A second life: Hubert Moes' story

“You know, you're married to a page in history,” a friend once told Carmen Moes.

There’s no better way to describe the life story of her husband, Hubert Moes (pronounced “moose”).

Today, Hubert Moes is a tall, handsome man wearing bifocals and house shoes. He has a Dutch accent and soft voice but is by no means soft-spoken. One minute, he’ll be getting teary-eyed talking about an emotional moment in his life. The next, he’ll be on his hands and knees to illustrate a story. His whole face lights up when he smiles — and that happens a lot. “Hu” is always cracking jokes.

Carmen says her husband is quite the character. “Oh that’s just Hubert” is a bit of a catchphrase in their home, she said.

Hubert returned in early June from a cross-country motorcycle ride to Washington, D.C., by way of California for a special Memorial Day gathering at the Veterans Memorial. A three-week journey like that is incredible as it is.

But Hubert is 78 years old.

“He doesn’t know he’s old,” Carmen said.

These days, Hubert splits his time between spending time with family, riding with the Temple Riders Association, restoring a Triumph TR6, serving in the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple and being an all-around cheerful man.

“He’s just all the good things you can say about anyone,” said Don Mortenson, a sealer at the temple who works with Hubert and used his story in a fireside.

But Hubert's life — and personality — haven't always been this way.

“My story as a child and a teenager was not pretty”

Hubert was born in 1932 to a Dutch father and Indonesian mother in what was then the Dutch East Indies.

World War II was full of atrocities, especially Nazi concentration camps and the genocide of Jews. With a very European-focused history, it’s all too easy to forget what happened in Asia before Hiroshima.

Beginning in 1941, the Indies was overrun by the Japanese. Hubert was living with his family on the island of Java, which was rich in oil, rubber, rice and coffee — all a major draw for the Japanese armies.