Edward Larson
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Graveside services for Edward Mark Larson, 77, Lawrence will be held at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, July 24, 2010 at Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, KS. A Celebration of Life will be held at a future date. Mr. Larson died July 21, 2010 at Stormont-Vail in Topeka, KS.
He was born August 23, 1932 in Belleville, Kansas the son of Elmer C. and Mary E. (Vietor) Larson.
He graduated from Belleville High School in 1950 and received his BA from the Kansas Wesleyan University and his Master of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Arizona. He taught school in Texas, worked for the City of Kansas City, Missouri and installed insulation in homes. Mr. Larson was an avid gardener, naturalist and environmentalist and was an active participant in the Re-evaluation Counseling Community.
Mr. Larson was a noted Lawrence social activist. He was an active member of many organizations including the Kansas Area Watershed (KAW) Council, Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice, Lawrence-El Papaturro Friendship Committee, Appropriate Technology Center, and Radioactive Free Kansas. He was an active member of the Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence and received the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Social Justice Adult Award in 2004.
He is survived by nieces, Ann Swenson of Wichita, KS; Nancy Fricke of Nashville, TN and nephews, Bruce Larson of Edinburg, VA; Kim Larson of Turlock, CA.
Memorials may be made in his name to Lawrence-El Papaturro Friendship Committee; Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence or to Community Foundation and may be sent in care of the Warren-McElwain Mortuary.
I so admired Mark’s dedication to social justice. He was an inspiration to many of us and will be missed.
We met Mark last year through the Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence. We so admired his dedication and gentle spirit and are thankful for having known him. Our heartfelt condolences to his family.
Susan & Lisa
My husband and I knew Mark as Ed for decades before he began calling himself Mark. How and when our friendship with Mark/Ed began is lost in the mists of time, but it must have been 50 years or more. He was a gentle, kind, intelligent and utterly unique man who never stopped learning and growing. It’s hard to accept that we’ll never again have his battered car parked in front of our house as we drink tea and hear more about his odyssey through life.
Mark was a wonderful man, and so very kind to my family. He took my son into his home and taught him so much, in his own humble way. He taught him, most of all, about compassion and generosity. I will always be grateful to Mark for this, and for his steadfast love for the earth. My heart goes out to his family, and to those that were not connected by blood, but were also family. I will miss him. Audrey Klopper
I am sad that Uncle Mark did not get to see the the new me. I will sorely miss his insight and opinions weather we agreed or not.
I am sad that Uncle Mark did not get to see the the new me. I will sorely miss his insight and opinions weather we agreed or not.
I know Mark from his San Diego days. We called him Ed back then. We did community organizing together where his generous use of this big, green Ford pickup truck saved the day many a time. Sunday mornings I would walk over to his place – he lived a few blocks from me – and wake him up for a cup of coffee. As I recall he did not drink coffee so I would heat water and make a cup from an old jar of instant. It was terrible but the conversation and companionship was good. I pushed him to expect more appreciated from the people who would borrow his truck and use his labor but not invite him to dinner parties. But Mark had his own reasons to serve. Like me, he was on some kind of self directed apprenticeship although we would not have defined it this way at the time. He was quiet and not revealing of his inner self, not to me anyway. He recognized that I wasn’t the right ear, not back then for sure. Shortly after he returned to Kansas I relocated myself to Chicago where I met my wife and started a family. Mark visited us in his 50th year. I was shocked to have a friend who was half a century old but his old truck was still chugging along. Of course, today I regard 50 as almost a spring chick. I visited Mark once in Lawrence and he visited us many times in Chicago. We exchanged Christmas letters where he kept us informed of his travels and activities. I must say that of all the people I have known in peace, social justice and environment Mark is the one who remained most consistent in his activism all his life. I’ll miss him but I have many good memories of him.