experience of being brought up in a traditional Italian Catholic home with an autocratic father (Frank Barberio). Helen’s mother (Nancy Piro Barberio) exerted a powerful influence on the developing personality of her daughter and Helen became an independent thinker and self confident woman due to her mother's influences.  Helen went to college after her children did and it was after her immersion in the literature of women’s liberation, and her own consciousness raising, that she learned to value women's intelligence and contributions. “The culture of America in the 40’s and 50’s saw life through a kind of tunnel vision”, she said.
     She and Mike lived in Queens, New York while he attended New York University pursuing a pre-med course of study. He then transferred to New England College in New Hampshire when he changed his direction. After graduation he taught Biology at Concord High School. It was during the time that they lived in New Hampshire that Claudia and her brother, Michael, were born. Helen would later refer to Claudia as being “more than a daughter”. “She’s a very intelligent person, who is also a good friend I can talk to”. When a family health crisis intervened she and Mike moved back to New York to live near his parents.
        When they returned he worked for Metropolitan Life Insurance.He made it to “the Million Dollar Club”, which earned them two weeks vacation in New Hampshire where they caught up with college friends. While back in New York he returned to education and became a science teacher at Brentwood High School. 
        He was promoted to Assistant Principal after their twin sons, Thomas and Davide were born. After two or three more years, he became a Principal at South Jr. High School. 
     After High School Helen never attended Cornell for the English degree as she had hoped. Rather, late in life as an adult, she attended Suffolk Community College, obtaining a certificate in Dental Assisting. Then she went on to Stony Brook University for three years. When Stony Brook’s school of education closed she transferred to Adelphi University where she completed an M.S. in Management in 1983.  She then found employment  with Abraham and Straus as a department manager.
     Helen had come from a business background: she’d been a beauty counselor, a legal secretary, a pre-school teacher, a crafter and arranger of silk flowers (which she then sold to order), and a department manager. In Concord, New Hampshire she’d been a jeweler (a silver worker).  
        Helen spoke of her father, who had Angelo Roncallo as a friend. When her father was a young boy he had taught him to play chess. Monsignor Roncallo went on to became Pope John XXIII. Her father was from Calabria and had worked in a glass factory in Middletown when he first came to America. He was later a highly successful manager in Metropolitan Life Insurance.
     Her earliest memories included one where she was sitting on her pregnant mother’s lap and was told by her mother not to worry, she would “always be her mother’s baby”. Her maternal grandparents (who had been born near Naples) were well-to-do, and had many servants. French nuns had taught her mother all manner of useful skills (but not, sadly, cooking).