Isn't love grand? Three Irondequoit couples share how they met

Trudy and Walter Swol
The Irondequoit couple, residents of the Legacy at Cranberry Landing senior living community on Norton Street since April 1, 2010, has been married 65 years come Jan. 29.

Gertrude “Trudy” and Walter Swol originally met when he went to the USO in Washington, D.C., to eat. At the time, around 1945, he was a flight cadet in the Navy.

That was how he met “giggling Gertie,” Walter Swol said. She played the accordion at the USO and at a nearby Polish club, where he was invited afterward.

“There were two of us after him,” Trudy recalled.

Describing herself as “a little hillbilly from West Virginia,” Gertrude “Trudy” Swol says she thinks the music brought them together.

He says simply, “It was her.”

They were married June 29, 1946, about a year after they met.

She wanted to stay in Washington, Trudy said, but they ended up coming back to Walter’s hometown, Rochester, where he worked as an emulsion coater at Eastman Kodak for 35 years. She worked for a few years in the office at Rochester’s Franklin High School.

Their first home was an apartment in his parents’ house, after which they settled in their own home in Greece.

They moved around a bit, later moving to Rochester, to Irondequoit, to Webster and back to Greece.

After his retirement in 1978, they lived in Charlotte, N.C. for 25 years.

“I promised her that after 25 years, we’d move back up here, and we did,” Walter said.

“I missed Rochester and the children,” Trudy explained.

The Swols had four children, two girls and two boys, and now have eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Their secret? “We talk to each other and trust each other,” Trudy said.

As for Valentine’s Day, “I’ll give her a kiss,” Walter said.

“And maybe I’ll get a little chocolate,” she added.

Mary Joyce and Franklin D’Aurizio
It was a U.S. Sail and Power Squadron gala at the Rochester Yacht Club in February 1999 when attorney and former Irondequoit Town Justice Franklin D’Aurizio and teacher Mary Joyce (Fisher) D’Aurizio, now Irondequoit supervisor, first met “across a crowded room,” as she tells it. He was a commander of the local squadron and she was a past commander in Chautauqua, and was serving on the district “bridge” at the time, which meant she traveled to functions across the area.

His friend, the late Joe Arieno, brought her to his attention, Frank says, noting, “She had long hair and a big smile ... and seemed to be vivacious even then. She was fussin’ all over the place.”

She recalls that Arieno invited them both back to his house for a party afterwards, “and I was my usual gregarious self.”

She says she saw Franklin sitting on a sofa, looking her way out of the corner of his eye.

They met at other power squadron functions over the next few weeks, but it wasn’t until April that they had their first date. He took her to Mario’s restaurant in Rochester, Mary Joyce said, then to Restaurant 2 Vine.

“And he gave me all these gifts from Italy to impress me,” she said with a laugh.

Since she was still teaching in the Chautauqua area, their long distance relationship blossomed through phone calls and e-mails.

She calls their chance meeting “a mission from God,” and says she was definitely attracted to his eyes, and the fact he treated her so well and was “a true gentleman.”

They were engaged in December 1999, and eloped to Pescara, Italy, one of Irondequoit’s sister cities, in April 2000. They were married April 26, 2000, by the Mayor of Pescara at the city hall there, then honeymooned in Venice and Lake Como before flying home from Milan.

They still try to get back to Italy once or twice a year.

It was the second marriage for each of them, but each had been single for many years.

Between them, they have seven children and four grandchildren.

She continued teaching after their marriage, but finally took early retirement, in 2004, when the commute became a struggle.

She then worked in her husband’s law office until being elected Town Supervisor two years ago.

They always exchange gifts for Valentine’s Day, Mary Joyce said, but last year he surprised her with a sterling silver flute (which she plays).

“He is such a romantic, and likes to surprise me,” she said.

“She’s easy to get along with a fun,” Franklin said. “She changed my life ... she’s dynamic; there’s never a boring moment.”

Jennifer Johnson and Vincent Esposito
Monroe County Legislator Vincent Esposito, D-Irondequoit, says he was “awestruck and love-struck” the first time he met TV newswoman Jennifer Johnson, then with News 10 NBC and now morning anchor on WHAM13, at a campaign rally attended by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2002.

She remembers Kennedy, but not Assemblyman Joe Morelle’s young staffer.

Two years later, they met again through mutual friends. Since one of her friends and his mother both taught at Eastridge High School, they got talking about that connection.

The next time they met, she remembered his mother.

“Ironically, she remembered a story I told her about my brothers and I giving our mother a deejay nickname, ‘Heavy C’,” Vinnie recalls.

A couple of dates followed, “but I really wasn’t interested,” confessed Johnson, who’s originally from Boston.

When he was invited to her birthday party in January 2005, he “reluctantly went,” Vinnie said, and left early.

“As soon as he left .... and was done chasing ... That’s when I fell in love,” Jennifer said.

Vinnie says now that he figures “persistence pays.”

One of his favorite stories is about when he went to propose. He and Jennifer and her parents, who now live in Virginia, were visiting a southern plantation. He took her father aside and asked for her hand. Her father asked him to speak to his wife as well.

“My nerves were really fried,” he recalled with a laugh, so by the time he had her parents’ blessings, he just ran into Jennifer’s room and asked.

She said yes.

In the meantime, however, she had career opportunities back in the Boston area, “but I drove around town (Rochester) and thought, ‘I really like it here’,” Jennifer said.

“So Rochester TV viewers can send me their thank yous,” joked Vinnie, who still at times gets called “Mr. Johnson.”

They were married July 5, 2008, and settled in their Irondequoit home, where they now live with their 9-month-old daughter, Avery, and a dog named Bosox.

The couple thinks they spent their first Valentine’s Day together watching a Syracuse basketball game — they’re both huge fans of the Orange — but confess, “Valentine’s Day is not our specialty.

Since they both have busy, demanding jobs, “If we have dinner together, that’s a good day,” Vinnie said.