'Bursting With Joy': 100-Year-Old Woman Reflects on Her WWII Love Story

Newsweek

a day ago

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Toni Cilberti was "bursting with joy" on October 5, 1947, the day of her wedding to Nicholas Cilberti.
She wore a wedding dress that, today, may seem a bit unusual.
Instead of satin or silk, her dress was made out of a nylon parachute used by her new husband from his time in the U.S. military. During World War II, when silk was in short supply, this was a common practice for brides.
"I was so proud, I remember the day walking down the aisle, holding on to my father's arm. I was so proud," Toni Cilberti, now 100, said in an interview with Newsweek. "I was bursting with joy because I was wearing the nylon parachute wedding gown."
Toni Cilberti stands with her wedding dress, made from a nylon parachute, at the National WWII Museum.
Toni Cilberti stands with her wedding dress, made from a nylon parachute, at the National WWII Museum.
Courtesy of The National WWII Museum.
The couple's love story, however, began with a different feeling—annoyance, she said.
The Cilbertis met when they were children. Nicholas, or Nick, Cilberti was the brother of her best friend Carmel and would frequently "agonize" her.
"He was like my worst person I wanted to be near," she said. "They stood on the corner and they tackled you when you went by from school."
But years later, the childhood teasing would eventually turn into a blossoming romance after he went off to fight in World War II, she said. Carmel, who began dating Toni Cilberti's brother, suggested she should write to Nick Cilberti while he was abroad.
She was reluctant, however.
"I said, 'Absolutely not'," Toni Cilberti said. "'You know we can't stand each other.' And so she said, 'Well, if you don't write to my brother, I'm going to stop writing to your brother.' Well, I didn't want to break up that relationship, so I did begin writing. But I said, 'You ask him to send me the letter first, and then I'll respond.' So that's the way it went."
Relationship Turning Point
Those letters became a turning point in their relationship. Toni Cilberti described them as "the nicest letters you'd ever want to receive"—lovely and fun, but nothing "gooey or gushy."
After months of writing, Nick Cilberti said he would be returning home on break and looked forward to dating her.
Toni Cilberti wasn't sure how to react—writing letters was one thing, after all, but dating was different. But she decided she couldn't say no and accepted a date. It ended up being the "nicest time" she'd had in awhile, she said.
"Before, he was like the teenage terror. But now he was a gentleman in the service, and he must have learned a lot because he was a perfect gentleman. I had such a good time I couldn't believe. I got home, and I couldn't just believe it. Ever since then, we got along just perfectly," she said.
Dancing became a favorite date for the couple, she said, noting that he was an "excellent dancer."
Nick Cilberti eventually had to return to the service, but they continued communicating through letters.
"He would tell me about all his thoughts while he was away from his family and his home," Toni Cilberti said. "He told me about some of his experiences during the war and some of it was censored and blocked out."
Letters were a frequent means of communication for couples separated by the war, Kimberly Guise, senior curator and director for curatorial affairs at The National WWII Museum, told Newsweek.
"The most concrete evidence of these relationships is in correspondence," she said. "So written accounts of the time. Most of the letters at the time talk about that longing, wanting to be with someone, wanting to be together...not being able to wait till they can be reunited."
While Nick Cilberti was in service, Toni Cilberti would frequent the movies, where news reels showed the latest on the war, she said. Everyone in the community seemed affected by the conflict but tried to make the best of the situation, she said, adding that there were very few of her male classmates at her senior ball as many were sent abroad.
"I don't remember running into anyone that was not conscious of the war and was trying to do everything for the war effort," she said. "We all seemed to blend together and work together."
One day, the letters from Nick Cilberti stopped.
He had been flying in a B-29 over Tokyo on his 16th mission when he and his fellow soldiers were "hit so bad that they didn't think they could get back to their formation," Tony Cilberti said. They tried to make it back to their landing field but lost a few of their engines on the way. They decided they either had to land on a remote island in the Philippines or jump into the ocean.
They crash landed on an uncharted island in the Philippines chain. "It was stifling hot," she said. "They had nothing to eat but some vegetation."
They were hesitant to drink the water due to concerns about pollution and had to watch a baby monkey drink from it first to determine it was safe for them, she said. Upon exploring the remote island, they encountered a group of Japanese soldiers and had to engage in hand-to-hand combat, she said.
Eventually, they came across some friendly natives who helped them make a canoe from a tree trunk and sent them off to the next island. The group continued traveling from island to island until they reached their base—29 days after the crash.
Had they been lost for just one more day, the soldiers would have been declared missing in action, she said.
From Near Tragedy to Nuptials
Nick Cilberti was treated in a local hospital, as the soldiers became infected with dysentery and other diseases contracted in the hot, humid region, and was discharged a few months later. The military offered him a trip back home on a plane but he was not quite ready to fly again, Toni Cilberti said. After a few months, a steamer arrived that could bring him back to the U.S. He was discharged from the military in 1946.
"He brought home with him a parachute, a nylon parachute," she said. "Now, that parachute was fascinating to him and to his family, so they kept it. Then we began visiting each other. We began going out on dates, and then it became kind of personal for both of us, so we decided that I was to be his girlfriend, and he was to be my boyfriend."
They got married about a year later, she said.
A wedding photo of Toni and Nick Cilberti.
A wedding photo of Toni and Nick Cilberti.
Courtesy of The National WWII Museum.
When it came to the dress, Japanese-produced silk was hard to get due to the war, she said. But her future mother-in-law was a seamstress and suggested they repurpose the parachute.
"I remember we sat in a big sewing circle fashioned in her living room, opened up the parachute, and close friends of the family and related people in the family, we all sat around the parachute and each of us had a stitch ripper, and we took the panels apart, stitch by stitch by stitch," she said. "She put it all together and made this beautiful wedding gown."
In the years after the war, the couple "did a lot of dancing and a lot of traveling," to areas like Cape Cod, and began their family seven years later. They had two daughters and settled in Glenville in New York's Capital region. Nick Cilberti became involved in the community, serving as a volunteer firefighter and beginning a career in electroplating, while Toni Cilberti became involved in volunteering.
They lived happily together for decades, until Nick Cilberti passed away in 1992 at the age of 69.
Toni Cilberti celebrated her 100th birthday earlier this year and remains active in her community, going dancing, clogging bowling and volunteering at a local children's hospital, she said.
"My dear husband is always at the back in my mind. We had such a beautiful relationship," she said. "He was such a tremendous dancer. He was, as I said, an elegant dancer."
Now, her wedding dress, which she kept on the top shelf of her closet for decades, rests in the National WWII Museum in New Orleans as part of the Malcolm S. Forbes Rare and Iconic Artifacts Gallery.