Remember Rome?

To escape New York City’s falling temperatures – and to record a few stories for the Memory Loss Initiative – the Door-to-Door team visited Melbourne, Florida’s Leeza’s Place and Joe’s Club, two local adult day care facilities in Brevard County.

In Melbourne, word of mouth was a magical thing, on our last day of recording we met England native Geraldine Condon, who was brought to Joe’s Club by her daughter and son after reading of our visit in Florida Today.

Some of Geraldine’s favorite memories took place in Kent, England, where she remembers time spent with family on St. Margaret Bay at her grandmother’s home. Later, during World War II, amid the fighting and her travels as a nurse with Queen Victoria’s Nursing Service in the Bradford Royal Infirmary, the possibility of happiness outside England serendipitously made itself known.

After numerous assignments throughout the United Kingdom and North Africa, Geraldine was sent to Rome, Italy. “It was there I met a certain American Army officer, and we clicked,” she remembers. “Jack G. Condon.” Geraldine and Jack’s first date and engagement (and having six children!) were a blur, she says, but she will always remember Rome because her marriage to Jack was the first to take place in the war-torn city after the American troops’ arrival.

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