Back in the late 1930s, Malcolm Lyons, serving in the Coast Guard at Biddeford Pool, was offered a spot in the Coast Guard Academy, which meant time away from his new wife, Mary.

But it was a great opportunity, a great way to set himself up for the future. Which is why the people in his native Lubec thought he’d lost it when he said no.

“They thought we were crazy,” said Mary, now 90, sitting next to Malcolm, 92, in their Windham home. “We said, no, we’d rather be together.”

And together they remain, after five kids, 13 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and too many ups and downs to count. On Feb. 5, the Lyons celebrated 71 years as husband and wife, almost all of it spent in Windham, first at her parents’ farm on the River Road, then at their own home on the Windham Center Road, next to Otter Creek.

While neither the state nor the town keep track of the longest marriages on record, Windham Town Clerk Linda Morrell said the Lyons’ marriage might be the longest she had heard of. An Associated Press article from March 2007 cites a northern Maine couple that was planning their 80th anniversary. In a bit of coincidence, the couple lived in Lubec.

“They’re a great couple,” said daughter Patty Buck, 70, of Falmouth. “I’ll take them for a ride and I’ll look back and they’ll be holding hands.”

Though decades separate this week from the first time the couple laid eyes on each other, they both remember the moment as if from one of their favorite movies.

“I was visiting my sister and she said there’s this new fellow at the Coast Guard station and you ought to meet him,” said Mary, turning toward her husband. “I don’t even know if you even saw me that day.”

“I think I did,” said Malcolm. “But I didn’t think you noticed me. We went for a ride in a Model A. I sat in front and she sat in the back.

“I knew she was the lady I’d like to know better.”

In 1938, within a year of meeting, they would be on the steps of the Windham Hill Church parsonage taking the vows that began a lifetime of love. Malcolm had memorized his vows, but there in the parsonage, in front of friends and family, he spoke a little too soon.

“Put two people in front of me, and it’s a crowd,” said Malcolm, chuckling as he stretched back in his chair. “I said ‘I do’ before I was supposed to and my sister-in-law burst out laughing. We still go down there once and a great while and check it out.”

After the wedding, the couple moved into an apartment in her parents’ River Road farmhouse. “It still stands, the house. It has a 100-foot barn, but that’s been demolished,” said Mary.

A few years into the marriage, the United States entered World War II, and the former Coast Guard member eagerly volunteered for service. Malcolm had a punctured eardrum, but that wouldn’t stop him. “I tried to fix everything up,” he said.

“But they wouldn’t take him, and I said, ‘Wonderful,'” said Mary.

In 1942, they bought their Windham Center Road home, where they would raise their five children, Patty, Malcolm, Robert, Guy and Michael, plus a number of state wards who became close members of the family. With 10 acres of land, they had plenty of room to play, and the boys dammed up Otter Creek to use as a skating rink.

Malcolm went to work for Central Maine Power, running the North Gorham power station for 31 years until back problems forced his retirement. Mary then got her real estate license, and sold homes throughout the area in the 1960s and ’70s.

They summered by the lake, for 24 years on Sebago, where they still have a family cottage, and for another 24 years in Malcolm’s Lubec.

“We always had a full house here,” said Mary.

Through it all they’ve stayed healthy, active and happy, always talking things over, always with a sense of humor.

“Oh, well, I’m an angel,” said Malcolm, when asked how they have stayed together for so long. “You learn to say yes.”

Now, seven decades after their first meeting, Malcolm can think back to their wedding day, and with a laugh tell you how fortunate he is.

“I tell ya, I was a lucky man when I got married,” he said. “I knew there were better girls than there were in Lubec.”

On Feb. 5, Malcolm and Mary Lyons celebrated 71 years as husband and wife, almost all of it spent in Windham, first at her parents’ farm on the River Road, then at their own home on the Windham Center Road.