Frans August Larson
Encyclopedia
Frans August Larson was a Swedish
missionary to Mongolia
. He was the author of Larson, Duke of Mongolia which described time spent in Central Asia
.
, Örebro County
, in the historical Swedish province of Västmanland
. Larson's father died when Larson was three and his mother died when he was nine. He then became a servant boy for another one of the estate's crofters. At first he worked in the gardens, and with the cattle in the barn. Later, he became a stable boy, and he developed a passionate interest in horses which was to shape his life.
At seventeen, Larson wanted to go to Brazil
, but was prevented from this by his sister Edla, who told him that he must wait until he had turned 21 and was of age to pursue such adventures. Instead, he was allowed to work at a blacksmith's shop. In 1889 he took the boat from Vaesteraas to Stockholm to visit Edla. She was married to a general contractor, who felt that his young brother-in-law ought to become an architect. Larson began work as a carpenter on his brother-in-law's building projects in order to qualify for architecture studies in Stockholm.
During this period, Larson became interested in missionary work through the influence of his sister. He enrolled in the mission school in Eskilstuna
, and rather than begin his studies at architecture school, he accepted employment with an American missionary society which worked in China and Mongolia.In this pursuit, he was driven more by a thirst for adventure and his love of horses than by his religious zeal. Together with other missionaries-to-be, he was sent to England for six weeks of training before his departure for China and Mongolia.
and on to Paotao, a distance of over 700 miles. Larson covered most of this distance on foot, since he was too tall to ride a donkey, and he was too much of an animal lover to accept a ride in a wagon drawn by draft animals that were relentlessly whipped by the driver.
Larson was gifted both in social matters and at languages. He came into contact with the prince of the province of Ordos, who provided him with a teacher of the Mongolian language. When he had learned enough to get by on his own, he made his way northward to Urga (modern day Ulan Bator) in order to refine his new language skills.
The trip took just over a month. He stayed in Urga one year, and then traveled southward again. He settled in Kalgan (Zhangjiakou
) on the border between China and Mongolia, just south of the steppes and the northernmost arm of the Great Wall of China
. There, he fell in love with an American woman missionary. She was a year older than he, her name was Mary Rogers, and she came from Albany in the state of New York. They married in 1897.
Kalgan
lies about 140 miles northwest of Beijing, and was an important junction for caravan traffic westward to Sianking and northward to Mongolia and Russia. People who had business in those regions passed through Kalgan, and many visited the Larson family. One such person was Sven Hedin
the world-famous Swedish explorer. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Another guest in the Larson household was future American President, Herbert Hoover
, an engineer working on the task of staking out a railroad between Beijing and the Mongolian border.
, which broke out in China in the year 1900, was a hunt for foreigners- foreign influences in general, and missionaries and Christian converts in specific. About 220 missionaries, including 45 Swedes, and untold thousands of Christian Chinese were slaughtered by the Boxers. With a loaded rifle always at the ready, Larson managed to save himself, his wife and two small daughters, and about 20 Swedish and American missionaries, and got the party to Siberia. Larson had about twenty camels, fifteen horses and several draft oxen at pasture north of Kalgan. The animals belonged to the British consul in Beijing, C.W. Campbell. They were to have been used on an expedition Larson had agreed to lead. The Boxer Rebellion put a stop to this expedition. Campbell was confined to the British legation in Beijing, and Larson was able to use the animals to escape.
Larson was forced to leave most of his belongings in Kalgan. The Boxers destroyed everything, including the research for a Swedish-English-Mongolian dictionary that he and his wife had worked on together for several years. To get back on his feet financially Larson began working as an interpreter and foreman at a newly-opened gold mine near the city of Kiakta on the border of Mongolia and Siberia. After four months, he had earned enough for the family to take the Trans-Siberian Railway
to Finland
and to then travel via Sweden and by boat to the USA and his wife's hometown of Albany, New York
.
Less than a year later, he was back in Siberia. A rich American had lent him 200 dollars for the trip, and he had twelve cents left when he walked into the gold mine offices in Kiakta. There, he became a guide and interpreter for two Swedish railway engineers (Major Wilhelm Olivecrona and Engineer Carl Lagerholm), who had just built a railway in Norrland
in northern Sweden, and were staking out a railway from Siberia via Urga to Beijing.
