love story
93-year-old bachelor marries woman he met 64 years ago
The story of a couple from New Jersey shows that it is never too late in life to fall in love. Joe is 93 and Mary is 83 years old. They want to get married in October – 64 years after they first met.
“One day I was sitting in my sofa chair in my house and I realized that there was no one left to call. Everyone was gone and I started to feel this loneliness that you only feel when you’re 90 years old,” recalls Joe Potenzano out New Jersey interviewed by WABC, a US television station based in New York. But the story doesn’t start there.
It begins in 1959 when Joe Potenzano and Mary Elkind meet at his sister’s wedding. He was the best man and she was the best man. Even then, they both had a certain interest in each other – and they dated a few times. But eventually they parted ways. Joe enlisted in the army while Mary pursued a career as a ballerina at Radio City Music Hall in New York. They both lived their lives and still stayed in touch through the years.
“It took me a lot of courage”
It had been 64 years since they first met until last fall, when Joe worked up the courage to ask Mary at a family gathering to have coffee with him. “She was a pretty girl. She’s still a pretty girl, so I asked her out.”
Joe had never married in his life, so he was still a bachelor. So he needed a little effort: “It took me a lot of courage to say that because I’ve never done anything like it before,” says the 93-year-old. Fortunately, the 83-year-old widow Mary agreed.
“I fell in love with her and she told me she fell in love with me,” admits Joe in the interview. And what takes a long time will finally be good: Joe and Mary want to get married in October, 64 years after they first met. The story of the two seniors shows that it is never too late in life to find love and be happy.