Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

45-year wait for wedding pictures

A Tunkhannock couple recently marked their 45th wedding anniversary with the perfect gift: The wedding pictures they couldn't afford when they married as teenagers.

A Tunkhannock couple recently marked their 45th wedding anniversary with the perfect gift: The wedding pictures they couldn't afford when they married as teenagers.

For years, Paul and Marion Caruso had only stories about their post-high school graduation nuptials on Aug. 21, 1965, after they couldn't buy their wedding photos.

That was until Caruso, now vice president of Simplex Industries in Scranton, started his own business. One of his associates turned out to be Tom Hosko, the photographer (then a scrap-yard owner) who snapped the as-yet-unseen wedding photos.

It turned out he still had the negatives, but they weren't marked. Hosko told Caruso he was welcome to go through them anytime.

He never did, until earlier this year when Hosko died, and his son, Jeff, reminded Caruso of the negatives his father had kept. Finally, Caruso brought home boxes of them - and left them in the garage. His wife insisted they start sifting.

"It was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack," Caruso said. "You had to hold each negative up to the light and, after a while, I gave up."

Marion Caruso, however, continued the tedious search. Suddenly, "I screamed," she said. "He had that wannabe Elvis Presley slicked-back hair and I had the Mary Tyler Moore flip."

The couple had the negatives restored.

The Carusos met at the old Town Hall Skating Rink in Scranton, when Paul, who worked there in the summer, was bet a quarter by his friends that he couldn't skate with Marion.

He lost, but she eventually let him know she cared. His job was to take tickets in exchange for skates and when Marion returned with her ticket, she scribbled "Mrs. Paul Caruso" on it. "That was some hint," Caruso said.