The-Helm_1971-07-15; Lynbrook Helm Independent Review

              E LM
LYNBROOK AAALVERNE EAST ROCKAWAY
VOL. 11 NO. 8 Entered • • Sseond-Class Matter
Poet Office, Ljmbrook, N.Y. LY 3-1300 THE FAMILY NEWSPAPER Thursday, July 15,1971 10<
Foursome gathered together at recent cocktail party-meeting at Brookville
estate of Mrs. Robert Lee Henrv include (above, 1-r) executive committee
member Robert G. Becker of Lynbrook; MrSo Bernard L. Wellens of Franklin
Square, president of Council of Cerebral Palsy Auxiliaries; Hon. Henry M.
Curran^ general committee member, and gift committee co-chairman of the
Oct. 16 event, Mrs. Kenneth Merkel of Plandome.
Life Scout Bruce R.Mawhirter, being congratulated
on attaining the rank of Life in the Boy Scouts of
America. He is a member of Troop ^336, spon-sored
by St. James United Methodist Church,
Lynbrook/ USA.
1, to r: Congressman Norman F. Lent, Jr.and Life
Scout Bruce R. Mowhirter
Personalities
by Annette Lin;;':
Parise To
Coordinate Town
G.O.P. Campaign
The appointment of Andrew J.
Parise of Cedarhurst as coor-dinator
of the Hempstead Town
Republican campaign was an-nounced
today by Nassau
Republican Chairman Joseph M.
Margiotta.
"By virtue of his reputation for
hard work and his intimate
knowledge of town government,
Andy Parise is the perfect choice
for this demanding position,"
Margiotta said.
Margiotta, who also is Hemp-stead
Town Republican Chair-man,
will oversee the entire
campaign with Parise respon-sible
for the day-to-day details of
the re-election campaign.
Recommended by the Town
Republican Committee have
been the following candidates:
Francis T. Purcell of Malverne
for Presiding Supervisor;
Alfonse M. D'Amato of Island
Park for Supervisor; Joseph
Muscarella of Elmont, Anthony
C. Imbarrato of Levittown and
Gregory P. Peterson of East
Meadow for Councilmen; Nathan
L. H. Bennett of Hempstead for
Town Clerk and Robert D.
Livingston of Hempstead for
Receiver of Taxes.
All but Peterson are in-cumbents.
Parise has spent 17 years in
town government and presently
(Continued on page 7)
The new Grand Knight of St,
Mary's Knights of Columbus Is a
very skilled and highly unusual
gentleman who should use "Sep-tember
Song" as his own very
special theme in life as the month
of September has proved so lucky
for him. He is far from just a
so-called "regular" guy although
his true humility and gentle qual-
Itities and love of people would
make anyone like him in the first
few minutes of conversation.
Grand Knight Michael J. Di-
Gioia was born in the Canarsie
section of Brooklyn in the month
of May instead of his lucky Sep-tember.
His father, Comincia,
deceased was from Naples
originally and his mother A ssunta
who at age 83 is still ebullient
and keen of mind, lives with
one of his sisters, Celia, (Mrs.
John Nigro) In Mineola.
Mike comes from a large and
happy family of brothers and
sisters and has a wonderful per-sonality
himself. His sister,
Marion, (Mrs. Anthony Frederico
resides in Queens, his sister,
Louise, (Mrs. John Zurlo) lives
In Champlain, N.Y. with her fam-ily
and another sister, Theresa,
(Mrs. William Fouchartdt) lives
in Queens, He has two brothers,
Louis, a Queens' resident and
Emlle, who resides in Rochelle,
New Jersey.
Mike graduated from Public
School #114 and Junior High
School #66, and finally, Samuel
J. Tilden High School in June of
1935.
When he left high school, he
went to work for Plel Bros.
Brewery as an office boy and left
there in 1943 as head of the Ac-counts*
Rec. Dept.
In Sept., 1943, he entered the
New York City Police Dept. and
was assigned to the 77th Precinct
after passing the Police Academy
Exams which 35,0Q0 took and only
3,000 passed. Because of his ac-counting
training, he was as-signed
to the Office of the Chief
Clerk taking care of payrolls,
personnel files records of re-tirements
and deaths and other
vital statistics until his pro-motion
in Sept, of 1951 to the rank
of detective.
He was married Sept. 1, 1940
to the vivacious and pretty form-er
Margaret Vitsilakis, who is
just as gracious and vital a per-sonality
as her unusual Greek
name. The couple had a some-what
unusual courtship. Mike dis-covered
that she was an excel-lent
swimmer and determined to
learn swimming before they
went on their first date. He took
a crash course at the Y.M.C.A
and he and his lovely mermaid
had their first swimming date.
His wife has some type of cir-culatory
trouble and walking and
swimming are very good for her
so she goes practically all year
round indoors and outdoors. The
couple have two c h i l d r e n.
Michael, Jr. age 28, works for
United Parcel and he and his
own beloved wife, Annie have a
two and one-half year old son,
Anthony. Their daughter, Susan
and her husband Richard Malerba
reside in Lynbrook, U.S.A and
have a small two year old son
Richard, Jr. making the DlGloia's
Michael J. Di Gioia
two times Grandparents already,
Mike and Margaret moved to
Lynbrook way back in Sept. of
1956 and still live at 23 John St.
in the former home of a one-time
Village Attorney, Raphael
Alphera. Both of their children
graduated from Lynbrook High
School.
The Grand Knight is a very
fit and muscular 5 ft. 9 in.
weighing 180 lbs of quite an
athletic build. He has blue eyes
and premature white hair. He
says that it suddenly turned white
when he was seventeen years old
and that he had blonde curls when
he was a small tyke. He went in
for sports such as track in high
school and has been a very dedi-cated
hard worker all of his
life. He has a genial, friendly
manner and sincerely tries to
help people and has been doing
that in many ways all of his life.
In other words, he lives by the
creed that it is better to give of
oneself than to take from others.
From his earliest years on the
police force, he often was called
upon to solve the most human
oi problems which might have
stumped social agencies or
trained psychologists but having
a soft heart as well as uncom-mon
shrewdness, he did his
best for any call on him person-ally.
His eyes miss very lit-tle
and he reminds me a great
deal of our own Lynbrook Police
Chief Waring who has the same
fine qualities and good judgement
that comes with many years of
dealing with various problems
of human nature, along with law
enforcement.
When he was promoted to De-tective,
he was assigned to the
69th Squad in Brooklyn. In Sept.,
once more of 1958, he was as-signed
to \ the auto theft squad
working oiit of headquarters city-wide.
In Sept. of 1968 after 25
years of hard and honorable serv-ice,
he retired and went to
work for a firm called Auto-mobile
Theft Bureau as a Spec-ial
Agent. This company rep-resents
over 450 insurance com-panies
as its highly skilled agents
culled from the best men in that
field trace the ownership of cars
and identify stolen autos from
which all Identification marks
have been removed. The Special
Agents perform this valuable
(Continued on page 7)