Country Acres Saturday, November 5, 2022
Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
Volume 9, Edition 48
PHOTO BY BEN SONNEK
Bill Larson uses the rings on his slide computer Oct. 21 at his home in Benson. Larson joined the Airforce in 1959.
From farm to sky
– and back again
Larson reflects on Air Force service as aerial refueler BY BEN SONNEK | STAFF WRITER
B
ENSON – When Air Force vet-
eran Bill Larson looks back on his life – including his adventures as a child in the early 1950s, his service as an aerial refueling aircraft engineer and his time as a flight instructor – one thing immediately comes to mind. “I thank the Lord for saving my life,” Bill said. “I should’ve died many times.” Even Bill’s entry into the world was a bit haphazard. He was born at 2 a.m. on Feb. 22, 1939, in the back of an ambulance that had gotten stuck in a snowstorm while on
the way to the Swedish hospital in downtown Minneapolis. His parents, William and Edna Larson, lived in a tiny upstairs apartment in the Twin Cities. His father worked in an ammunition manufacturing plant about 50 miles south of the cities, and when Bill was born, he could not get home because of the weather. While he cannot recall much of his childhood, Bill does remember the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941, even though he was just under three years old. “I was over at my grandfather’s apartment somewhere, and I can remember them shushing me up because the news was coming over in the afternoon,” Bill said.
Bill’s father entered the Navy around the beginning of 1944 and was shipped to New Guinea as one of the Seabees, the Navy’s construction force, where he stayed until the end of WWII. Bill’s mother was often sick when he was young, so he ended up spending a lot of time on the farm that belonged to his maternal grandparents, Ben and Lena Holzheimer, west of Benson. Then, Bill’s parents divorced when he was about 12, so he spent summers with his grandparents, riding the Great Northern Railway to get there. “I grew up pretty much on the farm, and I was always good with machinery,” Bill said. “I was out plowing with an old John Deere Model A tractor, and this thing had a flywheel on the side and two pistons as big as 2-pound coffee cans, and I was
Larson page 2
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Publications bli ti The newspaper of today is the history of tomorrow.
This month in the
COUNTRY: Watch for the next edition of Country Acres on Nov.19, 2022
7
An ode to veterans Grace Jeurissen column
20 Honoring the green Benson
9
Horsin’ around the winner’s circle Kimball
21 Country cooking Kimball
14 Peacful places Willmar, Burtrum and Spring Hill
22 Sundress Garden, part one Nancy Packard Leasman column
22 FFA student 27 Animals we love 27 Word search
