Connie Kopelov, Member of First Same-Sex Couple Wed in NYC, Dies at 90

Connie Kopelov, a member of the first same-sex couple to legally marry in New York City, has died at the age of 90.

Kopelov died Saturday, her wife, Phyllis Siegel, told The New York Times. "Kopelov had been in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease," the paper notes.

The two women had been already been together 23 years when they married July 24, 2011, the day New York State's marriage equality law took effect. They were wed by the city clerk at the marriage bureau in Manhattan. At the time they said the feeling was "indescribable." They were among 823 same-sex couples selected by lottery to receive marriage licenses in New York City that day.

"I lost my breath," Siegel recalled in March, according to the Times. "It was just the most exciting loss of breath I've ever had. I just was so happy."

Kopelov was born in 1926 in Kokomo, Ind., the Times reports. She left Indiana for Chicago and then New York, having received a bachelor's degree in political science from Northwestern University in 1947. She spent much of her life working for labor unions, including the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the Workers Defense League. She was especially concerned with women's issues, and she taught courses on women's labor history at Cornell University and New York University. She earned a master's degree from Goddard College in Vermont in 1974.

"She was always fighting for an issue," Siegel told the Times. "She was always for the underdog." It was activism that brought them together -- they met in the 1980s through their work with Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders.

After their wedding, the Kopelov and Siegel often received congratulations from strangers they encountered on the streets of New York. In June 2012, shortly before their first anniversary, they were among the grand marshals of the city's Pride march.

In addition to Siegel, Kopelov is survived by a sister.