After 69 years of marriage, Stamford couple dies minutes apart

Giuseppe and Livia Fortuna celebrate their 50th anniversary on June 24, 1995. The Stamford couple died within minutes of each other on Saturday at the Smith House nursing home after 69 years of marriage. Giuseppe and Livia Fortuna celebrate their 50th anniversary on June 24, 1995. The Stamford couple died within minutes of each other on Saturday at the Smith House nursing home after 69 years of marriage. Photo: Contributed Photo Photo: Contributed Photo Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close After 69 years of marriage, Stamford couple dies minutes apart 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

STAMFORD, CONN. -- Giuseppe and Livia Fortuna's courtship and marriage reads like a fairy tale. Their deaths are straight out of Shakespeare.

The two native Italians met and fell in love in Rome, tied the knot just before the end of World War II, had four kids and moved to a house in Stamford's Cove neighborhood in the early 1960s, They stayed there until their health deteriorated and lived together in the Smith House Health Care Center for about a year.

On Saturday, 91-year-old Giuseppe died, and within 50 minutes, his bride of 69 years, Livia, died of a broken heart, family members said -- a day after her 86th birthday.

Their children, Giuliana DiGeronimo, 67; Angela Munzenmaier, 62; and John Fortuna, 51, all say the two were inseparable and still deeply in love after all those years. When their father's death came Saturday just after 6 p.m. at the North Stamford nursing home, Livia could not bear to go on without him, they each said.

"My mother was in shock to hear that my father had just died. She couldn't breathe and she was having a fit, even though she was on oxygen," said DiGeronimo. "At the nursing home, everyone said they were angels. Everybody used to say how much they loved each other and how my father was always trying to help my mother."

Still reeling from the loss Munzenmaier, who was on the phone with the nursing home when the two died said, "They probably couldn't live without the other. They are in a good place and don't have to suffer anymore, and they can just be happy."

Fortuna said a few days before her death, his mother said as much to one of her grandsons. During a telephone conversation the week before she died, she told the boy his grandfather was dying and said, "I'm going with him," Fortuna said adding, "It was her will to die."

Dr. Richard Schulz, director of gerontology and professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, said deaths like the Fortunas are exceedingly rare.

Ordinarily, he said there is only a small association between the death of one spouse and the death of the other. The association is strengthened if the death causes the other to stop or reduce the taking of medications, exercising or eating well because the other isn't there to encourage them to do it.

Shulz, who in 1978 wrote "The Psychology of Death, Dying and Bereavement" said of the Fortunas' death, "This is a very unusual occurrence."

When asked if someone could die of a broken heart, he said, "I am a believer in the possibility that people can die of depression. And if by broken heart you mean depression, I would say the answer is yes."

Munzenmaier, who lives just outside Atlanta, said she called the nursing home on Rockrimmon Road at 6 p.m. Saturday to talk to her mother, just as she did every day.

The two had been sharing a room at Smith House for a little over a year. Giuseppe was suffering from dementia and cancer, and after being apart for a period of time in a Norwalk nursing home, he was happy to be back with his wife.

Livia was suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease and had moved into the nursing home two years ago September after she took a fall in her home, Munzenmaier said.

In November, Giuseppe, a native of Minturno, Italy, who enjoyed pasta and wine, lost his appetite and was quickly deteriorating.

After talking to her mother for a few moments on Saturday, Munzenmaier began hearing a commotion. Her mother told her nurses and doctors were running around the room and she did not know what was going on. Finally, a male nurse picked up the phone and told her that he was so sorry, that her father was slipping away.

"He was on the phone with me while my dad took his last few breaths," Munzenmaier said.

Moments later, she told her mother that her Giuseppe died.

"I told her she needed to be strong and that my dad had passed away. She started screaming his name and didn't want to talk and hung up the phone," Munzenmaier said.

The nursing home called back a short time later to say Livia wasn't doing well and they needed someone there right away to comfort her. They put Livia on the line and Munzenmaier told her, "You need to be strong. I just lost my dad and I don't want to lose you too."

She said her mother dropped the phone on the bed and then heard someone yelling "Livia, Livia!" She then heard a nurse yelling for someone to call 911, Munzenmaier said. While the phone lay on the bed for the next 20 minutes, she heard the nurse tell someone to cancel the 911 call and the commotion died down. The phone was put back on its cradle.

"Everything went black. There was dead silence. I thought everything was better, then the phone was hung up. But my brother called a few minutes later to tell that my mother died 50 minutes after my dad," Munzenmaier said. "That was the end of the love story. She had to follow him."

Munzenmaier said her parent's life together was anything but boring and like many others, the marriage could be volatile.

Growing up, she said her father was full-blooded Italian and as such wanted to rule the roost. But her mother was also the type of Italian woman that didn't like to be told what to do.

"They yelled and screamed at each other almost every day, but I think it was because they liked making up so much. My mom was feisty. She wouldn't let my father get away with anything," Munzenmaier said.

The two met in Rome and married in June 1945 when Livia was 16. They then moved back to her hometown in Tuscany and opened a bar and restaurant.

In June 1962, Giuseppe, Livia and their children Giuliana, Steve and Angela, got onto a steam ship and followed Giuseppe's sister Josephine Palumbo to Stamford. John was born after they came to Stamford.

Giuseppe got a job working construction before he and Livia began working at Clairol, He as a clamp truck driver and she as a production-line worker, and the two worked at Clairol until they retired.

The funeral procession for the Fortunas will be leaving the Nicholas F. Cognetta Funeral Home on Myrtle Avenue in Stamford at 9 a.m. Friday for a Mass of Christian Burial to be celebrated at 10 a.m. Friday at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, 37 Schuyler Ave.

Interment will follow at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Greenwich, where the two will be buried on either side of their late son, Steve Fortuna, a Vietnam veteran.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Steve Fortuna's memory in care of the Wounded Warrior Project, PO Box 758517, Topeka KS 66675.