After 60 years, laughs strengthen couple’s bond
BRIDGEPORT — After 60 years of marriage, Virginia and Joe Morrissey still hold hands and look into each other’s eyes.
They say it’s part of their secret.
The couple married on Dec. 10, 1960 after dating for two years. They met through mutual friends while having a night on the town full of dinner and dancing.
Virginia, 82, who is best known as Ginny, was drawn to Joe’s “party man” character and thought he was hilarious. In time, his jokester personality became her favorite thing about him. If you ask her what his best joke is, she’ll tell you it’s “nothing she can repeat.” Joe subsequently pleads he has amnesia and can’t recall the joke.
Both said they immediately hit it off in their first encounter and spent the next two years exploring their compatibility.
Joe, 89, who has spent most of his life in Bridgeport, said he knew it was time to get married and settle down when he “went into the bars and didn’t know anybody.”
“All my friends were married and gone,” he said. Ginny agrees, “it’s true,” she said while softly giggling.
Now 60 years later, Ginny and Joe sit together in their Bridgeport home sharing laughs about the early days. Their laughter’s warmth radiates through the phone as they recount their most vivid memory — a bizarre, but lovely honeymoon in New York.
Ginny and Joe went to New York right after getting married on Dec. 10, 1960 — a day Ginny remembers as a beautiful Saturday. They stayed at the Edison hotel and dined at the Hawaiian Room that evening.
Little did they know at the time that an epic snowstorm was brewing, heading for the East Coast. The day after their wedding, snowfall landed so heavily it eventually covered New York City with nearly 17 inches of snow, according to Ginny.
Ginny, who grew up in New Milford, remembers the storm closed everything except the city’s theater district.
“The best part about it
was New York came to a standstill. Nobody was coming in and and nobody going out because the storm had come all the way up the East Coast,” Joe said. “The consequence, there were no problems getting around. You could go anywhere you want.”
The Morrisseys took full advantage of the almost empty Manhattan streets. During the day, they walked through Macy’s with no crowds, visited Rockefeller Center, sat in the live audience for an episode of “Beat the Clock” and saw productions for “My Fair Lady”
and “Tenderloin.”
When night struck, they continued the celebration, eating dinners at some of the city’s most exclusive venues — the Rainbow Room, Hawaiian Room and Latin Quarters nightclub — at the time.
They described their weather-stricken honeymoon as unexpected and nice. The memory of snowy walks and empty streets is far from faint to them.
When the storm was over, the Morrisseys took their New York moment back to the Nutmeg State and on other adventures in the next few decades. They raised two daughters, Kathy and Karen, visited other countries and unraveled in the time they could spend together.
Their eldest daughter surprised them with a return trip to New York for their 50th anniversary. Without realizing it, she also booked them a room at the Edison, where they stayed in 1960. Joe said it was pure “serendipity.”
Ginny and Joe repeated their New York moment and are still chuckling about the sentimental moment.
Now, they spend their time with family, taking short trips together when they can. Both feel grateful to have had those experiences and still be in good health years later.
Through 60 years of marriage, they agree the secrets to staying together are enjoying each other, constantly working at the relationship and holding hands.
“If your holding hands and looking at each other’s eyes, it’s kind of hard to argue,” Joe said. “At least it stops you from picking up something and throwing it,” Joe said.
And again, Ginny laughed.