Uncle Orlan

Allan B. Fredrickson’s grandparents, Nels and Augusta Larson, raised eighteen children on their homestead in the Turtle Mountains in northern North Dakota. Of the eight boys, six of them farmed in the area near Lake Metigoshe, north of Bottineau. Allan spent his summers working on their farms with most of his time working for his uncle Orlando (known as Orlan). Shortly after receiving his doctor’s degree in veterinary medicine from the University of Minnesota, he and his wife, Barbara, signed on as an associate with a veterinarian in Mount Vernon, Washington, where they reside to this day.

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Nels and Augusta Larson had a 160-acre farm, and on it was a small clapboard house, a straw pole barn, a wooden grain bin, and a log chicken coop. The house had two rooms upstairs, which served as a bedroom for the ten girls and one for the eight boys. Their clothes were stored in open wooden boxes. Nels had a string of milk cows, beef cattle, and a few sheep and farmed with two teams of draft horses.

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Orlan grew up knowing he would always be a dirt farmer and cattle rancher. After two divorces, he lost everything he owned or wanted and fell into a modest career of training and racing standardbred harness horses in California and Arizona. He lost contact with most of his family and died a lonely, broken-down man.

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