Early Life

My granduncle Smith Larson was born 22 April 1877 near Ontario, Wisconsin, the second surviving child of Ole Larson and Anne Samuelsdatter. He never married, and had no children; I take it upon myself to remember him through documents, photographs, and letters. He grew up on his father’s dairy farm in Vernon County, Wisconsin, with ten siblings, including my grandfather, Isaac Larson. The four eldest brothers posed for a professional portrait around 1898. Oscar is the eldest son of Ole and his second wife, Helene Olsdatter, thus half-brother to the other three.

Smith himself later became an amateur photographer, taking up the hobby around 1910, in the early days of the Brownie camera. In that year, he claimed a North Dakota homestead, along with the three  brothers pictured above . The well-known photo below, of the same three at their first homestead shack, was almost certainly taken by their brother Smith. Left to right: Oscar, Isaac, Axel.

US Marine Corps

Prior to the homestead years, Smith served a four-year hitch in the US Marine Corps from 1906 to 1910, when he was from 29 to 33 years old. Among other assignments, he sailed the Pacific on the cruiser USS Milwaukee. Cousin Carmen Stifstad shared with me a dozen picture postcards from Smith Larson to her mother, Mabel Nesseth Johnson. Smith and Mabel were first cousins, once removed Here are some of Carmen’s observations:

She would have been a young girl of 10-12 years of age and must have been thrilled to get mail from such far away places.  They don’t reveal much, but do give us an idea of where he was from 1906 to 1908.

March, 1906   Nevada
July 1906 – Mare Island, CA
March, 1907   Mare Island and Riverside, CA;
April, 1907     Santa Barbara    May, 1907 will be leaving Santa
Barbara soon
August 1907    Punta Arenal (not sure of spelling on that one)
April, May 1908  Bremerton, WA
July 1908      Honolulu  – leaving for Panama
Sept 1908     due to arrive in ‘Frisco’ (card mailed from there)
1910 ( not sure of location in Washington)  18 days before leaving
for home
There isn’t much room for personal notes, so he doesn’t give a lot
of info about what he’s doing, etc.

Dakota Homesteads

Smith’s father, Ole Larson, died in December 1908 – just over a year before Smith was discharged from the Marines. In 1909, two of his brothers, Isaac (my grandfather) and Oscar, migrated to western North Dakota, where they staked claims to some of the last “free” land distributed under the US Homestead Act. After Smith was discharged in 1910, he and the fourth brother, Axel, joined the project, claiming two more allotments adjoining or nearby the first two.

In the 1910 US Census, Smith Larson is counted with the household of his cousin Louis Nesseth in Polk County, Wisconsin. Perhaps Smith stayed with his cousins in the interim between his discharge from the Marines and his move to North Dakota.

By 1914, all four brothers proved up their homestead claims, but there is no indication that Smith built a permanent home there (as the rules required). Instead, Isaac built his house on Smith’s adjoining claim, and had married and started his family there by 1914. I have not traced when the deed was transferred, but both Smith’s and Isaac’s claims were primarily occupied by Isaac from the get-go.

Meanwhile, on Isaac’s own claim, no structure was apparently ever built, other than the initial shack pictured earlier. While this may technically have violated the rules, a more interesting question is, what was Smith’s intention regarding the homesteading project? Did he live alone in the shack, full- or part-time? Had he cooled to the idea of living and farming there permanently? Did he already have health issues, years prior the sudden downturn he experienced in France during the war? In any case, he was on hand in the months before reenlisting, and captured a number of important gatherings on film.

One gathering in the summer of 1917 brought a large number of Larsons and cross-related family together. Besides settlers in the local region, there were several attendees from Wisconsin.

Smith himself appears in the next example, taken on the same occasion, featuring the four homesteaders with their youngest brother Olaf, who was visiting from Wisconsin.

Finally, one taken the following winter, again with some Wisconsin visitors.

World War I

Smith’s second enlistment began April 23, 1918. His application was at first denied due to his age (41), but was accepted on appeal. “The Great War” had been ravaging Europe for nearly four years. A bloody trench-war stalemate had dragged on for most of that time along the Western Front, especially in France. Most of the sixteen million total war dead (military and civilian) had already been killed.

The US was only now entering the war, after pursuing a policy of neutrality since the beginning. Hundreds of thousands of US Army troops, and a smaller number of Marines, were pouring into France to join an enormous offensive against the Germans’ Hindenburg Line.

In the summer of 1918, Private Larson sailed to Europe to join the American Expeditionary Force.. After a few weeks of intense training, he entered combat with the 4th Brigade, an all-Marine brigade fighting with the Second Division of the US First Army in the Battle of St. Michiel. This was the first major operation of the war in which US forces took the lead. It lasted only five days, and achieved its objective, meeting with minimal resistance until the fourth day, September 15.

