My parents, Rose Amodio and Joe Lumia met the first time at a dance in the mid 1920s and agreed to meet the next day. Both said they did not show up. They met again probably in 1927 and started dating. Mom always told her sisters that she would never date a bald, bowl-legged man with a moustache. Her younger sister, Mildred was about 11 when she opened the door to see a bald, bowl-legged man with a moustache there to pick up Mom. She always told that story with great glee although she thought the world of my Dad. They were married in Saint Joachim's Church in the Chambersburg section of Trenton on December 1, my grandfather's 58th birthday. A cousin who was the ring bearer said he thought Uncle Joe was rich based on all the cars in the wedding. The reception was at the Circolo Italiano on Hamilton Avenue. Ironically, it went bust during the depression. One of Mom's cousins bought it and turned it into a very successful funeral home. Both my parents were buried from that home.
My in-laws, John King and Rose Milea married on August 15, 1940 in Jermyn, Pennsylvania. I'm having difficulty loading the photo. John's first wife died of cancer in 1936 and he moved back with his brother and sister-in-law. "Johnny came home to die!", in Irish parlance. However, one of the boarders in the house was Rose. Rose,ever the frustrated social worker, spent many evenings speaking with John and apprently convincing him that his life was far from over. He fell in love with Rose and proposed. She was indignant that a man so old (John was 50 in 1937) would want to marry her. She tells us that she turned him down 3 times before finally accepting. John was Irish. Rose was Italian. Rose's father was 8 years older than John. Papa was not pleased. However, Rose was not to be detered and married John with her brother, Anthony as best man and a friend, Anna D'Agostino, as maid of honor. Anna and Anthony married in 1946.
We were married May 2, 1970 at Saint Paul's Church in Highland Park, NJ. Our wedding party, pictured here, was filled with friends and relatives. We had met at GW University Hospital in DC where she was a staff nurse and I did my housestaff training. Ours was a small wedding--a sitdown dinner for 300 (250 relatives and 50 friends).
My son, Joe, married Francine at Shadowbrook June 28, 2009. It was a joyous day. She is a lovely young lady who makes Joe happy. The wedding party was primarily family and old friends. There were 150 of our closes friends and family and if the day never ended I would have been delighted.
I should add that John lived to be 88 years old. He had 3 children who at his death were each married with children of their own. He had a rich full life and was a very good man.
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