Photo: David Michael Howarth
This month, Nancy and Sam Caruso will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary. The couple, who never moved from the Collingswood home they bought in 1967, raised 6 children, started a business (which is still in the family – Arts Plus Gallery on Haddon Ave.) and are now lucky enough to have a lifetime of memories, stories and lessons. We asked them to share some with us.
Q: How’s being married for 70 years?
Nancy: It’s a very comfortable life at 70 years. You get to a point where, when you’re married for that long, you’re like one. You’re not two anymore. You know what the other’s thinking, what they’re feeling. Right?
Sam: Right.
Sam: Well, I’m not gonna say, “Wrong!”
Sam: I don’t think of it as a long time. I think of it as time we had together. Could be 60 years, could be 40. It’s just a date and time. We’re still the same. We’re still together.
Q: How did you meet?
Sam: I was at a dance with a buddy of mine. I was 19 or 20, and she was sitting with her friend. I thought she was pretty, so I asked her to dance and she immediately said ok.
Nancy: When he asked me to dance, I don’t know, there was something electric. We started dating and then the draft came and got him. He was drafted into the Korean War.
Sam: I was sent to Georgia for training, and right when I was being sent to Korea, the war ended. And they said well, forget about that, so they sent me back home. When I came back from the service, we got engaged.
Nancy: I was 19. In those days, you couldn’t marry before you turned 21. Your parents had to sign a paper saying you could marry. If your parents said no, you couldn’t marry.
Sam: I had asked her parents, and they said, “Oh, go ahead, go ahead.”
Q: What was the hardest time of your marriage?
Nancy: When the kids were growing up. We had them boom, boom, boom, right after the other. And that was very hard. We were really broke. I mean, really broke. We would have to do without, so the kids could have something. But we always had dinner together, every night. I waited until he came home from work, and we all sat down for dinner every night for years. If one kid was coming home late, we waited. It’s very important for a family to gather together. If you don’t, you don’t know what your kids are doing.
Q: There was a time when Sam worked 3 jobs. What was that like?
Sam: I would come home with my paycheck, and she would say that’s not enough. So I got another job, and I had two paychecks coming in. That wasn’t enough. We had six kids, and I had three jobs at once. I didn’t quit any jobs, I just added. I had a job with a chemical company during the day, a job at the bank at night, and I drove a cab during the weekend. I usually slept in the cab. When I finally made enough money to support us, I was able to quit 2 jobs.
Q: Nancy had a stroke several years ago, how did you manage that?
Nancy: It was hard, but when I was in the hospital and in rehab, Sam was there every day. I was never alone. He got dropped off in the morning, and he’d stay all day. Then somebody would come and get him at night.
Q: How did you decide to open a business?
Nancy: I started making ceramics in the basement, and he turned the basement into a studio, and the whole neighborhood would come for classes. I didn’t have any more room, so we decided to open a ceramic shop, and we had a lot of good business every Christmas and every Easter and after that, nothing. So my son Sam, my third child, started a framing business there and that got busier than the ceramic shop. So we closed the ceramic business and opened the framing business.
Then we hired an artist and added artwork. We decided to put on an art show out on the sidewalk. That went pretty good, and our neighbor across the street, John Gagliardi, helped us by having a car show on the same day. That grew into artists bringing tents to show the work they did by hand. And it just kept growing. Now it’s Collingswood’s May Fair, and 50,000 people come every year.
Q: What advice do you have for couples struggling in their marriage?
Nancy: I would tell them to go to church and pray, and then come home and work it out. Don’t give somebody up.
Sam: You have to agree on some points, and you negotiate the rest. You can’t agree on everything all the time. You can be an individual and still agree with someone else on most points. But today, people get married for a reason other than love. And that’s a hard thing to get past. If you don’t love the person, you’re not going to stay married.
Q: Your advice for couples thinking about getting married?
Nancy: They should make sure they know each other very well, and they should feel like this will last forever. When I married Sam, I just felt this would last forever.
Sam: If you’re having bad times before you’re married, don’t get married. Take your time. If you’re not getting along now, forget about it. That’s not your person.
Q: Why do you think each other is your person?
Nancy: He’s the best Sicilian I’ve ever met. I love him. I still feel the same as when we were first married. It’s like the feeling is new every day.
Sam: I have a love for her. I had that 2 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, whatever it is. I have that feeling right now.