However, the project was abandoned, and Larson was unemployed. He then turned to a British missionary society, offering to become their representative in Mongolia. His task was to distribute Mongolian-language Bibles to the Mongols. The year was 1902. The family took up residence in Kalgan again, and Larson's wife resumed her missionary work while Larson crossed Mongolia with a caravan consisting of five horses, four Mongolian assistants and ten camels loaded with Bibles which were distributed to Buddhist nomads.
Larson continued with this work for twelve years. He became very familiar with Mongolia and her many peoples. He became the friend of princes, nobility and Buddhist lamas, including Bogdo Gegen, The Living Buddha of Urga. Within Tibetan Lamaism, Bogdo Gegen ranked as the third potentate after the Dalai Lama
and the Panchen Lama
, and from 1911 until his death, he was also the Emperor of Mongolia. Larson's services to him included helping the Emperor obtain a Model T Ford.
Larson was now 43 years old. He had spent 20 years in Mongolia and was well on the way to becoming a legend. War had broken out between Mongolia and China as a result of the fall of the royal dynasty in 1911 and Mongolia's declaration of independence. The Chinese, who had started the conflict, were faring poorly, and wanted to end the war. China's president. Yuan Shikai
, turned to Larson, who succeeded in forging peace. As a result, he was appointed the [Chinese] president's advisor on Mongolian issues. When he ended his work after two years, he was rewarded for his efforts with a citation of honor and 36,000 Chinese dollars (equivalent to three years'wages).
Content to leave the big city behind, Larson returned to "Tabo-ol," his ranch on the steppes north of Kalgan, where he had established a profitable horse breeding business, providing horses for the race tracks at Beijing, Shanghai
and Tientsin. Larson now left both missionary work and politics behind, and turned to business. In 1917, he became part owner in the Danish-American commerce house, Andersson & Mayer. Five years later, he started his own commerce business, F.A. Larson and Company, with offices in Kalgan and Urga. Using Dodge
trucks from America, he could ship freight between the two cities in four days. In the days of camel caravans, it had taken more than a month to cover the same route.
, the famous paleontologist who hunted for dinosaur remains in the Gobi desert. In thanks, Larson was made an honorary member of the board of the American Museum of Natural History
in New York City
.
Ever since their very first meeting, Larson and explorer Sven Hedin
had spoken about a joint expedition. In 1927, it became a reality, it was the largest scientific expedition that had been organized in Mongolia. Larson was responsible for logistics, which included such tasks as obtaining 300 camels, 26 Mongolian tents, and a year's worth of supplies for 65 persons.
During a visit to Sweden in 1929, Larson met the great Swedish industrialist Ivar Kreuger
, "The Match King", and suggested that he make investments in China. "If you can get something big going, I'm in," answered Krueger. Larson began planning a gigantic railway project which would connect Nanjing
with Urumqi
in Xinjiang
, and with Novosibirsk
in Russia. Krueger would provide the financing in exchange for monopolies on the safety match markets in north and central China. Larson had just gotten the Chinese government to agree to the idea when a newswire came from Paris: Ivar Krueger was dead!
Several years later, then-president of China, Chiang Kai Shek, had asked Larson to report on the situation in northern China. Larson tried to get the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to send a group of Swedish military officers to train several thousand Mongols to watch the mountain passes in the borderlands between China and Mongolia. The area was rife with bandits, as well as Communist troops, to the detriment of his own business, among other things. However, this suggestion was refused by the Swedish consul in Shanghai. He did not even want to forward the plan to Stockholm
, which Larson later deeply regretted. He felt that enacting this plan would have prevented the communist revolution in China.
, where he was reunited with his wife and his now-grown children, and continued on to Sweden, where he had purchased a mink farm together with a relative. Then the Second World War broke out. It became impossible to get fuel and tires for the trucks that were to transport feed for the minks. The minks were sold at a loss. Larson got onto the first boat back to New York, and from there went to Alabama
, where one of his brothers lived.
Larson was close to seventy years old. He had no hopes of any sort of pension. In order to provide for himself, he bought a farm for $1500, on which he began to raise chickens. However, his wife longed for her relatives in California, so after three years, he moved his operations there. Chicken farming was profitable. At the height of his farming operation, he had more than 1,000 chickens, but tired of this after a few years, because he had no time left over for anything else. He again took up the trade he had learned as a teenager in Stockholm — at 75 years of age, he began to build single-family homes. It proved to be more lucrative and less time-consuming than chicken farming.
