Ella Banyay DeMers

Ella Banyay DeMers was born in 1917 to Hungarian born parents, in a Bridgeport, Connecticut, that was vastly different from the city it is today. Bridgeport was known as the Park City which vied for prominence with New Haven and the capital, Hartford.

Her childhood was spent in a Hungarian-American community in Black Rock, a neighborhood on Long Island Sound. Ella spoke only Hungarian until she went to kindergarten at Whittier School. Ella's mother, Susanna Busci, born in Fulo Kercs, Hungary, came to America via Ellis Island when she was 16.

Stephen Banyay, a childhood sweetheart, came before her when her was 14. They worked hard (Stephen at Bryant Electric Company and Susanna at the Warner's Corset Factory) to build a lovely little house on Whittier Street where they war to live until 1951.

Ella knew she wanted to be a teacher when she was just four years old. After elementary and secondary schooling in Bridgeport, she went on to Connecticut Teachers College in New Britain, Connecticut.

When Ella graduated from college it was the Great Depression and there were no jobs, but one did turn up, a 7th grade class, then known as the "Opportunity Room" (stated more plainly, the "discipline class," the students other teachers couldn't handle), made up of 12 boys and 1 girl in Middlefield, Connecticut. Here her teaching career began, a career that was to last 36 years, with 32 of those spent in Westport, Connecticut, at Bedford Junior High, then as Chairman of the English Department at Long Lots Junior High School. Ella loved to teach. She was a born teacher.

Retirement in 1973 found her spending more time with her beloved husband, Edward, who passed away in 1999, and with her children and grandchildren. Retirement provided her with the time to do the writing she had always helped and encouraged her student to do. A Prince from Transylvania was written in the '70s, in long hand, as a tribute to her Hungarian heritage.