PORT ANGELES — Paul Baker looks deep into the eyes of his bride-to-be and blows a soft kiss in her direction.
“Look at me like you love me,” says Baker mischievously to his fiancée, Louise H. Kolb of Port Angeles, as she snuggles next to him on her living room couch to pose for a portrait.
“I know you love me,” Kolb answers sweetly as she wraps her arms around his hand.
“I just like to hear you say it once in a while.”
Like most couples on the day before they are to wed, Baker and Kolb are all hugs and kisses.
But this is not your average about-to-be-married couple.
For starters, Baker and Kolb reunited less than three weeks ago after living apart in different states for decades.
For the longest time the only contact between them consisted of a Christmas greeting card that Kolb mailed Baker annually.
Also unique to this union — set to be made official at a ceremony at Hillcrest Baptist Church tonight at 7 — is the fact that Kolb is 94 and Baker is 84.
Three-week courtship
Up until three weeks ago, Kolb admits that she barely thought about Baker or his family, which she first met back in 1949 in California.
At that time, Kolb’s husband — who died in 1979 — worked side-by-side with Baker to build a church with the help of several families.
After her husband’s death, Kolb moved around the country until finally settling in Port Angeles in 2002.
Despite having her sister in town as well as several friends, Kolb — who never had any children — felt firsthand the pangs of loneliness.
“These walls don’t talk to you,” Kolb said.
But then one day in April, she got an unexpected call from Baker, who tracked down her phone number after seeing her Port Angeles address on the Christmas card envelope she had mailed him.
“He’s lucky he found me,” she says.