Larson Family History, Part 4

Jeff Larson tells of his great grandfather Mons Larson's family emigrating from Sweden to the United States for the purpose of settling as Mormons in Arizona. They were in the first group from Utah to encounter the Grand Canyon in Northern Arizona. Mons' son, Alof, and Mary Hunt Larson, Jeff Larson's paternal grandmother, settled in Snowflake and raised a family and a flock of sheep. Jeff's maternal grandfather Treet left Nova Scotia as a boy and worked his way across America to Flagstaff, Arizona, where he established a sawmill. His daughter Augusta was gifted both in music and in intelligence. Disappointing her father, instead of pursuing further education in music in an eastern college, she chose a career as an educator and moved to Holbrook. There she met and married Alof's son Wallace Hunt Larson, the railroad telegrapher. Wallace's brother Pratt Larson, one of five, was forming the settlement of Lakeside, and the newlyweds moved there to devote their lives to the little Mormon settlement. While raising a family and serving the community, Augusta taught school and tended the sick. Wallace was the school principal, and also put in a water system to replace the open ditches that fed the community. They later went to work in the nearby White Mountain Apache Reservation, Wallace working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Augusta as a teacher. Wallace then ran for the State Legislature and served there for several terms. When he died in office, Augusta stepped in to fill his shoes, then successfully ran again for two more terms. Jeff followed in his parents' footsteps as an educator and continues to manage the family's water enterprise and land.