Husband Answer to a maiden’s prayer
Published: December 12, 2005
Gloria Carroll of Merrick recalls how a wish came true the night she met her husband, Thomas.
In October 1948, I was 22 and lived in Flatbush, Brooklyn. I had received my RN at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and was sent to train as a school nurse at St. Luke’s Parochial School on East 138th Street in the Bronx.
One day, I made a visit to St. Luke’s Church. I was told that if you make a wish the first time you visit a church, it will come true. So I knelt down and wished for a tall, handsome Irishman.
A week later, I was at a Knights of Columbus dance at the Hotel Grenada in downtown Brooklyn when a nice-looking fellow, about 5-foot-4, came over and asked, “If you stand up, will you be too tall for me?”
I was wearing platform shoes and told him I was sorry but I thought I would be too tall. With that, his friend, a handsome, 6-foot-2, blue-eyed Irishman remarked, “Well, you won’t be too tall for me!”
Our first dance together was to “Some Enchanted Evening,” a song from the Broadway show “South Pacific.”
He told me his name was Tom. He was 25 and had never been to Brooklyn before. He’d unexpectedly gotten the night off from his job at the A&P supermarket, and his friends persuaded him to come to the dance. They usually went to the Knights of Columbus dances in Manhattan.
Then I couldn’t believe my ears when he told me he lived in the Bronx on East 138th Street and attended St. Luke’s Church.
And to think I almost stayed home that night. I was supposed to go to the dance with my friend, but at the last minute she cancelled because of a toothache. I decided to go to the dance alone, something I’d never done before.
Tom and I danced all night. He was and still is a terrific dancer. Later he escorted me home and asked me to a Halloween party the following week.
On New Year’s Eve, Tom proposed and we were married on May 1, 1949.
It was all very romantic and after 56 years Tom still refers to himself as “the answer to a maiden’s prayer.”
During WWII, Tom had been a sergeant with the Army Corps of Engineers and served as combat engineer in both the European and Pacific theaters.
He owned a messenger service business called Top Cat in Merrick before retiring in 1990. I also retired that year as supervising nurse for the medical department at Grumman Aerospace Corp. We have three children and seven grandchildren.
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