New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Connecticut man was a successful educator, but gave it up to care for his aging parents
Gerald Bello, originally from Plainville, had a thriving career in education but left it all behind when his parents needed care.
Bello, who died this month at 76 years old, “had a very accomplished career as a professor, helped a lot of people,” said his brother, John Bello. “But he came back to Plainville about 15 or 20 years ago to take care of my parents.”
An older brother, Richard Bello, was in California. John Bello was busy building a career with the NFL, so Gerald Bello left Philadelphia, where he had worked as a professor at Drexel University and founded Hahnemann University’s Arts and Sciences Department, to come back home.
“He moved in with them and lived with them until my father died, and then he took care of my mother until she died and then moved in to stay in their home,” John Bello said.
His cousin, Mary Susco, said Bello had no regrets about coming home. “He had a heart absolutely for his parents,” she said. “It was a blessing for them and really for Gerald because he loved them and wanted to take care of them.”
Bello had a deep connection to his neighborhood.
“We grew up in a house on East Street in Plainville, Connecticut, next door to some families that had kids in it. There was one large family that had nine kids. My family there were three and we were the East Street Gang,” John Bello said. “We used to hang out together. We played ball together. We partied together. We had wars with the Hough Street Gang, throwing apples at each other.”
John Bello said “we’re a first-generation Italian family.”
“We would have a lot of backyard events, barbecues, get-togethers,” he said. “We even made wine in the cellar.”
As a child, Bello was in the local marching band. He was studious and academically inclined and while John Bello went into military service, Gerald Bello majored in French and studied at the Sorbonne in France, and then traveled to Spain.
“We were very different. We took different paths in life,” John Bello said. “He loved Barbra Streisand, he loved Broadway music, show music and took piano lessons and actually became a really good piano player to the point where he was composing music, some of which was performed locally in New Britain.”
Bello and Susco were close as small children, and reconnected when he came back to Connecticut. She described “a lot of backyard, sitting-onthe-deck talks,” and harmonizing together in the car.
“It was interesting to listen to him. He was animated a lot, and he was into his music,” she said. “It was fascinating. He wrote songs and he composed.”
“He tried to compose songs that really related to his life. He did a song about Connecticut,” John Bello said. “He did versions of the Lord’s Prayer that were performed in New Britain with the Choral Society.”
Bello, who felt inspired by his many mentors – specifically band teacher Grace Jersey, dance teacher Dottie Hart Baker and Sister Emma, who taught piano – left a “substantial sum” to Plainville High School in the form of a memorial scholarship fund named for his parents, Edith and Generoso Bello.
“He wanted to remember all of them in a way that was meaningful,” John Bello said.
Gerald Bello is survived by his brothers, John Bello and Richard Bello, five nieces and nephews and many cousins and relatives in Plainville and Bristol. A graveside service was held Thursday, Dec. 14.