As a teen, Robert Lott didn't think much about the 12-year-old daughter of his Sunday school teacher back in Philadelphia. She was just another kid.

But later, when Lott, who was in New Guinea with the U.S. Army during World War II, received a letter from and photo of that girl, Elinore Gray, his feelings started to change.

"I showed my buddy the picture, saying, 'Wow! Look at this!' " said Lott, now living in Hawai'i Kai. "The 12-year-old had grown into a beautiful young lady."

In January 1946, Lott arrived in Philadelphia, eager to visit Gray, then a senior in high school. He went to see her at her parents' home in Collingdale, Penn., to thank her for thinking of him while he was away. They became inseparable.

"I had seen movies of two people who met and immediately knew they had fallen in love, and I thought that would never really happen," Lott said. "(But) from the moment I met Elinore, we fell in love."

A month later, on Valentine's Day, Lott and Gray went for a walk. He pulled out an engagement ring, told her how much he loved her, and asked her to marry him. She said yes, but they decided not to tell their parents until she graduated from high school that June.

The next month the couple hopped a train to New York City, where they saw the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, visited the Empire State Building and took in a show at the Rockefeller Center.

The more time they spent together, the more Lott knew she was the one for him.

"She was a real nice girl," Lott said. "I knew a lot about her family. And I fell in love with her right away. It was love at first sight."

During the next couple of months, Lott would spend the evening at Gray's home, sitting on the couch in the living room and talking. Sometimes they would stay up past her parents, who had retired to bed. If Lott stayed too long, Gray's father would bang his shoes on the floor, "which meant I should go home," Lott said, laughing.

In June 1946, after Gray graduated from high school, the couple announced to their parents that they were engaged. At first, Gray's father was concerned his daughter, then 17, was too young. But he gave his blessing to the union.

Five months later, on Nov. 16, 1946, Lott and Gray were married in a candlelit evening ceremony at the Mount Zion Methodist Episcopal Church in Darby, Penn.

"The sight of Elinore, carrying a small, white Bible and white orchids, arm in arm with her father, walking slowly down the aisle, is one which I shall never forget," Lott said.

The newlyweds spent a week in Miami on their honeymoon before returning to Sharon Hill, Penn., where they lived with Lott's parents.

Four months into their marriage, the couple bought their first home in nearby Prospect Park. Lott worked as a train dispatcher for the local railroad; Gray worked part time until she gave birth to their first son in 1948.

Seven years and two more sons later, the family moved into another home in Pine Ridge, about five miles away.

During those years Lott and Gray worked hard at making ends meet. If they didn't have enough groceries by Sunday, they packed up the boys and went to her mother's house for dinner.

But they took the advice of their parents to heart. "Never put anything on charges," Lott said. "Pay everything in cash and you'll never have to worry. That always worked."

The couple loved to take their three sons on vacations and hiking along nearby trails. Most years in December, they would take the train to New York City to see the annual Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. They'd stand in line for two hours in the snow. Back then it cost 75 cents per person to see the show, Lott said. It quickly became a family tradition.

In December 1968 Lott and Gray took two of their sons to visit a relative in Pasadena, Calif. Instead of traveling back to Philadelphia with the boys, the couple got on a plane for a three-week vacation in Hawai'i.

This is when the love affair with the Islands started — at least for Gray.

Back home, Lott was working two jobs — for the railroad and at his church — with thoughts of entering seminary school. He wasn't sure about moving to Hawai'i just yet.

That decision didn't happen until August 1978, when the couple came to O'ahu to spend time with their son's wife, who was about to give birth.

Their son was stationed at Pearl Harbor but deployed at the time. Lott and Gray wanted to support their daughter-in-law through the final stages of her pregnancy.

Little did they know they'd never leave.

"Elinore loved it so much here, she said we'll make it work," Lott said. "Things just fell into place ... It's interesting how the good Lord works."

In January 1979, they bought a condo in Hawai'i Kai — where they still live — and Lott got a job working as a pastor with the United Methodist Church in Palolo. (He retired from the railroads after 38 years.)

After 60 years of marriage, the two are still smitten with each other and with the Islands. They swim almost daily in the pool in their building and hang out at the beaches in Waimanalo or Waikiki.

The best part of the marriage has been raising their family, Lott said. Their three sons now live on the East Coast. But one of their five grandchildren is in Hawai'i.

Lott is 83, his wife is now 78.

"We had such a good time together," Lott said. "We always did."

For their 60th anniversary last month, they scrapped their plans to travel to Alaska for a week. Instead, they went out to a quiet dinner for two.

How have they managed to stay together so long — and still be so in love?

"We put up with each other," Lott said, laughing.

"It's the way of doing it. She never went home to her mother and I never went home to mine. We never separated."

Reach Catherine E. Toth at ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com.