Abie Abraham and Chris Wolf were a couple for more than 14 years before Abie proposed in June.

"One morning, he said, 'Wouldn't you like to be Mrs. Abraham?" Chris remembers. "Of course I said 'yes!'"

The Renfrew couple was married Aug. 3 at the Saxonburg Municipal Building in a ceremony officiated by District Judge Sue Haggerty.

A native of Lyndora, Abie is well-known as a survivor of the Bataan Death March of 1942, in which about 75,000 prisoners, 12,000 of them American, were forced to march 65 miles in tropical 100-degree heat as they were brutally transferred by Japanese captors on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. Thousands died.

In addition to his military service, Abie has volunteered more than 36,000 hours at VA Butler Healthcare. He works several days a week at the center, but took a rare day off for the wedding ceremony.

Wedding guests included the bride's mother Hilda Vawryk and their friends, George and Mary Kay Wallace of Wellsburg, W.Va.

The couple had hosted about 50 people at Abie's 96th birthday party earlier in the week, but chose to have a low-key wedding ceremony.

"It was a really small wedding," said George Wallace. "They wanted it that way."

The ceremony was followed by dinner at the Springfield Grille in Adams Township, where the couple was warmly received.

People took notice when they pulled into the parking lot with 'Just Married — Abie and Chris' emblazoned across their car, Wallace said.

"It was really neat," Chris said. "There were wedding bells on it and everything."

Wallace said he enjoyed seeing others' reactions to the newlyweds.

"They were quite a hit at the restaurant," Wallace said. "Everybody that meets them is quite taken by them."

The couple first met about 15 years ago after bumping into each other at a garden center, Chris said.

"I was there looking at plants, and he came up to me and said, 'Would you be my girlfriend?'" Chris said. "He was a really nice guy."

The pair started off as friends and the relationship blossomed from there.

Chris said she did not know many details at first about Abie's experiences during World War II.

Abie, who was declared missing in action in 1942, endured the brutality of Japanese prison camps for more than three years before the survivors were liberated in 1945 by American soldiers.

He documented his experiences in two memoirs, "The Ghost of Bataan Speaks" and "Oh God Where Are You?"

He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Ellis Island Family Heritage Award and Purple Heart, and has been featured in documentaries and television shows.

"When I went to his home and saw all of his certificates and pictures, I thought, 'He really is a hero,'" Chris said. "His house was just loaded with awards."

Wallace echoed the sentiment and said that Abie has led a "life well-lived."

"He has devoted his entire life to the service of others," Wallace said. "That's one of the best things anybody can say about him."

Abie is remarkably positive and harbors no anger against his former captors, said Wallace, who edits the publication of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor.

"Years and years ago, he decided to move on," Wallace said. "He once told me that those who hold resentments and anger die young."

When he's not volunteering, Abie spends most of his time speaking on the behalf of veterans, Wallace said.

"They spend probably a hundred days a year away traveling around for speaking engagements," Wallace said.

Chris said she didn't think they needed a special wedding trip.

"Life is a honeymoon," she said.

Wallace said the Abrahams are devoted to one another and that it is "amazing to see people like that."

"I asked him once what Chris meant to him," Wallace said. "He said, 'She's my everything.'"