Enrica Hensley starts 44th year as merchant on Main Street

“I loved the windows,” Enrica Hensley said of the front of Moss Brothers men’s shop in the red brick building at 436 Main St. in downtown Belleville.
“I told them I wanted to buy the building and they asked if I had any money,” she recalls. She said she always takes things literally and she told them she had $75 cash in her pocket and pulled it out to show them.
They laughed and asked if she could get a mortgage and she said she could.
She bought the building on March 25, 1980 and now she is in her 44th year of operating Enrica’s Golden Needle. She paid off the mortgage in seven years.
She said she believes that makes her the oldest operating business on Main Street.
Enrica was born in Cannobio, Italy, which has the largest lake in northern Italy and is a tourist attraction. She went to a boarding school with 35 nuns, where she took tailoring classes, and then on to high school in Germany, about 1950.
After graduation, she and her girlfriend went to a U.S. Army night club, which she described as very clean, “morally.” They had dinner there and she met GI Herman “Sam” Hensley. A few weeks later they were married.
On July 4, 1964, the couple went to Fort Knox and after three years they moved to Belleville, where Sam had family, and she’s been there ever since.
She started sewing in her house for doctors and lawyers and others. Then she decided to open her own shop. She said she has had a great amount of business, everything from sewing on buttons to tailoring suits to a smaller size. But, she has had trouble getting help.
She said Sam worked at the shop for 15 years, but then she fired him and now he is a “house-husband.”
She and Sam have a daughter Angela, two grandsons and two great-grandsons.
Enrica said she was good friends with the late Midge Artley who knew the history of everything in town. Midge described the blue house next to Midge’s house on W. Columbia Avenue, telling Enrica about each room and encouraging her to buy it. It looked like a charming cottage, she said, and so Enrica bought it. Her grandson Michael now lives there with his family.
Enrica is a member of St. Anthony Catholic Church and active in church activities. She and Sam live next to the church and across the street from her grandson and the great-grandchildren, who wave to her across the street.
Enrica turned 80 years of age on June 17. She said she loves to travel. She travels to Italy every year for about a month. She said she just got back from a visit to Portugal. Not being dissuaded by COVID, she spent 10 days in Paris during the pandemic.
In 2010 her visit to Italy was canceled when she was scheduled to testify at 34th District Court after three customers assaulted her and the one who punched her in the face was charged. She testified she had a black eye, broken glasses, and bruised arms.
She said she was held down by a bride and the mother of the groom and punched in the face by a bridesmaid after a dispute over a $45 bill for work on a bridal gown. Enrica said the three were in the changing room whispering when they were told on the phone by the father of the bride to just grab the dress and run.
They tried it and Enrica would not let go of the dress. She said she did everything they asked for and even fixed a hook and ironed the crinoline. She got her $45 and a sentence for the one who punched her, but she had to pay for her glasses herself.