In April 1949, as Harry Truman sat in the White House and the wheels of the Baby Boom were just beginning to turn, two women shared their first day at work together in Pilgrim State Hospital in West Brentwood. Assigned to the same ward, Martha Busterna and Theresa Le Porre were close friends and coworkers until Theresa married, resigned from her position at Pilgrim State, and moved to Minnesota in 1953, leaving no contact information for Martha.

Martha left Pilgrim State soon after Theresa, spending the next years raising her children and writing the West Babylon gossip column for the Beacon from the late 1950s into the early 1960s.

In the Spring of 2006, Martha saw the obituary of a person with the last name of Le Porre in a local newspaper. Recognizing the name she called a relative of the deceased who put her in touch with her old friend, now Theresa Philibert. The two began plans for a reunion.

On a hot July day, the pair met at St. Theresa's Shrine in Hauppague, which served a dual purpose: besides being a location both were familiar with, Theresa also felt very much at home. Deeply reli- gious, she thought it the perfect setting for a reunion brought about by fate.

After a long lunch to catch up on the decades that had passed, the two finally exchanged phone numbers and addresses with promises to keep in touch. Soon after, Theresa returned to her home in Minnesota. Though Martha rarely travels, the pair hope to meet again when Theresa next visits her sister on Long Island.