Then, a tactical blunder triggered a fierce German counterattack. It was beaten back by the next day, but Allied forces suffered heavy casualties, especially the Marine brigade, among the first to be struck by the advancing Germans.

The following day, September 17, Private Smith Larson appears on a muster roll, “sick in hospital.” No diagnosis is given but the remark is in code or jargon, “90 100 does not apply,” and on September 18, transferred to “replacement battalion.” I found no evidence that he rejoined the Fifth Regiment in their longer and even more grueling engagement, the Battle of Meuse-Argonne.

Another roster is dated July 1919, the month Smith sailed for home. This roster is titled “Addenda Roll, AEF” (American Expeditionary Force). Its account begins September 17, the day Smith took to hospital in the previous roster.

It appears that from Sept. 17 to Sept. 24 1918, he had diagnoses of enteritis and bronchitis, Then on the 24th, “tr(ansfer?) to HT, FH #1;” possibly “Horse Transport” and “Field Hospital #1.”

Another roll from the same month (July 1919), shows Smith as part of Marine Guard Company #70. His rank is now Private First Class, and is shown “Trans(ferred?) to Camp Hosp(ital?) #85″ on July 17, two days before his ship sailed for the US. No diagnosis or other information is given. He was discharged at Quantico, Virginia on August 21, 1919.

One thing is manifestly unclear: What was really wrong with Uncle Smith? The varied diagnoses of “enteritis,” “bronchitis,” and “exhaustion,” hardly add up. Was it poison gas, as some family lore suggests? Gas was not a prominent factor in the Battle of St. Mihiel; indeed the accounts of the battle that I read rarely mention it. However, there were a small number of gas casualties reported in every division. In fact, it seems to have quietly become a routine part of artillery tactics on both sides to lob a cannister of gas occasionally, between rounds of high explosives. Or, might it have involved PTSD, known at the time as shell-shock? There was also the influenza pandemic, which decimated many combat units that year, but, like the use of poison gas, was largely kept hidden from the public. In a final indignity, upon his discharge, Smith’s claim for disability benefits was denied.

Post-war

Smith Larson lived only two and a half years after his discharge. He was counted in Axel Larson’s household in the 1920 US census, so he must have spent part of his time on the ND homesteads. But he was repeatedly in and out of hospital, including the one in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he died on January 22, 1922, at the age of 44. On his death certificate, the primary cause of death was pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), duration two months, with a contributing condition of polycythemia, a blood disorder that, although rare, can stem from a variety of causes. The duration of this condition was three years, which coincides closely with Smith’s battle experience and subsequent long-term sick call. Just weeks before his death, one of his legs was amputated, likely due to clotting of his thickened blood. Whether the blood disorder resulted from his combat, directly or indirectly, remains an open question.

One monument survives to commemorate Uncle Smith, a modest, well-maintained veteran’s headstone at Brush Creek Cemetery, Wisconsin. It is adorned with a copper relief of the U.S. Marine Corps insignia, the same as seen on Smith’s uniform cap. At the base of the stone is a metal receptacle that holds a small U.S. flag on a wooden pole, apparently placed and maintained by a local veterans’ group. R.I.P. Smith Larson

Appendix

Nesseth Connections

There were close ties between Smith Larson and his cousins in the Nesseth family. They are the offspring of Ole Larson’s lesser-known sister, Kari (née Larsdatter). Kari married Ole Nesseth in Norway, and they immigrated a few years after Ole Larson came with two other sisters and their mother. The Nesseths settled in Dunn County, Wisconsin, some 200 miles from Ole and the other Larsons (and datters).

With little doubt, Smith Larson must have taken the picture, now in Carmen Stifstad’s collection, of Kari and her kin, also around 1910. For a larger view, click on the picture.

Ole’s descendants seem to have lost track of the Nesseths between Smith’s death in 1922 and the late 1980′s, when cousin Aline met cousin Carmen. Note the two girls standing dead-center, Grace and Ina Nesseth, daughters of Louis. Turning to the “Louise Larson” albums,

The above is again from around 1910. The postcards they are admiring must have been sent to them from Smith on his travels as a US Marine in 1906-1910. Indeed, Smith was fond enough of Grace and Ina to name them as beneficiaries should he have died in the line of duty.

Smith’s Obituary

Thanks again to cousin Carmen, who located Smith Larson’s obituary and probate notice from 1922. The obituary exaggerates the extent of his combat action, and is sketchy and incomplete regarding his surviving family. The newspaper must have been supplied with faulty information, possibly from fellow veterans or from hospital staff. Even his cousins, and certainly immediate family members, could have informed them better.

Probate Notice

Death Certificate

Cousin Jan Munson obtained Smith’s death certificate from the State of Wisconsin.