Still going strong, decades later
IT WAS love at first sight at a train station 66 years ago for Joe and Sarina Quagliata.
The Innisfail couple has just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary.
Joe, 86, and Sarina, 84, recall first setting eyes on each other at the Tully railway station in 1954.
“We made up our mind we wanted each other right from the word go,” Mr Quagliata said. Mrs Quagliata, who was 18 at the time, worked at the refreshment room at the Tully railway station where she was a tea girl.
She said she had first noticed Joe at the time because he was friends with her cousin.
“One day my friend had deserted me to be with her boyfriend – she said to me ‘I’m not coming home with you’,” Mrs Quagliata said.
“As soon as I saw him (Joe), I just said to him ‘would you take me home please?’.
“There was another bloke who was chasing me at the time – I was frightened. I didn’t want him.”
Mrs Quagliata said that during the early stages of their courtship, Joe bought her a box of handkerchiefs and she bought him a pair of pyjamas.
The couple went out for 11 months before they decided to elope.
“We eloped and three weeks later we married,” Mrs Quagliata said.
“We got married on June 4 at St Clare’s in Tully. Joe’s mother – she was a beautiful person – she made it just a gettogether. We couldn’t afford a big wedding”.
They have three children, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
“We’ve had our ups and downs. I’ve never called him Joe, I’ve always called him darling,” Mrs Quagliata laughed.
The couple celebrated the milestone with their family at a restaurant in Cairns.