Eternally Yours: Our Courtship

Eternally Yours is the story of a first love that becomes a lifetime commitment. In 1948, Mary Ann Mastrolonardo meets Joe Marasco at Benjamin Franklin High School in Rochester, New York. Both raised by second generation Italian parents in a strict Catholic environment, thirteen-year-old Mary Ann and fifteen-year-old Joe meet at a time when girls follow the rules and boys persist in trying to break them. Joe asks Mary Ann to go steady the following year; she says yes. Growing up with four brothers, Mary Ann bristles at the double standard that exists at home. At the time she shares the same dreams that most young girls her age do about love, marriage and family. Mary Ann wants to pursue a career in fashion design in New York City after graduation; Joe prefers she be content to design her own wedding gown. Eventually, Mary Ann yields to Joe's wishes, but not without a fight. Pursued by another young man a few months before her wedding, she has to make a decision of marrying her first love or the young man who turns her stable life upside down weeks before her wedding. She imagines living a different life than the one Joe and her domineering mother have planned for her.