Like many good things in life, Hubert and June Malicote’s relationship began with a simple smile.

It was 1941 when the two 19-year-olds met at church: June glanced over her shoulder and smiled at the handsome young man behind her. After the service, the pair followed friends to the ice cream parlor and spent the afternoon getting to know each other. When they parted ways, Hubert decided to attend church the following week just to see June again.

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“So come Sunday, I went to church, and she was there,” Hubert recalled. “We sat together and talked and had a good relationship.”

The couple continued to date for the next year, exchanging their first kiss and falling in love. A year after that fateful meeting during Sunday service, Hubert enlisted in the U.S. Navy to fight in World War II. June stayed at home, taking a job building supplies for the war. After training and before deployment, Hubert and June knew they had to make a decision about their future.

“Time was going fast,” Hubert said. “We needed to make a decision about what to do. We decided it was time to get married.”

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Hubert and June tied the knot on June 8, 1943 in the very church where they first met in Hamilton, Ohio. Hubert was shipped out to Honolulu, Hawaii shortly after, where he worked on torpedoes and submarines at Pearl Harbor. Although he wasn’t allowed to tell his loved ones where he was stationed, he managed to mail a grass skirt back home to June.

“If I could ship that back to [June], that just might give her some indication where I was,” remembered Hubert. “So, I packaged it up and shipped it to her and about two or three weeks [later], I got back a beautiful lady in a grass skirt. Well, that message went through, and we got the answer.”

After the war, Hubert returned to Ohio via train. June was the only person who came to greet him at the train station, and it was the best homecoming he could ever want.

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They settled down and raised their children, three in all, and have been blissfully spending their lives together ever since. They now have seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren! When asked about the secret to their long-lasting romance, June and Hubert say they’ve always taken things day by day.

“[It’s been] so easy to get along together,” June said. “We have not even had a quarrel.”

“We maybe have had disagreements,” Hubert agreed. “But we’ve always worked them out. Our attitude has been that you don’t hurt the one you love. And if you have an issue or quarrel, take care of it, don’t let it grow, think it over, talk it out and solve the problem and go on with your life.”

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In 2022, the couple celebrated 79 years of marriage. They also celebrated another incredible milestone when they both turned 100 years old in July! Their friends and family threw a big birthday bash for the love birds at, you guessed it, the Eaton Road Church of God, the very church where they met and got married all those years ago.

Share this story to wish Hubert and June a happy 100th birthday… and many more years of marriage bliss!