6/4/25
Like most husbands, My wife, lover, Mother, Grandmother, best friend, and confidant. Why might you ask? When I first met my wife in the summer of ’72, she was seeing a mutual friend. We were both 16 and sophomores in high school, preparing to enter our junior year of High School. She was, and still is, very attractive and intelligent, with a great laugh, and so many other attributes and talents. When we first dated, she was extremely shy, probably due to her mother’s passing after battling cancer for almost 18 months, in 1970, the day after New Year’s. Her father was a first-generation American and a WWII tank sergeant under General Patton’s command throughout Africa and Europe. He was of Slovak, Ukrainian, and Russian descent. She is the youngest of three siblings and I can’t imagine the impact of losing your mother anytime, but especially at a crucial age of a young teenage girl about to graduate from grade school.
We had a brief period of separation, mostly due to our age, her shyness, and my foolishness. But don’t tell her about that—her memory, like most women’s, doesn’t allow them to forget things like that, and it might be brought up 49-plus years later if her memory of events and dates were to be compared to mine, most men would lose hands down. This is something every man can agree with, and every woman is probably thinking, “You go, girl!” Better put..”Happy Wife, Happy Life”! Most of my male friends joke, “If our wives smothered us in our sleep…It’s probably well deserved”!
I’ve known her now for 53 years, and we got married at the young age of 19. Back then, I had a union job that provided great benefits and a decent salary, along with some help along the way. When we were 21, we had the opportunity to purchase our first starter home. I remember Nancy was incredibly nervous, but she did whatever it took to bring in extra money. She sewed and sold aprons and Cabbage Patch clothes at Flea Markets. She also did side work for two neighbors, one who had his own Dry-cleaning business and the other who did detail work for an interior decorator.
She took some courses at Villanova University that would help in career moves, after entering the workforce and the world of Human Resources. It wasn’t long before her brains and applied talents showed. The first company presented opportunities to advance her career after working in Information and Documentation. Then she was promoted to Benefits Manager, which led to transitioning into becoming the Payroll Manager. This move eventually led to her being hired by another company, where she retired a few years ago as a Senior Business Analyst.
This coming January, we will be celebrating 50 years as one. We took the marriage vows seriously, and with great faith we took on life as stated in the contract before GOD…” through better or worse, sickness and in health, richer or poorer etc… through the good, bad, ugly, great joy, sorrow, ups, downs, happiness, sadness, birth, death, celebrations, and quiet moments. Through the birth of our four children, moves, vacations, travels, medical hiccups, we still face life, taking each day in measure, as we’ve been pretty blessed.
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