CHICKASHA — After seven decades, Wayne H. Brooks recalls all the details of his wedding to Pauline Amanda Burnett on Feb. 8, 1942.

The minister who pronounced them man and wife – the Rev. William A. Carlton, pastor of First Baptist Church in Duncan where they were married. The friends and family who shared with them the joy of that day – cousins Daisy Applegate and J.L. McGrew, a stepbrother, Hoyt Caldwell and Gerry Ann (Brown) Mitchell, a longtime friend and schoolmate.

It was the start of what would be a long and happy marriage. Seventy years long and counting as of last Wednesday.

The newlyweds were from Chickasha, where they worked at competing theaters – the Ritz and the Midwest. Dating someone from the other theater was frowned on. So might the marriage. But the Brooks had other plans.

The United States was two months into World War II – the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 – and the couple left Oklahoma and moved to California where they supported the war effort in their own way, working in the shipyards until December 1942 when Wayne enlisted in the Army.

He was sent to Camp Swift near Austin, Texas, and Pauline settled in Austin, where she remained until Wayne's unit shipped out to England to train for the eventual D-Day invasion of Europe.

Like hundreds of thousands other American couples, they wouldn't see one another again until late 1945.

Wayne served in the 146th Combat Engineers – the first troops to make the Normandy beachhead  on June 6, 1944. Ten thousand Allied troops were killed or wounded at Normandy that day. But not Wayne.

"God kept his hand on me," he said.

By V-E Day in April, 1945, Wayne's unit had earned two Presidential citations. And in December, 1945, he and Pauline were reunited.

They came back home and settled for good in Chickasha.

The couple's son, Gregory Lynn, was born in 1948. He attended Chickasha schools, played football and baseball in high school and graduated in 1966.

"We are very proud to be from Chickasha, a great model town of beautiful churches," Wayne said.

In 1952, he and Pauline joined First Christian Church at 6th Street and Kansas Avenue.

Wayne was a mail carrier, walking a route in Chickasha for eight years before becoming a rural mail carrier. His postal career spanned 35 years.

The Brooks made many friends, particularly in the Mennonite community. Mennonites, Wayne said, are a "great, great God's people."

People always want to know the secret to a long marriage. Wayne and Pauline, 70 years to their credit, have the answer:

"Extreme love for each other, God's will, faithfulness to each other. Be kind to each other and make a home for God."