Love Story: First he didn't remember her, then he wanted to go steady

Renée Burke of Huntington recalls meeting her husband, Leonard, when they were teens.

In the spring of 1946, I met my future husband, Lenny Burke, for the first time at a friend’s house party. Back then I was Renée Shapiro, a very shy 15-year-old from Flatbush, Brooklyn.

My friend introduced us and proudly told Lenny that I was a model with Conover Modeling Agency, one of the larger agencies in Manhattan, and that I had appeared in an ad in the New York Daily News.

Lenny and I sat down and talked. We both attended Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn. He was 17 and in his junior year. I was a freshman. At the end of the party, we went our separate ways.

Two years later, in the summer of 1948, my girlfriends and I decided to have a party and invite our classmates. Lenny’s name came up. I hadn’t spoken to him since the last party but decided to invite him. I knew he lived in Brownsville and found his number in the phone book.

When he answered the phone, he admitted he didn’t remember who I was. Out of curiosity, he accepted!

As it turned out, the party was canceled. When I called Lenny to tell him, he asked if we could have a double date — I said yes. Then he asked me to bring one of my girlfriends as a date for his friend.

On July 16, the four of us went to Far Rockaway Beach to visit some of Lenny’s friends. Afterward, we went to Weiss, a restaurant on Cross Bay Boulevard in Broad Channel.

Lenny took me home, and we had our first kiss. I thought, “Whoa!” He said he didn’t want me to go out with anyone else. From that point on, we were a couple.

Lenny worked at a retail store, and I was now a showroom sample model in the Garment District in Manhattan.

In May 1951, during the Korean War, Lenny was drafted into the Army. We got engaged in June, and on Sept. 9, 1951, we were married in a ceremony at my family’s home in Brooklyn. Lenny was home on a weekend pass and had to go back to his base on our wedding night! He returned a few days later, this time on a 10-day pass. We spent a four-day honeymoon at Grossinger’s Resort in upstate Liberty.

In October, Lenny received orders to go to Korea. He was sent to Seattle to await deployment. The night before boarding the ship, he was hospitalized with bronchitis and temporarily assigned to the shipping office.

He had access to the ships’ schedules and who was being deployed. Since he didn’t see his name on the next three weeks of departures, he asked me to fly out to Seattle.

Although my flight had an 18-hour layover in Billings, Montana, due to a snowstorm, we spent a wonderful 3½ days together before Lenny was told he would ship out immediately. The Army made transportation arrangements for me to return to New York. We didn’t see each other again for 16 months.

Lenny served with C Company, 62nd Engineers, and became acting first sergeant. He was honorably discharged on Feb. 22, 1953, and we began our married life in an apartment in Brooklyn.

He worked three jobs at a time before establishing himself in the insurance business. I continued working as a model until 1954, when I became a full-time homemaker.

In December 1958, we bought our first home in Seaford. We made many friends during the 27 years we lived there, some of whom we still see today. We moved to Huntington in 1985. We are blessed with three children and eight grandchildren.

Lenny retired from the Phoenix Life Insurance Co. as sales agent in 1994 after 40 years in the business and gained Hall-of-Fame status with the company. We have traveled extensively throughout the United States, Europe and the Caribbean.

For our 67th anniversary in September, we had a family celebration at home with our children and grandchildren. Our life has been fruitful.

— With Virginia Dunleavy