Louis (’51) and Doris Zero (’50) Valenta

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On December 23, 1948, a friend introduced a classmate to the Newman Club meeting at downtown CCNY and the events of the next 57 years of my life were put into motion. I was president of the organization and conducted a brief meeting, which was followed by our annual Christmas party. The new member's name was Louis Valenta and I thought he was quite handsome. I was especially impressed when he stayed until the end of the party and helped with the clean-up. A week later he called my home and invited me to attend a basketball game on January 1st at Madison Square Garden. However, on January 1st I awoke with a sore throat and high temperature. I had no way of reaching my date, who lived in the Bronx and would soon be traveling to my home in Brooklyn. I contacted my friend and asked her to come to my home and help entertain him. Fortunately he was not discouraged by our first date or by the travel (by train) from the Bronx to Brooklyn, often twice on a weekend.

We became engaged at our senior prom on December 17, 1949, and were married on January 20, 1951. Lou worked in advertising and sales promotion and eventually as district salesman for a distributor of Carrier Air Conditioning. I pursued my career in accounting, working a total of 34 years with time off to raise our three children, Louis Jr., Victoria, and David. We are now the proud grandparents of five granddaughters. This year we celebrated 55 years of married life together. We were very impressed with a recent visit to the new Baruch College building located two blocks from where we first met.