LEWISTON – It was the late 1930s in Caribou. He was an altar boy.

She was in the choir.

George and Norma DeVoe, married 65 years, started dating when she was in the eighth grade at Holy Rosary. He was at Caribou High.

“She had that certain smile, and wouldn’t take her eyes off me,” George said of the 14-year-old girl who four years later became his wife.

“I liked his looks, his personality. He was very nice. He still is,” Norma said.

Both say how lucky they are to have been together so long. “We’ve enjoyed our life to the fullest,” he said. “God’s been good to us,” she said.

When she was in high school, Norma moved with her family from Caribou to Lewiston. He followed. They’ve been in Lewiston ever since, except for when he served in the Army during World War II.

In 1943 George, then 21, was drafted and stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. This time she followed him, taking a train to Texas. They walked three miles from the base to a Catholic church, where they married at the altar. “We had no witnesses,” so the priest had his gardeners step in. They were poor, she said. “We had 50 cents in our pocket.”

Soon he was shipped to the island of Iwo Jima off Japan to fight. She went back to Lewiston.

He showed photos of his war days, snapshots of him with his buddies, cemeteries filled with rows of white crosses.

“We filled up three cemeteries,” he said. Before they invaded the island, they were told there were 20,000 Japanese waiting. “They told us ’50 percent of you boys are going to go down.’ That’s how bad it was.” During the fighting the dogs, the flame throwers, the “boys in the tanks” were among the first killed, he said.

Until he got home George didn’t share any details with his wife.

After returning to Lewiston, he worked as a carpenter. He built his family their dream home on Patrick Avenue. They had a son and a daughter. When their children grew they sold their home and traveled.

They went all over Germany, visiting Dachau, one of the concentration camps. They toured Hitler’s mountain retreat.

They enjoyed beer in German castles, heard singers yodel in the mountains. They went to Paris and took in the Eiffel Tower. They went to Alaska, taking in grand sights of nature. “At three in the morning the sun was as bright as day,” he said.

They had a ball. “I would do it all over again,” he said.

Now at 83 and 86, they baby-sit. They were taking three of their great-grandchildren for an upcoming weekend.

“That’s what keeps us going,” she said. They enjoy eating out and gambling, frequenting Foxwoods and Hollywood Slots. They drive themselves.

Their advice for staying happily married?

“Find the same thing to do. Go along and enjoy it,” he said.

“Talk things out,” she said. “If we have something we want to discuss, we discuss it,” he agreed. “We don’t boss one another.”

George said Norma’s nice to have around. “I count on her a lot.”

“I wouldn’t want to be with anybody else but him,” she said. “He’s the love of my life.”