Super secretary earned her rings

By JOHN BASSETTI

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

YOUNGSTOWN — Win or lose, these are certainly glory days for the New England Patriots, a team on the verge of another NFL championship and possibly an unbeaten season.

New England is poised to win its fourth Super Bowl in seven seasons and finish an unprecedented 19-0.

If it happens, there’s someone else besides Tom Brady and Bill Belichick who would have four Super Bowl rings on their fingers.

That someone else is Edith Arquilla of Youngstown.

As the former executive secretary of Edward J. DeBartolo, Arquilla was the beneficiary of four of the five Super Bowls won by the DeBartolo family’s San Francisco 49ers from 1982 to 1995.

Arquilla worked for the late mall magnate for 40 years. She now lives at Sterling House on Canfield Road.

“I was a good secretary,” said Arquilla, who was born in 1923 and grew up on the South Side.

As executive secretary, Arquilla was treated to the luxuries afforded the Edward J. DeBartolo Co. brass, such as trips to the Super Bowls.

“I sat where the players’ wives sat,” Arquilla said of the special accommodations at the big games. “It was real nice.”

Arquilla remembers attending Super Bowl XVI in Pontiac, Mich.; Super Bowl XIX in Palo Alto, Calif.; Super Bowl XXIII in Miami; and Super Bowl XXIV in New Orleans.

As a perk of the job and because of her boss’s generosity, she received rings during the years she was employed.

“It was so much a part of her life,” Norma Parks, a sister, said of Arquilla’s work. “She dedicated herself to the job.”

Parks said that Arquilla, the oldest girl in their family of eight, was working on Meridian Road at the former Century Foods, with whom DeBartolo did business.

At the time, Arquilla worked for Century’s comptroller.

“Mr. DeBartolo asked her to be his secretary,” Parks recalls, saying that her sister began in 1954, when the DeBartolo company’s offices were in Youngstown’s Uptown district on Market Street. “She was very good at her job, but he was very good to her, too.”

Arquilla is still proud of her rings and wears at least two regularly.

“Those were the glory days when things were well,” Parks said. “She’d always say what a wonderful boss he was.”

The late Edward J. DeBartolo’s daughter, Denise DeBartolo York, and her brother, Eddie DeBartolo, still remember Arquilla at the Christmas holidays.

Parks also recalls that another sister and her husband and a cousin were guests at two of the Super Bowls.

“I wasn’t one of the lucky ones,” said Parks, the youngest Arquilla family member.

Parks and Arquilla still have two siblings living.

Arquilla won’t be attending the 42nd Super Bowl, but she was present at the 24th.

She’ll most certainly be thinking about her experiences at the big game as she watches the contest on TV Sunday.

bassetti@vindy.com