News 12 Exclusive: Decades later, man uses Facebook to reunite with first love

<p>A Yorktown veteran got to reunite with his first love after decades of being apart.</p>

News 12 Staff

Apr 25, 2018, 9:21 PM

Updated 2,185 days ago

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A Yorktown veteran got to reunite with his first love after decades of being apart.
John Bartalotta recently went on Facebook to look for Christine Delise. The two had dated for more than a year when they lived on Morris Park Avenue in the Bronx in the mid-1960s.
He was drafted and sent to Vietnam in February 1966, and when he got back in 1968, Delise was gone.
Delise had moved to Florida and got married. Bartalotta later got married, moved to Westchester and started a family.
He recently connected with her on Facebook. The messages turned into long phone calls, which turned into Facetime video chats.
After two failed marriages, three kids and 52 years later, Delise flew back from Florida and met Bartalotta at Westchester County Airport.
Now that the two have reunited, they are seeking the child that they gave up for adoption. She was born in January 1966, three weeks before her 19-year-old father left for the Marines.
News 12’s Tara Rosenblum contacted a private investigator, who agreed to take on their case to try and find their daughter. New York has some of the strictest adoption privacy laws in the county, and it’s notoriously difficult to find an adopted daughter.


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