Norwich ― Albert R. Couture and his wife, high school sweetheart Margaret McAvoy Couture, left the Norwich area shortly after their 1946 marriage and traveled the world for his long and celebrated career in the U.S. Air Force.

But they never lost their love of southeastern Connecticut, Rocky Neck State Park, Devil’s Hopyard State Park, Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough and Connecticut grinders.

Albert Couture, a 1942 Norwich Free Academy graduate, World War II veteran, a military training officer during the Korean War, a rescue pilot in the Vietnam War and a retired Air Force colonel, died Oct. 11, three months shy of his 100th birthday.

His wife, a 1944 NFA graduate, died Aug. 20, 2021, after 75 years of marriage. Albert will be buried beside her at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors on an unscheduled date in 2025, the family said.

The Norwich City Council will honor Albert Couture on Monday with a proclamation to be read at the start of the 7:30 p.m. meeting at City Hall. Mayor Peter Nystrom has invited family members in the region and members of the Norwich Area Veterans’ Council to attend the tribute.

Several nieces and nephews of the Coutures are expected to attend. Their seven children, however, live in places across the country and will be unable to attend.

“We’re delighted Norwich is doing this,” said Eileen Mattei, 77, the Coutures’ eldest daughter, who was born in Norwich. “They loved the area. We went to camp at Rocky Neck State Park. It was one of our vacation spots when we visited. And Devil’s Hopyard. Lobster at Abbott’s was a must have. The family had to go there.”

The family held a visitation on Friday in Springfield, Va., where the Coutures lived for 40 years after he retired from the Air Force. For the reception, Mattei ordered Connecticut-style grinders from a local shop.

“They make it to our specifications,” she said.

Albert Couture was born in Norwich Jan. 3, 1925, son of Albert E. and Alma LaBrie Couture. At NFA, he was the catcher on the school baseball team, and in 2017 he returned to Norwich for a team reunion.

Margaret McAvoy was a neighbor Couture met when he was 15. He told their children later in life that he was instantly attracted to her.

“I knew by the time she was 16 that I was going to marry her,” family quoted him as saying in the obituary they wrote for their father.

But when Couture graduated from NFA, war was raging. He joined the U.S. Army Air Force. He entered officer training, and at age 19, he flew his first of 28 missions as a navigator on a B24 in the 456th Bomb Group, based in Cerignola, Italy.

He wrote to Margaret back home, and after the war, the two wed when she was 18 and he was 21 at the Cathedral of St. Patrick in Norwich.

But in 1949, on the eve of the Korean War, he was recalled into the Air Force and served as a navigation instructor, Mattei said. A decade later, he became an aircraft commander and served as an air rescue squadron pilot on C-133 aircraft during the Vietnam War in Saigon, as well as serving in Japan and Guam.

Continuing his career, Couture worked on early computers in the Air Force in the 1960s and was chosen as a test pilot for rocket-assisted takeoffs for DC-3 aircraft. He served at the Pentagon for a number of years and later at Wright’s Air Force Base in Ohio.

During his career, the family moved often.

“We were in Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Texas and Oklahoma,” Mattei said.

Couture’s service did not end with retirement. In 2004, he was invited to sign the entry stone at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., and in 2022, he laid the first brick at the National Army Museum.

The family moved so much when she was young that Mattei’s birthplace in Norwich remained her legal address. She attended the University of Connecticut and graduated in 1970 with a degree in anthropology. Mattei enjoyed the family’s jaunts around the world.

“That’s what led to me becoming a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa and Mexico,” she said.

The Coutures also have 13 grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

Family members recalled more than their father’s military service last week. Son-in-law Allan Walton said Couture had a wide range of interests. He built the deck at his Springfield, Va., home and constructed kitchen cabinets. He loved history, aviation and computer science.

“He would text more than some young people,” Walton said.

The family had to twist his arm to get him to stop working on the house or climbing onto the roof in his later years.

“He was sharp as a tack right up to the end,” Mattei said.

Asked to recall their father’s main words of advice, Mattei said: “Love, laugh and eat bacon and eggs for breakfast.”

c.bessette@theday.com