Adeline and Anthony Cuoco of Bellmore celebrated their 53rd anniversary...

Adeline and Anthony Cuoco of Bellmore celebrated their 53rd anniversary in November 2016. Credit: Cuoco Family

Anthony and Adeline “Addie” Cuoco of Bellmore had an office friendship that turned into love. Anthony recalls the day it happened.

My wife and I met in 1955. She was Adeline Caiazzo then. Everyone called her Addie. We both worked in the order room at Carlyle and Jacklin on Wall Street in Manhattan with about 100 other people. I took buy and sell orders from other firms while she gave information on stock prices. Addie was 24 and lived in Brooklyn. I was 23 and lived in the Bronx.

We would join co-workers for breakfast in the morning, talk every day and socialize at the company’s Christmas parties. Every so often my manager would say, “You should ask Addie out. She likes you.” I didn’t know that he was also telling Addie that I liked her and that she should go out with me. It seems he and most of our co-workers thought we’d make a nice couple.

Addie and I did like each other, but she didn’t seem interested in me as a boyfriend. She was enjoying her life as a single person and wasn’t ready to settle down.

Seven years later, I sensed a change in Addie and decided to ask her on a date. I told her I had tickets to see the movie “Mutiny on the Bounty,” starring Marlon Brando, and asked if she’d go with me. She agreed and we went on our first date. Encouraged, I soon asked her for a second date. Addie said she couldn’t go out that night because she promised to baby-sit her friend’s daughter. Our second date was three weeks later at a New Year’s Eve party. We had a great time. When I got home I told my mother that I was going to marry Addie.

We continued to see each other every week. A couple of months later, I wanted to give Addie a gift. When I asked about getting her a birthstone ring she replied, “I have a birthstone ring. I’d rather have an engagement ring.” After that conversation I asked Addie to marry me.

On Nov. 23, 1963, we were married at Our Lady of Peace Church in Brooklyn, followed by a reception at Queens Terrace in Woodside, Queens. We then flew to Miami for our honeymoon.

Addie left her job in March 1964, when she was expecting our first child, and became a full-time mom and homemaker. In September 1965 we moved from our apartment in Brooklyn to our home in Bellmore.

I continued working for the same company where we met, which was renamed Security Industry Corporation Association, until I retired in 1993. Now at age 83, I still love to bowl and belong to a league. My wife enjoys cooking our weekly Sunday dinners with our three children, daughter-in-law, two sons-in-law and five grandchildren. Addie and I also enjoyed taking weekend trips together to Atlantic City.

Last month we celebrated our 53rd anniversary at a dinner with our family.

My wife means the world to me. She takes very good care of me and our children and grandchildren. We take very good care of each other. We don’t know what we would do without each other.

— With Virginia Dunleavy

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