Love Story: Kissing conversation brought them together

Louise Mangieri talks about how she met her husband, Mario.

I met my husband, Mario, in 1951 at a Newman Club meeting. I was 17, a freshman at Barnard College; Mario was 19, a junior at Columbia University. I heard him speaking in a group and walked up to join the conversation about being kissed. I said I’d never been kissed; he replied that he didn’t believe it. Little did he know, I was only joking.

When the club hosted a dance for Columbia's graduating seniors, Mario and I volunteered for the social committee — which turned out to be just us. While working together our relationship remained platonic. The night of the dance, a waltz made us realize we were attracted to each other. We were very compatible: We worked well together, danced well together and were the right height — I could wear my heels.

That night, he invited me to a club picnic at Sunken Meadow State Park, and I said I’d be there. He said, no, he wanted me to be his date. So I accepted his invitation. After that first date, we became a couple.

I lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, near where the Verrazzano Bridge would be built, so we would take 5-cent ferry rides to Staten Island and back. Sometimes, we’d stop for pizza in Brooklyn, and I insisted on eating the same number of slices as Mario. I always insisted on doing everything equally; woman had to be equal to men since I lived by the Barnard philosophy of woman’s equality.

After Mario graduated from Columbia in 1952, he left for medical school in Bologna, Italy. Our relationship continued through the mail, regular letters and pictures. Mario would came home for summer break to work construction and then returned to school in the fall.

During the summer of 1953, Mario proposed on bended knee in Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library on 42nd Street. A long engagement followed because of medical school. We married on Aug. 25, 1956, at St. Joseph’s Church in Kings Park followed by a sit-down lunch reception at Linck’s Log Cabin in Centerport with 100 guests.

We spent a few nights in New York City and then left by ship, a 10-day Atlantic crossing, to Bologna so Mario could get back to his studies. Mario’s mother, recently widowed, accompanied us because she was returning for a visit with her family in Italy.

Our first child was born in Italy. Mario graduated in 1958, and we returned to the states for his internship and residency at Long Island College of Medicine in Brooklyn. After that, he started his practice at North Fork Radiology as a radiologist.

We made our home in Riverhead and began to raise our family, another son in 1962 and then a daughter in 1963.

I was a kindergarten teacher in Northport. Mario also started Central Suffolk X-Ray Technician School in Riverhead and was director of radiology at Central Suffolk Hospital in Riverhead for more than 35 years.

Mario, who loves helping people, was dedicated to his profession, and I was right by his side all the way, helping him be the best person he could be.

Both retired, we now live at The Bristal in Lake Gove. On Aug. 25, we celebrated our 65th wedding anniversary with our two sons and daughter-in-law, the staff and other residents. We renewed our vows, officiated by the Rev. Nick Montanino, then had a party with a singer and a cake, which was copied from our original wedding cake design.

Since I lived in Brooklyn and Mario lived in the South Bronx, I think it was fate that brought us together in Manhattan.

— With Lynn Petry