A Standard History of Waupaca County, Wisconsin. An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial, Educational, Civic and Social Development.

              516 HISTORY OF WAUPACA COUNTY
Mr. Larson was born in Sweden April 23, 1851, a son of Lars and Christina Persen. His mother died in 1856 and his father in 1884. The , training afforded by the common schools of Sw^eden wasi the education Olaus acquired as a boy. He grew up with the habits of industry firmly fixed in his character, and was competent to make his own way when he reached America. In 1872 he located at Alarquette, Michigan, but in 1875 went west to California, and remained in the Golden State for five years. In 1880 Mr. Larson came to AVaupaca County and bought eighty acres of the farm which he now owns and occupies. At the same time he homesteaded forty acres nearby, and all of this land is now under improvement. The commodious buildings found on the farm are the product mainly of his own handiwork as a practical carpenter, and he has added some improvements or item of value to his farm almost every year since he located there.
He now has a complete lighting system installed for use in his home and outbuildings and has many of the comforts which are usually found only in city homes. Air. Larson features the Holstein cattle as the principal revenue producers on his farm.
Having children growing up in his home, he has naturally been interested in the welfare of the local schools and served a number of years on the school board. For two terms he was supervisor of his township. He is a republican in politics and a member of the Swedish Lutheran Church.
In 1874 in Alarquette, Michigan, he married Miss Olivia Larsen. She was born in Sweden in 1848. Her father died in the old country and her mother subsequently came to America and lived at St. Paul, Minnesota, where she died at the home of a son in 1901. Airs, Larson was a splendid companion and helpmate to her husband, and during the thirty years of their married life she reared a family to self-respecting manhood and womanhood. Her death occurred in August, 1906. There were seven children, a brief record of them being as follows: Emilia Sophia, who was born in California aiid died at Sheridan, in Waupaca County, in August, 1905; Emil, who died when fifteen years old; Arthur, who is a mail carrier and farmer at Sheridan; Edith Christine, wife of Clarence A. Nelson, living in South Dakota; Almo, who has bought his father's farm, married Emma Abby, daughter of William Abby, of Alilladore, Wiscon¬ sin, and they have one child, Wilbur; AValter, who is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in the technical course, is now a successful young mechanical engineer at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Freda is a graduate nurse, having taken her training in the Cook County Hospital, of Chicago, and is now practicing her profession in that city.
Mads Peterson has lived continuously for forty years on one farm in Waupaca County. He is one of the oldest citizens of the county, having been born in Denmark Aiarch 3, 1833, more than eighty-three years ago.   His parents spent all their lives in the old country.
His own training in an educational way was acquired in Denmark, and he came to America in the flush of young manhood and vigor.   In