One of the largest groups of registrants from Monroe County to be inducted into military service since World War II was forwarded to the induction station at St. Louis on Aug. 24, 1954, which was around the time of the Korean War.

Longtime reader Mary Crook brought in a clipping from the Aug. 26, 1954 issue of the Waterloo Times in memory of her late husband, Harold Crook. He entered the volunteer draft in January 1954 and was called up to leave for the U.S. Army along with this group.

Pictured is the group of young Monroe County men preparing to depart from what was then the bus depot at 108 N. Market Street in Waterloo to the induction station in St. Louis for military service in Aug. 24, 1954. This photo ran in the Waterloo Times and the newspaper clipping was brought into the office by Mary Crook, wife of the late Harold Crook (pictured in front row, third from right).

Mary met her future husband on May 15 of that year, and they dated about three months before becoming engaged the night before he left.

Harold served in the Army for two years before returning home in 1956. He remained in the Army Reserves for eight years.

Harold passed away in 2011.

“We were married 55 years and they were the best years of our lives,” Mary said.

Along with Crook, the group forwarded to induction 60 years ago included Daniel Hildebrandt, Lowell Bergmann, Leon Landgraf, Herman Stumpf, Donald Bequette, Alvin Rey, Roland Keim, William Swartz, Roy Henke, Roy Schreder, Darvin Wagner, Jesse Whiteside, James Mechler, Curtis Mosbacher, George Rippelmeyer, Lester Korte, Paul Miller, Ralph Williams, Wilbert Degener, Michael Pettit, Willard Bachelier, Clarence Guebert, Elwood Harres, James Cotton, Louis Kohler and Richard Stiens.