Keeping his family his top priority and managing to laugh through life's triumphs and struggles helped Juan "Ansing" Cabogsa Cube live to see his 103rd birthday last March.

There will be plenty of family and laughter in Waipahu this Christmas week, too, as his family gathers from across the country to remember Cube, who died Nov. 29.

One of the second wave of "sakada" plantation workers who arrived from the Philippines in 1924, Cube was honored earlier this year by the consulate general of the Philippines with a letter of recognition signed by Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Nine of Cube's surviving children, including seven from the Mainland, are expected to be in town by this evening. They will be coming from California, Nevada and Virginia.

It will be the first time this many of the Cube children will be together since his 100th birthday celebration in March 2005, said granddaughter Zelda Medina.

It's almost as if Cube (pronounced Coo-beh) was calling his children home for the holidays.

"We don't know when it's going to happen again, as far as the family getting together," Medina said.

The family will gather for lunch tomorrow, Christmas Day, at the Waipahu home of daughter Purita Tejero, before the two days of services Friday and Saturday.

Born in Santa Ignacia, Tarlac, in Central Luzon, Cube settled on Kaua'i, where first he was a laborer at the Kealia plantation. He later sold merchandise to field workers out of a truck.

For a time, Cube moved back to the Philippines but he returned to Hawai'i in 1972 after his first wife died. He wanted to be with his children, nearly all of whom had already decided as adults to return to the U.S.

Tejero, 63, said family was always her father's top priority. As youths growing up in the Philippines, Cube would make their lunches, she said. As a grandfather and later as a great-grandfather, he would drive his progeny to school.

Medina said her grandfather always found a way to laugh through both the highs and lows of life.

"If he wasn't in pain, he would be dancing, laughing and singing," Medina said, noting that he was full of laughter the last time she saw him in early November.

Cube died of pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed in July.

He stayed active nearly to the end and was bedridden only the last week or so of his life, Tejero said. "He's at rest now."

Cube is survived by his wife, Felicidad F.; sons, Juan Jr. and Joseph; daughters, Ida Sabado, Janet Claridad, Clara Devera, Elizabeth Gardner, Purita Tejero, Anita Miguel, Merlinda Tengco and Nicita Paclob; 20 grandchildren, 37 great-grandchildren; and sister, Eming Santiago.

Friends may visit from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at Mililani Mortuary Mauka Chapel. Services begin at 6:30. Friends may also visit from 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the chapel where a service will begin at 10:30. Burial takes place at 11 a.m. at Mililani Memorial Park. Flowers are welcome. Casual attire.