George A. Hough 3rd and his wife Mary Lu Hough of Indian Hill will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary on Sunday.

On Oct. 22, 1943, the Vineyard Gazette, then owned and edited by the bridegroom’s uncle, Henry Beetle Hough and his wife, Elizabeth Bowie Hough, reported the young couple’s wedding as follows:

Only a few hours after his graduation on Wednesday from the Midshipmen’s School. U.S.N.R. at Columbia University, Ensign George A. Hough 3rd of Falmouth and North Tisbury, son of Mr. and Mrs. George A. Hough Jr., was married to Miss Mary Lu Slack of Viroqua, Wis. The ceremony took place at Riverside Church in New York, and was performed by the Naval chaplain, Lieut. Comdr. C. Leslie Glenn, U.S.N.R. in the presence of a few friends and relatives.

The bride, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. D..E. Slack, wore a dressmaker suit of zephyr blue, a small hat of dark blue felt trimmed with fuchsia feathers, and a purple orchid . . . . Those present at the wedding included the parents of the bride and of the bridegroom; George A. Hough of Fish Hook, North Tisbury, grandfather of the ensign; Mrs. Raymond King of Reading, Pa., an aunt of the bride; Miss Mary Small Kurtz of York, Pa., fiancée of Pvt. John T. Hough, of the U.S. Marine Corps. the ensign’s brother, and Miss Natalie Norton of New York and North Tisbury.

Mrs. Hough was graduated from the School of Journalism, University of Wisconsin, in June. She was a member of Alpha Phi sorority and president of Coranto, women’s journalism society. She spent the past few months as a reporter for the Mt. Clemens. Mich. Monitor-Leader.

The ensign is a graduate of the Lenox School, Lenox, Mass,, and of the School of Journalism, University of Wisconsin, where he was a member of Sigma Nu Fraternity, president of the Madison chapter, and a member of Alpha Sigma Xi, national journalism fraternity.

After a brief wedding trip on the Vineyard, Ensign Hough will report for active duty.

The bridegroom’s next two years were spent aboard an LST, where he participated in the landing at the Anzio beachhead in Italy, a landing of French troops on the island of Elba in Italy, and a landing in southern France. After that landing, the Gazette proudly reported: “The Navy and Marine Corps Medal was awarded to Ensign George A. Hough 3rd for saving a soldier who was floundering in the water after the landing.”

While her new husband was overseas, Mary Lu Hough worked as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press and the United Press News Service in Detroit. On his return, George Hough was assigned to the Navy Public Information Office in Detroit and later to Naval Office Procurement there. He left the Navy in September 1946 and spent the next five years with the Detroit Free Press. After that, the energetic young Houghs bought and edited the weekly newspaper in Mrs. Hough’s hometown of Viroqua, Wis. Meanwhile, their daughter, Mary Pat, named for her great-grandfather, George A. (Pat) Hough, was born.

The Houghs gave up weekly newspaper editing when George Hough was asked to be managing editor of the Grand County Independent in Lancaster, Wis. He left that job to obtain a Ph.D. in linguistics at Michigan State in East Lansing.

Finding academia appealing, he began to teach journalism at Michigan State’s School of Journalism, where he remained for 23 years, many of them as chairman of the department. Later, he spent 12 years on the journalism faculty at the University of Georgia in Athens.

In 1990, the Houghs retired to a house they had built at Indian Hill near Pat Hough’s house, Fish Hook. Because it was largely built from royalties from the five editions of George Hough’s journalism textbook News Writing, they called their new home the Book House.

Mrs. Hough said this week that her recipe for a long marriage is sharing, caring and patience.

Although no major celebration is planned for the Sunday anniversary, the Houghs are expecting their daughter, Mary Pat Hough-Greene to be joining them from Pennsylvania, and perhaps their grandson Neil, and his wife and son, Harper from Needham. Their granddaughter, Lydia Lura Harner and her children, Declan and Patrick Jr. are in Okinawa where her husband is stationed with the Marine Corps.