Leo Lanctot was back from the army and serving as sports editor of The Daily Freeman Journal when he met Carroll, his now-wife of more than 50 years. 

Why wait? That was the philosophy that compelled Leo Lanctot to enlist in the U.S. Army very soon after high school graduation back in 1963.

“I wanted to beat the draft,” Lanctot recalled. “My older brothers were both drafted. One of them became an MP and the other was in a technical field.”

Lanctot hoped that by enlisting he would have a better opportunity to select how he would serve.

Growing up in far northwest Minnesota had pretty much prepared Lanctot for whatever lay ahead. It’s hard to imagine an Iowa winter that was ever too much for a northern Minnesota native. His family lived on a farm near Crookston, only about 150 miles from Canada. With no passport needed in those days, visiting Canada was easy and they would go about every year to visit a family cemetery at Winnipeg.

Lanctot graduated from Crookston High School in 1963 and was ready to set off and see the world while serving his country.

“I enlisted in the army right away,” he said. “I got my choice of jobs and I could pretty much pick what I wanted to do. I picked mechanics.”

Lanctot left in the summer of 1963 for basic training at Fort Ord, California.

“After basic, I went to mechanic’s school and when I got to the base an opening for dispatcher’s job came up and I took it.”

Like everyone of his generation, November 22, 1963, was a day he could never forget. He had completed basic training and was at Fort Dix, N.J., preparing to be shipped overseas when news broke of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

To this day, Lanctot is filled with emotion at the memory. His wife, Carroll, also recalls the moment. She was a junior at Webster City High School and was in bookkeeping class.

The memory of Kennedy, and the ideals he stood for, remain important to both Lanctots.

Life went on and Lanctot soon boarded a troop ship for what was then known as West Germany, arriving in February 1964.

“I enjoyed Germany,” he said. “The people were friendly and we got along well. I wasn’t too far from Ramstein Air Force Base. The base would gain world-wide attention in 1980 when the freed Iranian hostages were taken there for medical treatment after their release.

Lanctot also enjoyed his work in the army during this time.

“I worked in the motor pool as a records clerk and dispatcher and that kept me pretty busy keeping all of the records straight.”

When not on duty, Lanctot had a chance to see a bit of Europe. He took a bus trip to Austria and took a separate trip to France, seeing many of the popular sites, including the Eiffel Tower.

Lanctot would serve just shy of three years in the army. He was sent back to the United States from Germany in May 1966 and prepared for honorable discharge. He returned to help on the family farm and attended one year of junior college in Crookston before enrolling at Morgan State University where he earned a degree in journalism.

It was that journalism background that led him to Webster City. He became sports editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal, working for long-time editor Max Maxon. Newspaper work involved long hours, often every day of the week, but it provided the advantage of quickly meeting many people in his new community — and Lanctot did just that.

Carroll Bellamy was going to church with her sister-in-law when she noticed that Lanctot was always there alone. She would also see him at K&M Dry Cleaner’s where she worked, again noticing that he was usually alone. One of her co-workers suggested to someone at the paper that he should ask Carroll out, and he did just that one Sunday morning after church.

“I think all of our dates were going with him to cover something for the newspaper,” Carroll recalled. “He couldn’t afford anything else back then, and he was working all of the time.”

After sporting events, she would go back to the paper with him as he developed film and then printed photos. After a football or basketball game, they might be at the paper until 1 a.m.

The couple married on June 9, 1973. They later moved to Knoxville, where he again worked for a newspaper and then Vermeer Manufacturing in Pella before returning to Webster City in 1977. Over the years, he would work at Nissen’s and Heller’s Carbonic before retiring from Electrolux.

Lanctot is a former commander of American Legion Post 191 in Webster City and has long enjoyed being active with the Legion.

“I’ve made a lot of good friendships there, just like I did in the military,” he said. “The people I worked with at the base in Germany, we became buddies.”