Elmont activist will be missed

Helen Odon, a past president of the Locustwood Civic Association and member of the Elmont Civilian Patrol, died on May 2.

“She felt that it was up to the residents to take things into their own hands,” said Mike LeVasseur, Odon’s only son. “It was very typical for her to organize people and do what they could to better the community.”

While Odon was active in the Locustwood Civic Association, LeVasseur said, she encouraged members of the community to sign a petition and stop a hotel from being built on the site of the Luna Restaurant, at 161 Hempstead Turnpike in Elmont.

“The site had been vacant for several years, and a developer wanted to buy the site along with several nearby houses for the purpose of constructing a hotel to accommodate visitors to the racetrack,” he explained. “Members of the community felt that a hotel would bring a seedy element to Elmont, and my mother got the community to join together and give a resounding ‘no’ to the developers.”

Odon worked at Western Electric for several years, and was a member of the Telecom Pioneers. In the 1960s, she became one of the first female department chiefs at Western Electric. 

Odon was born in Manhattan in 1927, and moved to Pine Street in Elmont in 1971, after she and her childhood sweetheart, John Odon, married. When John passed away in 2008, Odon moved to Georgia with LeVasseur to be closer to her family.

Odon is survived by her son, Mike LeVasseur; granddaughter, Nina LeVasseur; daughter-in-law, Alexx LaVasseur; grandson-in-law, Josey Edwards; great-grandson-in-law, Everett Edwards; and step-daughters, Yvonne Piburn, Terese Odon, Pat Torre and Donna Durkin; as well as their children, Nefateri Segal, Frank Torre and Daniele Durkin.

A funeral mass was held on Saturday, May 7, at the St. Vincent de Paul Church in Elmont, and interment was held at the Woodlawn Cemetery. Arrangements were made by the Krauss Funeral Home, Inc.