At 80 years of age, Larson felt the urge to travel again. His wife had died, so he sold his house and went to Sweden, where he spent a year traveling. That same year, he published his book Larson, Duke of Mongolia, about his adventures in Central Asia.
Back in North America, he lived on Vancouver Island
in Canada for eight months, helping a newly-immigrated Swedish couple get started. After this, he spent his summer months with them, and winter with his daughter in southern California. In 1957, Larson died at the age of 87. He was buried in a cemetery in Altadena, California
.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
missionary to Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
. He was the author of Larson, Duke of Mongolia which described time spent in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
.
Background
Larson was born to a poor family as child number eleven. His parents were crofters (tenant farmers) on an estate known as Hälleby, in Örebro MunicipalityÖrebro Municipality
Örebro Municipality is a municipality in Örebro County in central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Örebro.The municipality was created from the City of Örebro and surrounding rural municipalities in 1971 and with some areas added in 1974 it had an area of 1,840 km²...
, Örebro County
Örebro County
Örebro County is a county or län in central Sweden. It borders the counties of Västra Götaland, Värmland, Dalarna, Västmanland, Södermanland and Östergötland.- Province :...
, in the historical Swedish province of Västmanland
Västmanland
' is a historical Swedish province, or landskap, in middle Sweden. It borders Södermanland, Närke, Värmland, Dalarna and Uppland.The name comes from "West men", referring to the people west of Uppland, the core province of early Sweden.- Administration :...
. Larson's father died when Larson was three and his mother died when he was nine. He then became a servant boy for another one of the estate's crofters. At first he worked in the gardens, and with the cattle in the barn. Later, he became a stable boy, and he developed a passionate interest in horses which was to shape his life.
At seventeen, Larson wanted to go to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, but was prevented from this by his sister Edla, who told him that he must wait until he had turned 21 and was of age to pursue such adventures. Instead, he was allowed to work at a blacksmith's shop. In 1889 he took the boat from Vaesteraas to Stockholm to visit Edla. She was married to a general contractor, who felt that his young brother-in-law ought to become an architect. Larson began work as a carpenter on his brother-in-law's building projects in order to qualify for architecture studies in Stockholm.
During this period, Larson became interested in missionary work through the influence of his sister. He enrolled in the mission school in Eskilstuna
Eskilstuna
Eskilstuna is a city and the seat of Eskilstuna Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 60,185 inhabitants in 2005. Eskilstuna has a large Sweden Finn population....
, and rather than begin his studies at architecture school, he accepted employment with an American missionary society which worked in China and Mongolia.In this pursuit, he was driven more by a thirst for adventure and his love of horses than by his religious zeal. Together with other missionaries-to-be, he was sent to England for six weeks of training before his departure for China and Mongolia.
Mongolia
Frans August Larson, was the first Christian & Missionary Alliance missionary to Mongolia. The year was 1893, and Larson was now 23 years old. From the harbor city of Tientsin, he traveled to BeijingBeijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
and on to Paotao, a distance of over 700 miles. Larson covered most of this distance on foot, since he was too tall to ride a donkey, and he was too much of an animal lover to accept a ride in a wagon drawn by draft animals that were relentlessly whipped by the driver.
Larson was gifted both in social matters and at languages. He came into contact with the prince of the province of Ordos, who provided him with a teacher of the Mongolian language. When he had learned enough to get by on his own, he made his way northward to Urga (modern day Ulan Bator) in order to refine his new language skills.
The trip took just over a month. He stayed in Urga one year, and then traveled southward again. He settled in Kalgan (Zhangjiakou
Zhangjiakou
Zhangjiakou, also known also by several other names, is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Hebei province of North China, adjacent to Beijing to the southeast. Its administrative area has a population of 4.35 million, and covers...
) on the border between China and Mongolia, just south of the steppes and the northernmost arm of the Great Wall of China
Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in northern China, built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by various nomadic groups...
. There, he fell in love with an American woman missionary. She was a year older than he, her name was Mary Rogers, and she came from Albany in the state of New York. They married in 1897.
Kalgan
Kalgan
Kalgan may refer to:* Kalgan, Western Australia, a town*Kalgan River, in Western Australia*An earlier name for Zhangjiakou, in Hebei Province, China*A name used by World Of Warcraft developer Tom Chilton...
lies about 140 miles northwest of Beijing, and was an important junction for caravan traffic westward to Sianking and northward to Mongolia and Russia. People who had business in those regions passed through Kalgan, and many visited the Larson family. One such person was Sven Hedin
Sven Hedin
Sven Anders Hedin KNO1kl RVO was a Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, and travel writer, as well as an illustrator of his own works...
the world-famous Swedish explorer. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Another guest in the Larson household was future American President, Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
, an engineer working on the task of staking out a railroad between Beijing and the Mongolian border.
