Connie Mauro, currently living in a nursing home in Marietta, Georgia, spent almost 50 years working in the Mount Vernon, New York library. Her job was one many Reading Addicts would covet: recommending books, collating and organising titles, and prescribing many people their first library cards.
One day in 1961 a little boy of 7 years old walked into her library, asking if he could join. Of course Connie helped the lad, gave him his first library card, and enabled him to cultivate his love of reading. Despite it being so long ago, Connie never forgot that young man as he had a pretty memorable name: “Denzel Hayes Washington Jr”, and that little boy grew up to be a world famous, award-winning actor, director, and producer.
Denzel and Connie. Photo credit to CBS News.
Of course Connie’s favourite memory was her go-to story to tell her friends at the nursing home, so everyone there knew how proud she was to have helped the young Denzel.
In March 2017, when Connie’s 99th birthday came around, the staff used the power of social media to contact Denzel’s ‘people’, and put the two old friends in touch again. Watch the video below to see the heartwarming phone call between them.
A month later Denzel did as he promised and made a visit to Connie in her nursing home, where she gave him three scarves of different colours that she had knitted herself. Denzel promised he would be back to visit again when he was next in Georgia.
That has to be the sweetest story of 2017!
