Loretta "Lorrie"TREMONTE

Loretta Tremonte

Loretta's 2011 Autobiography

I think most of my class knew that I was engaged to a Nike soldier throughout my senior year at Staples. I was married July 1, 1961 (in fact, my wedding was the hour before JoAnn Donofrio’s). After the wedding and the honeymoon, when all my friends were going off to college and/or starting their own lives and while my husband was “away” serving his country, I took a job as a Clerk Typist at C. B. Dolge Company in Westport.

Three years later, I began working for the Board of Education in Westport and worked at Bedford Jr. High School with many of the teachers that I had known while attending school at Bedford. I continued working for the Board of Education as a school secretary for 10 years and probably would have lasted there longer except for the fact that my thirteen-year marriage was falling apart and in an attempt to work things out, I resigned from my position and moved to Montana (my ex-husband’s birthplace) and tried to make a go of it there. Unfortunately, the problems we had here only magnified in Montana and I ended up moving back to Connecticut. I was now jobless, no longer owning my own home which had been sold after the first break-up and waiting for a date for my divorce to become final. I had only one thing on my mind and that was to find another job to support myself. It was extremely important for me to be able to take care of myself and succeed at something.

I applied for a Senior Secretarial position at Burndy Corporation in Norwalk, Connecticut and worked there for the next 26 years working my way up as a ladder from a Senior Secretary in Sales and Marketing to Administrative Staff Secretary to the President of the Company. After the sale of Burndy Corporation to the French nuclear company, Framatome S.A., I still continued on in the same capacity as President’s secretary until it became clear that Framatome would no longer have a President’s office in the States and I had the option of moving into Corporate Finance which would remain State-side or leave. I chose to continue with Framatome International as a Finance Administrator. I can tell you that when a corporate office cuts its staff from 229 to 29, you become responsible for many different areas/jobs that become part of your new “umbrella”. I stayed with Framatome’s Corporate Group until they moved in Pennsylvania in 1999. I had a choice of making the permanent move to the Harrisburg area or signing a contact what would guarantee that I would train my replacements and move to temporary housing in Harrisburg, PA. until year end in exchange for a package. I signed the contract and worked to the end of December 1999. In January 2000 I started my new job at the Westport Weston Health District as Office Manager, Executive Assistant to the Director of Health.

Everyone has their form of therapy; ballroom dancing became mine. When I came back from Montana I really did not want to go anywhere. My day consisted of getting up in the morning, dressing, going to work and coming home to sleep. A good friend of mine insisted that I take a $5.00 introductory dance lesson so that her brother and his wife could earn points to get extra dance lessons. I wasn’t interested but finally gave in. Of course, they would try to sell me lessons and I would respond with, “I’m in Sales and Marketing all day, please don’t try to sell me. I’m here to do someone a favor.” I was told that I had a “feel for the music”, and that I learned quickly. When I was talking to my parents later that night my father, who was a very quiet man said, “What’s the matter? You think you can’t do it?” That’s all it took: I bet my father $100 that I would do it and win the contest. The next day I went back and signed up for 300 lessons, entered the competition and took two first places. I continued dancing , worked days at Burndy, worked evenings at the studio and continued to compete. I eventually switched studios to train in New Jersey to train in International Style Ballroom. At the same time, I was taking classes at Sacred Heart University and eventually earned my degree in Business Management. When I wasn’t traveling to competitions to compete, I would travel for vacations in various U.S. States as well as Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

I have not remarried. I do not have children. I reside with my mother at 8 Loretta Court. My father past away in 1995.