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer RebellionBoxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
, which broke out in China in the year 1900, was a hunt for foreigners- foreign influences in general, and missionaries and Christian converts in specific. About 220 missionaries, including 45 Swedes, and untold thousands of Christian Chinese were slaughtered by the Boxers. With a loaded rifle always at the ready, Larson managed to save himself, his wife and two small daughters, and about 20 Swedish and American missionaries, and got the party to Siberia. Larson had about twenty camels, fifteen horses and several draft oxen at pasture north of Kalgan. The animals belonged to the British consul in Beijing, C.W. Campbell. They were to have been used on an expedition Larson had agreed to lead. The Boxer Rebellion put a stop to this expedition. Campbell was confined to the British legation in Beijing, and Larson was able to use the animals to escape.
Larson was forced to leave most of his belongings in Kalgan. The Boxers destroyed everything, including the research for a Swedish-English-Mongolian dictionary that he and his wife had worked on together for several years. To get back on his feet financially Larson began working as an interpreter and foreman at a newly-opened gold mine near the city of Kiakta on the border of Mongolia and Siberia. After four months, he had earned enough for the family to take the Trans-Siberian Railway
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...
to Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
and to then travel via Sweden and by boat to the USA and his wife's hometown of Albany, New York
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
.
Less than a year later, he was back in Siberia. A rich American had lent him 200 dollars for the trip, and he had twelve cents left when he walked into the gold mine offices in Kiakta. There, he became a guide and interpreter for two Swedish railway engineers (Major Wilhelm Olivecrona and Engineer Carl Lagerholm), who had just built a railway in Norrland
Norrland
Norrland is one of the three lands of Sweden , the northern part, consisting of nine provinces. The term Norrland is not used for any administrative purpose, but it is common in everyday language, e.g...
in northern Sweden, and were staking out a railway from Siberia via Urga to Beijing.
However, the project was abandoned, and Larson was unemployed. He then turned to a British missionary society, offering to become their representative in Mongolia. His task was to distribute Mongolian-language Bibles to the Mongols. The year was 1902. The family took up residence in Kalgan again, and Larson's wife resumed her missionary work while Larson crossed Mongolia with a caravan consisting of five horses, four Mongolian assistants and ten camels loaded with Bibles which were distributed to Buddhist nomads.
Larson continued with this work for twelve years. He became very familiar with Mongolia and her many peoples. He became the friend of princes, nobility and Buddhist lamas, including Bogdo Gegen, The Living Buddha of Urga. Within Tibetan Lamaism, Bogdo Gegen ranked as the third potentate after the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
and the Panchen Lama
Panchen Lama
The Panchen Lama , or Bainqên Erdê'ni , is the highest ranking Lama after the Dalai Lama in the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism...
, and from 1911 until his death, he was also the Emperor of Mongolia. Larson's services to him included helping the Emperor obtain a Model T Ford.
Larson was now 43 years old. He had spent 20 years in Mongolia and was well on the way to becoming a legend. War had broken out between Mongolia and China as a result of the fall of the royal dynasty in 1911 and Mongolia's declaration of independence. The Chinese, who had started the conflict, were faring poorly, and wanted to end the war. China's president. Yuan Shikai
Yuan Shikai
Yuan Shikai was an important Chinese general and politician famous for his influence during the late Qing Dynasty, his role in the events leading up to the abdication of the last Qing Emperor of China, his autocratic rule as the second President of the Republic of China , and his short-lived...
, turned to Larson, who succeeded in forging peace. As a result, he was appointed the [Chinese] president's advisor on Mongolian issues. When he ended his work after two years, he was rewarded for his efforts with a citation of honor and 36,000 Chinese dollars (equivalent to three years'wages).
Content to leave the big city behind, Larson returned to "Tabo-ol," his ranch on the steppes north of Kalgan, where he had established a profitable horse breeding business, providing horses for the race tracks at Beijing, Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
and Tientsin. Larson now left both missionary work and politics behind, and turned to business. In 1917, he became part owner in the Danish-American commerce house, Andersson & Mayer. Five years later, he started his own commerce business, F.A. Larson and Company, with offices in Kalgan and Urga. Using Dodge
Dodge
Dodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide....
trucks from America, he could ship freight between the two cities in four days. In the days of camel caravans, it had taken more than a month to cover the same route.
