Love story: Diana and Joseph Manaici, Ronkonkoma

Diana Manaici of Ronkonkoma recalls how her father played a role in her meeting future husband Joseph.

My father, Ed Scheel, was a skilled journeyman electrician raising his family in Sarasota, Fla., when he answered the call for workers needed on the 1964-65 World's Fair construction in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Not wanting to disrupt his children's schooling, he came to New York alone in the winter of 1962 to begin work.

When he developed pneumonia the next year, my mother, my sister Nanci and I moved to Elmhurst, Queens, to take care of him.

That summer, I would often stop in at Wolke's ice cream shop on Roosevelt Avenue, in neighboring Jackson Heights, with my friend. She had a crush on the boy serving the ice cream sodas. His name was Joe. I didn't tell her then, but I fell in love with him at first sight.

That fall I began my junior year at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, and I ran into Joe in the hallway. He had just transferred to the school.

I later pointed him out to another friend at school and said, "There's the guy I've been telling you about." She then told me Joe lived next door to her and they were friends.

One day the three of us walked home together, and after they left me at my house, Joe asked our friend, "Do you think Diana will go out with me?" She said I would, and she gave him my number. Instead of going home, she ran to my house to tell me Joe would be calling.

We continued dating until the summer of 1965. I had graduated high school and moved back to Florida. Joe's family moved to Ronkonkoma. He asked if I'd wait for him until he graduated college and then we would get married. We wrote daily and had high phone bills.

I moved back to New York in 1966 for a year when my father got a job working on the World Trade Center construction. That year, Joe and I attended his Connetquot High School senior prom.

He "officially" proposed to me in 1969, and, according to plan, we married on Aug. 15, 1970, after his graduation from Dowling College. We have been blessed with two children and now have seven wonderful grandchildren.

Joe retired in 2007 after 37 years as a social studies teacher for the Connetquot School District. He also coached basketball for several local colleges, including St. Joseph's in Patchogue. I handled the billing and insurance for the Sachem Dental Group in Ronkonkoma until I retired in 2009.

We enjoy traveling together and often include our grandchildren.