Parents of Bart DePetrillo ’87 Make Estate Gift to Thank Cheshire for Helping Their Son

Bart A. DePetrillo ’87 attended two other high schools before his late parents, Dr. Bart DePetrillo and Paola C. DePetrillo, who were both immigrants from Italy, enrolled him in Cheshire Academy for his junior and senior years. Because of their son’s success at CA, Dr. & Mrs. DePetrillo’s estate has left a gift to Cheshire Academy, of which a portion will establish the DePetrillo Scholarship Fund.

“Education was really important to them,” Bart says. “They always said that they never cared what I did in life as long as I was happy—but no matter what I did I was going to get through college first.”

Bart praised the teachers at Cheshire, who he described as tough but kind. He graduated from Cheshire and earned his undergraduate degree in English Literature from Boston University. He continued his education at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University where he earned a Master of Science in Computer Science.

“My dad was a doctor who delivered more than 9,000 babies at Waterbury Hospital. Education was of the utmost importance to them,” Bart says. “They said your knowledge is the one thing no one can ever take from you. They always said it did not matter what I did in life as long as I was happy, but a college degree came first.”

His mother Paola died in 2015; his Dad, also named Bart, passed in 2019. Bart is a skiing enthusiast who now lives in Park City, Utah. He is a successful entrepreneur and investor, which are skills he learned from his mother. He remains close friends with many of his classmates.

“The school accepted many students that needed a new opportunity to realize their full potential,” Bart says, “My parents remained grateful, and I will always appreciate my time spent at CA.”

Bart raves about his teachers
Bart could not stop talking about the wonderful teachers he experienced at Cheshire.

“The teachers at the other two prep schools I went to didn’t care; they weren’t there for me,” Bart says. “They’d just throw you to the wolves. In fact, they turned into wolves! But not at Cheshire. The teachers at the Academy believed it was more important than anything for us to learn and to grow. I can’t say I had that experience anywhere else: prep school, grammar school, even college.”

Here are some of the highlights of Bart’s comments about his teachers:

Doc Seeger, English Lit: “I always had an interest in English lit but he is the guy who made me want to major in it in college. He instilled that whole desire. I left his class thinking to myself, ‘I don’t know if I can do anything with this college degree—except get smarter.’ His son Matt was my classmate. Doc died at the end of my senior year, and that was really sad.”

Jose “Pep” Millares, Spanish (The school’s Spanish Prize is named after him): “He was a refugee from Cuba who built a life in America, and that was impressive. He was my home room teacher, and he acted in a way I had never experienced: You could talk to him as a friend, but he also wouldn’t let you off the hook. He would say, ‘You can play now and pay later—or pay now and play later. The choice is yours.’ He died the year after I graduated, and a bunch of us came back for the service.”

Ronald P. Dufour, history: “He piqued my interest in history. I really wasn’t into history before taking his class. He taught us AP U.S. history, and he was tough. But he also was fair.”

Kevin Slaughter, soccer coach and math teacher (He founded the Memorial Hall of Fame, and the soccer field bears his name): “He was just awesome. An amazing coach and a great guy.” (Slaughter also died young, in a scuba diving accident.)

William A. Hassell, science teacher (The Senior Lab Science Prize is named after him): “I had a love-hate relationship with him; he was a feared kind of guy: stern, but his heart was in the right place. I was afraid his chemistry class would keep me and a friend who was my lab partner from graduating. And he said, ‘Look, forget about the grade—do your best and we’ll go from there. I’m not going to screw your life up.’

“He also taught me and my lab partner a major lesson about following directions. We were doing a lab test and he was teaching that you don’t smell a test tube full on—you waft it, and he showed us how. We weren’t paying attention and took a big sniff—and fell on the floor laughing! We couldn’t stop laughing. He had put laughing gas in the test tube to teach us a lesson! The whole class was laughing at us, while he stayed stern. But we knew he was laughing inside.”

The story of Bart’s immigrant parents
Dr. Bart DePetrillo (Bart Sr.) and his wife Paola C. (Ferrero) DePetrillo both grew up in Italy but did not know each other as children, as Bart Sr. lived at the southern end of the country and Paola lived way north. They survived World War II in Italy, including bombing by the Allies which affected Bart Sr. deeply enough that he wrote extensively it about later in life.

Bart Sr. attended college and medical school in Italy. Paola, meanwhile, was the youngest in a family of 12 children. Her dad died when she was quite young, and she did not have the educational opportunities of her future husband.

While Bart Sr. was a student in Rome, he rented a room in an apartment that happened to belong to Paola’s oldest sister—who introduced her sister to the doctor-to-be. They began dating and eventually married—and in 1954 immigrated together to Massachusetts, where Bart Sr. completed his specialization in obstetrics and gynecology in Boston.

They were exploring New England, trying to decide where they wanted to live permanently, when they visited Waterbury, Connecticut.

“When they were driving into town they saw the big tower on the train station, and it was modeled after the tower of Sienna in Italy,” Bart says. “My parents felt like it was a sign to them.”

They moved to Waterbury, where Bart Sr. delivered thousands of babies over 35 years in association with St. Mary’s and Waterbury hospitals. He was also elected chairman of the obstetrics department by his peers for two terms at Waterbury Hospital.

Paola, meanwhile, worked at Waterbury Hospital in the hematology department, where her responsibilities were expanded after her rare abilities in the field were recognized. She left her job to raise their two sons, but later returned as a volunteer for several years. During her years at home she began teaching herself about how to invest.

“She focused on investing and learning about the markets, and she was pretty brilliant at it,” Bart says. “It was a good thing, too, because my dad wasn’t good at billing. He came from nothing, and he liked to give back—so he’d see patients no matter what, and if you couldn’t pay the bill he didn’t care. My Dad would say about my mom, ‘I earned the money and she made the money.’

“She gave me the investing bug when I was 15, and that is what I have done the rest of my life.”

The DePetrillos were married for 61 years. Paola was a gourmet cook who loved to use a meal as a way to bring people together. She enjoyed politics and shared a love of opera with her husband. They traveled extensively, enjoying the art and architecture of many different cultures.

Bart Sr. was a voracious reader of history with an extensive library of books. He dedicated his time to teaching Italian after his retirement, and also lectured on Italian history and art. He maintained memberships in multiple medical associations as well as the UNICO Club. The local chapter presented him the Filippo Mazzei Civis Illustris Award in 2005 for his contribution to the promotion of the Italian culture. He was also chosen by the club that same year to be the honorary Mayor of Waterbury during the Columbus Day Celebration.

“My dad was one of those doctors who was loved by his patients, and he was highly educated,” Bart says. “My mom was a very direct person, very perceptive. Everything she did was from her drive and innate ability, her desire.”

They both understood the value of education and were thankful for the turnaround that Cheshire helped Bart accomplish—and they showed it with their estate gift. Bart goes back to campus for reunions and maintains many friendships from his high school years.

“I have as many close friends from Cheshire as I do from my college years,” Bart says. “Who knows if I even would have made it in college without Cheshire. I’m grateful, and I think my parents were even more grateful.”