60 years of wedded bliss in N. Bellmore

Enjoying family and taking time to remember the little things have made for six blissful decades of marriage for John and Marian Insinga of North Bellmore. The couple rang in their 60th anniversary on Oct. 27 with their seven children and 11 grandchildren close at hand.

The Insingas met when Marian was 19 and John was 22, at a graduation party for Marian’s cousin Diana, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. The duo dated in what Marian joked was a long-distance relationship, until marrying two years later in 1951. Marian lived in Ridgewood, and the young couple spent weekends together, enjoying the movies and going out to dinner. They both fondly recalled evenings spent at Guy Lombardo’s shows at Jones Beach.

The couple married at St. Martin of Tours in Bushwick with their family surrounding them. The reception was held at a restaurant nearby where the couple enjoyed their first few hours dancing and greeting guests. “Those four hours went so fast,” Marian reflected. After the reception, the couple hopped in their car and headed to New York City before driving south to tour Washington, D.C. and Virginia. The trip would be the first of many that the couple would take.

North Bellmore was the couple’s first and only home together. They moved into a new home off Bellmore Road when the area was still being developed. “I got stuck in the mud driving here to see the construction,” John remembered. The Insingas chose North Bellmore because John’s brother had already relocated to North Merrick a few years earlier.

When they made the journey to the suburbs, it was more like the country, with potato fields dotting the landscape. The house would become one where seven children were raised. All attended nearby Mepham High School before leaving to start their own families. John was a machine-shop supervisor. Marian went to work at Roosevelt Savings Bank when her children were all grown up.

With so many people in one house, one might expect frequent arguments, but the couple insisted that life went pretty smoothly. “There were not too many downs,” Marian said. And if a disagreement ever arose, the couple simply “compromised and talked it over.”