Inside Andrea Dello Russo’s spray-painted garage — with walls covered in chunky letters and animated designs — loads of auto repair equipment and motorcycles fill up the space, set aside for fixing.
In the doorway leading to her garage, a tight corner is filled with Wonder Woman iconography, a nod to Dello Russo’s success as a woman who brought herself up in the mechanical world.
But after years of hard work, Andrea Dello Russo of Andrea’s Auto is set to close up her Edgartown auto repair shop.
In a letter to the community, Dello Russo said “the decision did not come lightly.” She described building meaningful and lasting relationships with loyal customers over the years, and that she’s been honored and grateful to be a part of the Island community.
But, she said, she’s headed for the West Coast.
Like many others in the community, Dello Russo has lost her housing here on the Island.
“I tried to make it work for months,” Dello Russo said about keeping her house. “There was no way I could ever do it and be a sane person. I’d be working far too much, and enjoying life far too little.”
The house that Dello Russo has been living in for 15 years is being put on the market by the landlords, who are living in Connecticut. She said although they offered her the house, she can’t pay $1 million.
Raised in the basement of what’s now Atria in Edgartown, and what once was a restaurant her parents owned, Dello Russo grew up on the Island, and later attended a military college in Norwich. Following her education, she went on to join the Navy.
Although she knew nothing about engineering when it came to ships and cars, a mentor of hers in the Navy helped her in understanding the skills needed for the job. She described feeling as though she had no help, especially as a woman entering the industry, yet with this mentor’s guidance and her own persistence, a door was opened for her.
Dello Russo said she took to fixing her own car after leaving the Navy, and then went on to repair cars across the Island once she gained ownership of Andrea’s Auto. She worked in the garage for 10 years under a different company, and created Andrea’s Auto in the same garage as her own auto repair business over the next seven.
Even with the initial help of her mentor in the Navy, when it came to Andrea’s Auto, Dello Russo said, she had to fight and dig her way into the business as a woman in the mechanical industry.
In her time back on the Island after leaving the Navy, Dello Russo found housing in any way she could. At one point, she was able to get housing through Morning Glory Farm, working as the farmstand manager.
Dello Russo said she used rental assistance for a while, but once she gained more success in her auto business, she was no longer eligible. The problem with housing on the Island, she said, comes down to the middle class residents, who aren’t eligible for government assistance but also can barely afford anything else.
Now, Dello Russo said, she’s seen more people leaving the Island than ever before.
“That’s essentially what so many people have to do here: work far too much and enjoy this place far too little,” she said.
Dello Russo said her landlords were kind enough to give her until the end of September to move out, although it still feels as though that’s quickly approaching, she said. Preparing to leave her home has been an emotional journey.
She said she’s headed to Oregon by car, and once she arrives, Dello Russo will continue her work in education, teaching mechanical work. She’s worked with the Jessi Combs Foundation and the Real Deal Revolution group to help empower women and build their skills in trades such as mechanical work. These foundations run across the country, so she’ll continue that once in Oregon.
Her career, in a way, is coming full circle. She now has the opportunity to teach younger people how to work with their hands and enter an industry Dello Russo herself had to fight to get into.
“Teaching is probably the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” Dello Russo said. “It’s really great to give a girl an opportunity to make something, and be super-proud of what she’s created with her own two hands, going forth knowing she can do whatever she wants to do.”
