Their love story spanned decades.
Diagnosed with COVID-19, Tony and Maria Minervini died one day apart
In some ways, Tony and Maria Minervini were very different people.
Tony, a man of few words, mostly kept to himself and his garden. Maria, an avid entertainer, arranged large social gatherings and kept the family phone line busy.
What made them so compatible, then, were their values.
“They lived by the same principles: Treat others with honesty and respect, always give before you receive, make others feel welcome in your home,” said Dominic Minervini, the couple’s first-born son.
Maria, 89, died April 2 after testing positive for COVID-19 a week earlier. Tony, 96, died the following morning.
The couple immigrated to Canada from Italy after the Second World War. They bought a home in Port Colborne, raised two sons, and built a new life out of nothing. Their instant bond as teenagers sparked an epic marriage that lasted 69 years and ended suddenly.
“Tony woke up one morning, realized his wife wasn’t there, and knew he had no interest in being alive anymore if she wasn’t going to be there with him,” Dominic said.
The couple first met in their hometown of Gimigliano, a small village in the southern Italian mountainside where young people either worked in agriculture or joined the army.
Tony was put to work cultivating crops and tending to the family’s olive trees and farm animals. He was introduced to Maria through her brother. Devout Catholics attuned to the church’s watchful eye, the couple often met in secret before their romance became known publicly.
They married in 1950 and moved to North America the following year, on the advice of some relatives who’d found financial success in upstate New York. Port Colborne was cheaper, the Minervinis thought, and agricultural work would be easier to find.
The couple’s acclimation to Canada proved difficult.
Tony had a Grade 5-level education and barely spoke English. He worked briefly as a steel manufacturer for Stelco in Port Colborne before developing a shoe-repair shop out of the family garage. Maria worked several odd jobs, moving between commercial laundromats and fruit-canning factories before staying home to raise their two sons.
“They were determined to build a prosperous life, but they didn’t have much to start with,” said Dominic.
The family lived on the vegetables grown in their garden and a rationed supply of mortadella, most of which would vanish when guests stayed for dinner.
Slowly but surely, Tony’s repair shop took shape and the family cultivated societal ties in the local church and Italian community centre.
Tony loved working in the shop. He was known around town for his ability to fix everything, from a worn-out boot to a torn hockey glove. Maria was the centre of the family — a dedicated host who cooked extravagant meals for her guests.
Heartland Italians through and through, the couple relied on homemade salamis, sauces and freshly grown produce to feed the family. Store-bought tomato sauce, Maria said, tasted like cardboard.
In later years, the couple sold their house in Port Colborne and moved to a retirement home in Niagara Falls, largely due to Maria’s early onset dementia. Dominic said he worried his parents would have difficulty adjusting to a smaller space, but Tony shrugged it off, opting to build a small garden on facility grounds to feel more at home.
“I remember he told me, ‘It’s kind of like being on vacation all the time,’” Dominic recalled.
According to Tony and Maria’s granddaughter, Jessica Minervini, few southern Italians from their generation expected to live past 60. Facing the spectre of war and famine, working-class Italians of the 1930s figured their lives would be nasty, brutish and short. In a way, she said, this helped them grapple with their diagnoses in late March.
“They felt lucky to have survived for this long,” said Jessica. “Each day they were alive, in a safe country with their friends and family, was a blessing for them.”
The couple was living in the Lundy Manor Retirement Home in Niagara Falls when they tested positive. After the pandemic hit, the facility barred visitors from the outside world, but the virus spread rapidly through the home, resulting in at least 18 residents’ deaths.
They knew the dangers COVID-19 posed to elderly people, especially those in retirement facilities. They knew their odds were slim given their age and Maria’s deteriorating health. Before the pandemic, Deanna Minervini, their granddaughter, recalled how at peace Tony seemed in his final years — satisfied with the trajectory of his life and not fazed by the prospect of death.
The one condition, she said, was that he wouldn’t be apart from Maria.
“He couldn’t stand the idea of being without his best friend,” she said.
Jacob Lorinc is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @jacoblorinc