Michael Larson - Personal Life

Personal Life

One of 4 brothers, Larson was born in Lebanon, Ohio. After getting married and divorced twice while very young, by 1983 Larson had a common law marriage with Teresa McGlynn Dinwitty. Two of their three children were Jennifer, whom Michael had used his winnings to buy presents for her birthday, and Paul Michael Larson Jr. One of his brothers, James, a chemistry teacher, and his wife Dinwitty considered him strange, as he thought he was smarter than everybody else.

For 10-12 summers Larson was a Mister Softee ice cream truck driver and was also an air conditioning mechanic. Although he was generally regarded as creative and intelligent, he had an inexplicable preference for shady enterprises over gainful employment. One of his earliest exploits was in middle school, where he smuggled candy bars into class and profitably peddled them on the sly. One of his later schemes involved opening a checking account with a bank that was offering a promotional $500 to each new customer; he would withdraw the cash at the earliest opportunity, close the account, then repeat the process over and over under assumed names.