LARS P. LARSEN.
Success in any line of business requires patience and perseverance. Disappointments and unforeseen difficulties are continually presenting themselves for diplomatic handling, competition arises, and even the elements seem to join forces in testing the material of which a man is made. Success gained in the face of difficulties is all the more appreciated when it comes, and no man is better able to realize this than is the subject of this sketch, who is now in a position to sit back and enjoy the benefit and comforts of his well-earned home.
Lars P. Larsen, general farmer and stockman, Douglas township, was born on October 14, 1870, in Denmark. He is a son of Lars and Gertrude Larsen. Mr. Larsen attended school in his native land, but quit at the age of fourteen to work on his father's farm, where he remained until nineteen years old. He came to America alone on the German ship, "Weser," landing in Baltimore.
Arriving in Audubon county, Iowa, in 1890, he worked on a farm in Sharon township for one year, after which he went to Melville township, where he remained two years. From this place he went to Minnesota, worked on a farm one year, and then came back to Audubon, rented a farm of eighty acres near Hamlin for one year. Giving this farm up, he rented another in Sharon for two years, and later rented a farm of eighty acres in section 32 for two years, at the end of which time he purchased a farm of one hundred and twenty acres, to which he shortly afterward added another of forty acres, for which he paid thirty dollars an acre. Seeing an opportunity to reap a profit, he sold forty acres of his farm four or five years later, and bought eighty acres one mile north of his place. Mr. Larsen has put about six thousand dollars' worth of improvements on his farm, including drainage. The principal crops to which he gives his attention are corn and small grain, the corn yielding about fifty bushels to the acre, and the oats about thirty-five. He feeds about one hundred head of hogs and a car of cattle each year.
Mr. Larsen is a Baptist, and holds the office of treasurer in his church, at which he is a regular attendant. He has also held some of the township offices, among them being treasurer for a term of five years, trustee four years, and was elected school director in 1915. He has always voted the Republican ticket.
The parents of our subject never came to this country, preferring to remain in the land of their birth. His father was a farmer in Denmark, and owned about eighty acres of land. He was a soldier in the war between Germany and Denmark. To him and his wife, Gertrude, were born five children, Anna, Lars, Nets, Christiana, Martin. Anna and Christiana live in Denmark. Martin lives on a farm in Douglas township, Audubon county.
In 1894, Lars P. Larsen was united in marriage with Mary Larsen, daughter of Martin Larsen, of Sharon township, at the home of the bride. They are the parents of six children, Esther, Alfred, Arthur, Gertrude, Stella, Myrtle. Esther received her education at the Des Moines College and is now teaching music. The other children are at home.
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Transcribed from History of Audubon County, Iowa Its People, Industries and Institutions With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Many of the Old Families, by H. F. Andrews, editor, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915, pp. 655-656.
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