In fall 2018, Justin Joseph Papp was reporting for The Hour, a daily newspaper in Norwalk, Conn., typing notes on his laptop as he covered a Norwalk City Council noise ordinance committee meeting, which was being chaired by Eloisa Maria Melendez.
Both were in their 20s.
“I was usually the youngest person in the room and would notice younger people, journalists or speakers,” Ms. Melendez said.
Five years earlier, at 19, Ms. Melendez, who grew up in Norwalk, won a council seat in District A, making her the youngest woman to serve on the 15-member council (the first councilman her age won a seat in 1977).
“She was sinking her teeth into decibel levels at local restaurants, and had knowledgeable things to say,” said Mr. Papp, now 34, duly impressed. He grew up in New Milford, Conn., and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Connecticut.
Ms. Melendez, now 31, was then also the council’s only Latina and fluent Spanish-speaker — her mother is originally from Medellín, Colombia, and her father, who died in 2022, was “Nuyorican,” she said.
“There is nothing I love more than my city,” said Ms. Melendez, who wears a gold-plated necklace of the State of Connecticut, and graduated with an associate degree in general studies from Norwalk Community College, now CT State Community College Norwalk, while in office.
They now have a good laugh over her first impression of Mr. Papp.
“He must be a skater boy,” she recalled thinking, judging from his sneakers. They reminded her of the ones worn by guys at the local skate park in middle and high school.
Like many of his clothes then, they were actually hand-me-downs from friends.
“I was living in Stamford with roommates scraping by on a meager news salary,” said Mr. Papp, now a Congress reporter at CQ Roll Call in Washington. Their relationship was strictly professional. Besides, Ms. Melendez was too busy to date, and he had a girlfriend.
In February 2020, they met one-on-one for the first time at Tablao Wine Bar & Restaurant in Norwalk and talked local politics over tapas and drinks. She was then the vice chair of the Norwalk Democratic Party and treasurer of the State Democratic Party, and he mainly covered education in Norwalk.
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A month later, in March, her first week as chair of the Norwalk Democratic Town Committee, Covid hit.
“Monday the 9th, I became chair, Wednesday the 11th, I turned 26 and by Friday the world shut down,” she said.
She had to figure out Zoom meetings and a new election playbook, and he reported on Covid-related stories.
“We were sort of marooned in our respective homes,” Mr. Papp said.
After they began texting more often in mid-March, Mr. Papp asked her to join him on the former Houseparty app to play games. Later, they switched to Zoom, where they chatted and joked about the Netflix shows, “Tiger King” and “Love is Blind.”
“Now I’m definitely thinking we’re going into flirty,” she said. But, they proceeded with caution, romantically and Covid-wise.
The next week, they socially distanced — staying six feet apart — when they met at a small beach at Boccuzzi Park in Stamford, and a week later, they sat on lawn chairs in his front yard.
“I had to get permission from roommates for her to use the bathroom,” he said.
In May, after a hike at Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden, Conn., they stopped for ice cream at Dairy King after the drive back to Norwalk. In a nearby parking lot, just before she went back to her car, they parted with a kiss.
“It was electric,” he said, and they expanded their Covid bubble.
In June, Ms. Melendez set up a Google PowerPoint as a guide including each other’s friends.
“Now we really know this is a thing,” she said. And, in July, they posted their relationship status on Facebook to offer transparency to friends and colleagues, and quickly became an item in NancyOnNorwalk, a local news blog. Its headline — “Melendez finds a beau.”
A year later, when Mr. Papp landed a reporting job at CQ Roll Call in Washington, they began a long-distance relationship.
“If she would move anywhere, D.C. would be the place,” he said.
After two years, in September 2023, they got an apartment together, conveniently close to the Capitol for his job, and overlooking Union Station for hers.
Ms. Melendez is the lead manager of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Care at the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood in Hartford, Conn. She works remotely from Washington, but takes Amtrak to Connecticut twice a month for in-person meetings.
In Washington, they enjoy museums, restaurants, parks, old movies, adding postcards, programs and movie stubs to their memory box, now filled to the brim.
In February 2024, he proposed in Norwalk en route to the Barcelona Wine Bar restaurant for dinner. He got down on one knee in a courtyard, with a ring featuring her aquamarine birthstone, near the parking site of their first kiss.
On May 16, their five-year anniversary, Lauren Papp, the groom’s sister, who became a temporary officiant in the District of Columbia, officiated on the couple’s rooftop before eight family members, before a thunderstorm.
Later, everyone, seated in back-to-back booths, celebrated with dinner at Ted’s Bulletin, a local restaurant, and enjoyed homemade Ted’s Tarts in various flavors, similar to Pop-Tarts, for dessert.
In January, they plan to celebrate with family and friends in the mountains above Medellín, at Palau, an events venue overlooking the Aburrá Valley and Medellín skyline.
While the couple love visiting Medellín, their hearts still belong to Connecticut. “At the end of the day, it’s home,” Ms. Melendez said.
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