State Senator George Onorato (r.) greets Eileen and Peter Damiani at their 50th wedding anniversary celebration at Ponticello Restaurant. Fifty years to the day of their marriage, Peter and Eileen McDonald Damiani celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at Ponticello Restaurant on Apr. 19, 2008 with state Senator George Onorato and his wife, Athena Onorato, in attendance.

According to a proclamation issued by Onorato on the occasion, Peter, the son of Primo and Yolanda Damiani, dated Eileen, the youngest of her family's 10 children, for three years before their marriage on Apr. 19, 1958, having made her acquaintance before he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1956. He was discharged in 1957.

The couple lived in Little Neck and Astoria, but eventually bought a home in Jackson Heights. Peter worked in his father's store, P. Damiani & Sons Fine Furniture, on Steinway Street and Eileen was a secretary

at American Tobacco and then Sotheby's. Their first child, Nancy, was born in 1960 and their second, Susan, five years later.

"Over the many years of their marriage, Peter and Eileen have been a great inspiration to their family and many friends, and continue to demonstrate the joys that can be achieved through faith, fidelity and love," Onorato's proclamation concluded. "I, State Senator George Onorato, join with the loving family and friends of Peter and Eileen Damiani in congratulating them on the very happy occasion of their 50th Wedding Anniversary." Onorato issued the proclamation on Apr. 19, the day that the couple had been married 50 years before.

Peter Damiani

enjoys a joking remark made by

Onorato at the

50th wedding anniversary celebration.

Eileen Damiani (c.) poses with Senator and Mrs. Athena Onorato.