Great that you got it going again!
The belt path in that machine is not intuitive, and without other evidence my first thought would also have been for the belt to go around the front of the flywheel and not the back.
If the belt is twisted somewhere it doesn't really make that much of a difference in practice, although it looks nicer and brings a bit of piece of mind to have it run true.
(And no need to apologize for being a novice nor a female ...
)