Obituaries, by their nature, focus on the overall life of the person and in the interest of time leave out many interesting stories. In Larry's case it leaves out hundreds of stories. Here are some of mine.
My early memories of Larry involve his tremendous sense of humor. I remember his trying to convince my sister Karen and me to eat cat food, and when we didn't he crunched on a couple of Friskies and laughed his cackling laugh. This was at his parent's home down by the Southside Grade School.
Somewhere he learned to play the piano and I remember him banging out ragtime music while standing at the piano - this was in the farm house north of Bonners Ferry.
His parents moved back to Caldwell in 1951 while Larry was a sophomore. But Larry emembered the pictures that hung in the hall of the school showing the pictures of each graduating class and he liked the fact that all of his brothers and sisters pictures were there. He decided that he wanted his picture there too. He completed his junior year in Caldwell, then went back to Bonners Ferry. He lived with his sister Donna and her husband Lee - at least on paper. Most of the time he stayed with Lee's brother Pete Robinson, who was his best friend, and Pete's mother, Violet. Larry then returned to Caldwell.
The story was that my grandmother, Myrtle, despaired of Larry ever finding a mate and moving out of her house. I suspect that she and Larry had several heated discussions/arguments over his life and lifestyle. My grandmother never really liked the spouses of any of her children (a characteristic she passed on to my mother) but she made an exception when Larry met and married Leonna.
I heard the story that when Larry graduated from college he told Leonna that it was her turn to go to school, that she had supported him while he went and that she needed to go. Leonna also graduated from college.
My cousin, Dan, remembers being at an Native American education conference and meeting several Native Americans who had taken auto mechanic classes from Larry. They said that Larry was one of the first white men who really made an effort to know them and their culture and to sincerely want them to learn. Larry would push them hard in class and then take them out and buy beers for them while they talked. They wouldn't let Dan buy a drink during the entire conference.
Another Larry story from Cousin Dan --- So Uncle Larry is on National Guard duty at Farragut, Idaho. He realizes that the MP's jeep runs faster than the one that he has and that they are hard to tell apart. So……Larry switches jeeps…..and gets caught and given duty changing tires on big earth movers that are picking up all kinds of nails as they take apart the WWII barracks that were there. Changing these tires doesn't amuse Larry……So…..Larry gets the bright idea of picking up the nails with a magnet……so how to make the magnet? Well you cut a piece out of the railroad track that runs by and you wrap some wire around it and attach it to a couple of truck batteries, then you hang the battery off the front of your jeep and drive around picking up nails…..fortunately, the train track was an abandoned one. (Dan can tell you the long version of this story sometime and it is so funny and so Larry.)
Sometime Larry came to my folk's house for a visit and he came through the gate dressed as a gunslinger complete with holster, pistol and a beat up hat. Many thought that my mother would have a stroke and heard her say "Larry Lannigan what are you doing?" My father was highly amused and laughed and laughed. Larry, as usual for him, had a story filled with blarney about how he had come to have such a getup.
When Grandmother Lannigan got towards the end of her life, Larry took the money that she had (probably from the sale of the farm) and invested it well and wisely and it supported her until the end of her life. He got out of the investment just in time because he was an early investor in Three Mile Island but Grandmother's life was better for it.
Larry was a story teller - a master really - who could make you laugh so hard - harder than you had ever laughed and you could never be sure of what was true and what was his story. And he always had these crazy schemes going to accomplish something.
While I know it was difficult physically for him, Larry came to Bonners Ferry for the funerals of my Dad in 2005, for his brother-in-law, Lee Robinson (sister Donna's husband) in 2008 and for my mother, Nada, in 2010. Larry said that my mother was more of a mother to him when he was small than his own mother was and he loved her so much for it.
Larry was a regular guy but he was a giant regular guy and we all loved him for it.
I hope these rembrances add a little to Larry's story and that if you didn't know him, you would wish that you did.
Gary Fredericksen, Son of Larry's sister Nada
Hi. Glen Frederiksen here. My grandfather, Herman Frederik Frederiksen, lived in Salt Lake City during the 1930s. My father, Herman Frederik Frederiksen, Jr., grew up there until he joined the Army in early 1940. After getting out in 1945, he settled in the Los Angeles area. I was born in 1952. My sister, Nancy, was born in 1954.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like there should be a family connection. I have visited the Humphreys family in Copenhagen several times over the years, and their granddaughter Christine has visited us in America twice.