Expeditions
During his 46 years in Mongolia, Larson was hired several times as an expedition leader. The first planned expedition was for C.W. Campbell, the British consul in Shanghai. This expedition, was postponed due to the Boxer Rebellion, and was undertaken in 1902. In 1923, he was hired by Roy Chapman AndrewsRoy Chapman Andrews
Roy Chapman Andrews was an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He is primarily known for leading a series of expeditions through the fragmented China of the early 20th century into the Gobi Desert and Mongolia...
, the famous paleontologist who hunted for dinosaur remains in the Gobi desert. In thanks, Larson was made an honorary member of the board of the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Ever since their very first meeting, Larson and explorer Sven Hedin
Sven Hedin
Sven Anders Hedin KNO1kl RVO was a Swedish geographer, topographer, explorer, photographer, and travel writer, as well as an illustrator of his own works...
had spoken about a joint expedition. In 1927, it became a reality, it was the largest scientific expedition that had been organized in Mongolia. Larson was responsible for logistics, which included such tasks as obtaining 300 camels, 26 Mongolian tents, and a year's worth of supplies for 65 persons.
During a visit to Sweden in 1929, Larson met the great Swedish industrialist Ivar Kreuger
Ivar Kreuger
Ivar Kreuger was a Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908 Kreuger co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB which specialized in new building techniques. By aggressive investments and innovative financial instruments he built a global match...
, "The Match King", and suggested that he make investments in China. "If you can get something big going, I'm in," answered Krueger. Larson began planning a gigantic railway project which would connect Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
with Urumqi
Ürümqi
Ürümqi , formerly Tihwa , is the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, in the northwest of the country....
in Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
, and with Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk
Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District...
in Russia. Krueger would provide the financing in exchange for monopolies on the safety match markets in north and central China. Larson had just gotten the Chinese government to agree to the idea when a newswire came from Paris: Ivar Krueger was dead!
Several years later, then-president of China, Chiang Kai Shek, had asked Larson to report on the situation in northern China. Larson tried to get the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to send a group of Swedish military officers to train several thousand Mongols to watch the mountain passes in the borderlands between China and Mongolia. The area was rife with bandits, as well as Communist troops, to the detriment of his own business, among other things. However, this suggestion was refused by the Swedish consul in Shanghai. He did not even want to forward the plan to Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, which Larson later deeply regretted. He felt that enacting this plan would have prevented the communist revolution in China.
Japanese Invasion
When Larson was forced to flee from the Japanese advances in 1939, he lost huge portions of his ownings for the second time. He headed to CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where he was reunited with his wife and his now-grown children, and continued on to Sweden, where he had purchased a mink farm together with a relative. Then the Second World War broke out. It became impossible to get fuel and tires for the trucks that were to transport feed for the minks. The minks were sold at a loss. Larson got onto the first boat back to New York, and from there went to Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, where one of his brothers lived.
Larson was close to seventy years old. He had no hopes of any sort of pension. In order to provide for himself, he bought a farm for $1500, on which he began to raise chickens. However, his wife longed for her relatives in California, so after three years, he moved his operations there. Chicken farming was profitable. At the height of his farming operation, he had more than 1,000 chickens, but tired of this after a few years, because he had no time left over for anything else. He again took up the trade he had learned as a teenager in Stockholm — at 75 years of age, he began to build single-family homes. It proved to be more lucrative and less time-consuming than chicken farming.
At 80 years of age, Larson felt the urge to travel again. His wife had died, so he sold his house and went to Sweden, where he spent a year traveling. That same year, he published his book Larson, Duke of Mongolia, about his adventures in Central Asia.
Back in North America, he lived on Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
in Canada for eight months, helping a newly-immigrated Swedish couple get started. After this, he spent his summer months with them, and winter with his daughter in southern California. In 1957, Larson died at the age of 87. He was buried in a cemetery in Altadena, California
Altadena, California
Altadena is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, and directly north of the city of Pasadena, California...
.
Sources
- Larson, Frans August Larson Duke of Mongolia (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1930)
- Odelberg, Axel Hertig Larson. Äventyrare, missionär, upptäckare (Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand. 2003) Swedish