Josie and Johnny
A love story
by Brian Tervenski
Some things in life come in twos, ham and eggs, Romeo and Juliet, Aunt Josie and Uncle Johnny. They were married for over seventy years. He died of a stroke at ninety three, still taking care of Aunt Josie who at eighty eight had chest cancer and was in full bloom dementia. One day she wandered out of the house on Worrall Avenue and we found her hours later a mile away from home sitting in a pew at Holy Trinity Catholic Church smiling and waiting for mass to start. As Johnny slipped into the pew to help her with her coat she asked him with love, “Would you like something to eat?“
Uncle John loved her from the day he met her and more importantly, he listened to her. He loved her when she picked out his shirts and ties, when she told him they would live in the upstairs flat in her mother‘s house, and when she told him she could not have children. |
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She was sickly as a child, lost a kidney and almost died. The death of her father in a railroad accident when she was seven, and the remarriage of her mother shortly thereafter left her vulnerable.
With only a grade school education she went to work as a seamstress to help the family finances. While living with cousins and working in New York City, she met Johnny. John Sergio was one of the middle children of a mother who had thirteen children and lived to be ninety. Except for an abiding streak of stubbornness Johnny was Josie’s counterpart in temperament and inclination. Johnny never got angry. He got nervous. He courted Josie. They married. They were young living in Astoria Queens. They ran a candy store and soda fountain and after work won dozens of Loving Cup Trophies dancing the Waltz and Fox Trot in contests all over New York City. Years later the trophies were hung on nails or stacked on shelves next to the canned tomatoes and the saved supermarket paper bags on the attic steps in the house on Worrall Avenue.
With only a grade school education she went to work as a seamstress to help the family finances. While living with cousins and working in New York City, she met Johnny. John Sergio was one of the middle children of a mother who had thirteen children and lived to be ninety. Except for an abiding streak of stubbornness Johnny was Josie’s counterpart in temperament and inclination. Johnny never got angry. He got nervous. He courted Josie. They married. They were young living in Astoria Queens. They ran a candy store and soda fountain and after work won dozens of Loving Cup Trophies dancing the Waltz and Fox Trot in contests all over New York City. Years later the trophies were hung on nails or stacked on shelves next to the canned tomatoes and the saved supermarket paper bags on the attic steps in the house on Worrall Avenue.