The front door opened and out leaned Bessie Hubbard.

"Hello there," she said with a smile. "Let me hug you; you know I'd like a little love."

At 94 years young, her desire was understandable and reciprocated.

The reason for being in her home had everything to do with her husband, SVC Edgar Quentin Hubbard, a sailor who died in 1960.

But first, there is the matter of a sip of whiskey.

Born on an Oklahoma ranch in 1922, Bessie Miner came into the world needing whiskey.

"The doctor said a sip would help keep me alive," Hubbard said. "It was bootleg whiskey, and for the first seven years of my life I had some every night."

Judging from her longevity, it worked.

Since that time, however, she has never had another drink.

"Oh, I like the smell and taste of it," she recalled, "but I have never had another drink.  When I went to a bar, I had orange juice."

Like many sailors, SCV Hubbard, nicknamed "Hub," did like whiskey.

"I had never seen a sailor before," she said as she sat in her nicely apportioned living room. "I would put his hat on his head; he would tell me that when I did I had to kiss him," she said with a laugh.

The two married in 1947, but not without a challenge.

After World War II, Hubbard had left the Navy and gone to work for the Weyerhaeuser Company. He also did repairs on her home in Kelso, Washington.

"He would come over and do little things to help out, and I would make him lunch," she recalled.

Her father wasn't so sure about the growing relationship, and one day decided to confront Hubbard on the front porch.

"Dad wanted two things from him," she continued. "He wanted him to go back into the Navy, and he wanted him to leave me alone."

Hubbard kept the first part of the agreement, but not the last part.

"Oh how I loved him," she said.

Married life brought three children and multiple, worldwide assignments.

"He was a surveyor in the Seabees, and he worked on a lot of top-secret jobs," she added.

In 1956, SVC Hubbard deployed as part of Operation Redwing to the Marshall Islands' Bikini and Enewetak atolls in the Pacific.

The work on the atolls probably ended his life and certainly changed hers.

"He was different when he came home," Hubbard said quietly.  "The children noticed it, too."

SVC Hubbard fell sick; the doctors thought he had Hodgkin's disease.

"They said he had one to three years to live," she continued.  "What bothered me is that he never said that he loved me like he used to."

As death came, so did the words.

"He was struggling for breath, but he told the children that they were to ‘be good to Mommy,'" she related. "Then with his last breath, he looked at me and said, ‘Honey, I love you so.'"

Editor's note: This is the first installment of regular features on local veterans and their families.