Looking at a black-and-white photo from their wedding, Anna and Anthony Bellisario couldn’t help smiling.  “We felt old. We thought we were really old (when we got married),” Anthony said with a laugh. The photo was taken Feb. 11, 1956. Come Sunday, the Bellisarios will celebrate their 62nd wedding anniversary. But just listening to the couple speak about each other, one would think they were newlyweds. 

“She has been at my side, all the time. All the time. What little I am is due to her. I mean, she stands right up next to me,” Anthony said as he looked fondly at his wife. Anna and Anthony grew up four blocks apart from each other in Chicago’s Little Italy, but didn’t meet until they were teenagers in the early 1950s. Anna’s family moved to New Jersey for a year while her parents did job training. When her family moved back to Chicago, Anna caught up with old friends who introduced her to Anthony.