Frans August Larson - Japanese Invasion

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 California, 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.