They met on a company-sponsored fishing trip in 1955. Louis “Lou” Maiello felt honored to drive the former Nancy Kraft home from the fishing adventure sponsored by Rockefeller Center, where she worked as an executive assistant and he was doing construction. It wasn’t long before the couple started dating. A year later they tied the knot on June 16, 1956.

“They lived in the Bronx for a couple of years; then they moved to Staten Island. I remember my dad used to take us down to watch them build the [Verrazzano-Narrows] bridge,” said Barbara Ruggiero, their daughter. The pair were inseparable until their deaths, which were four days apart after both being diagnosed with coronavirus (COVID-19), she said.