Louise Larsen Armstrong September 15, 1912 to October 22, 2005
Louise Larsen was born on September 15, 1912 in Richmond, Cache County Utah. I was the daughter of Louis William Larsen and Ada Vilate Hendricks Larsen. I had two brothers, Richard Hendricks Larsen was older born July 2, 1908 and Thomas William was younger, born February 21, 1921. My father was the principal of Lewiston High School in Lewiston Utah. When I was two years old my family moved to Salt Lake City where my father taught English and History at Granite High School. Later he taught at the University of Utah.
My father wanted to name me Claudia, but they named me Louise instead. As I got older, I preferred the name Claudia and often went by that name, though it was not my given name.
I attended East High School. After graduation I studied music at the McCune School of Music, located just north of the new LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City. I studied piano and voice. My voice teacher was Anthony C. Lunt. He was Conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He had a group of 20 or 30 women that were his students. He felt I needed to gain volume and experience, and so he let me sing with them. We were performing at Salt Air, and I was petrified. I was younger than the rest of the women. Someone sitting out in front was laughing at me and I didn’t want to perform. Professor Lunt told me “Yes! You can do it. Now stand at the end and don’t make any mistakes.” Someone in front laughed at me because I was scared and was just mouthing the words.
Age 17My father, Louis William Larsen ran an ad company called Ad Craftsman. I had been working in his office for several years. We placed ads with newspapers all over the North West United States. I knew about Robert Francis Armstrong through a couple who worked in my father’s office but we didn’t meet until Francis Barton introduced us. She was Robert’s cousin on his mother Emma’s side of the family.
Robert and I were married on November 5, 1939, during the depression. Our ceremony was held at the Hotel Utah. I can’t remember the name of the room, but it was on the West Wing off of the mezzanine. We didn’t’ have a reception but my parents invite about 50 people to the wedding breakfast and ceremony.
In 1941 our fist son, Robert Francis Armstrong Jr. was born. We called him Bob. He was born in St. Elizabeth Hospital in Yakama Washington where we were living at the time. The hospital was run by Catholic Nuns. They weren’t the nurses but took care of administrating the hospital. They gave me ether because I was in so much pain. At that time they made you stay in bed for 2 weeks after delivery of a baby. Ten days in the hospital was an absolute necessity! A lady that shared a room with me had a baby just a few days before I did. She asked one day why the nun’s were in my room so much. One of them called Mother Terese spent all of her spare time talking to me. I told her it was just out of curiosity. It seems they were very curious about us “Mormons”.
We were not active in the Mormon Church when we were in the North West as we really didn’t have a ward house to attend. Our ward used to rent a room in a Hotel. It was so remote to even get to church that only 30 or 40 people would attend.
Our second son Thomas Gregg Armstrong was born July 29, 1946 at Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City, on a Monday morning at 2:00 AM. We had just returned to Salt Lake to make our home, after spending six years in the Northwest. We were living in a duplex on the corner of Eleventh East and Eight South. We had purchased an acre of land in the Holladay area and had plans for building a home. However, all this changed abruptly when my brother Tom was killed in Italy during World War II. My parents wanted the rest of their family close by to help sooth the hurt. To make a long story short, my father bought twenty acres of land on 78th South and about 20th East. It was then known as Butlerville. My parents built a new home there and we moved into their home on Laird Avenue, until we could build on the Cottonwood Heights property.
Louise, Robert Jr, Grampa Larsen, Gary Larsen, Bobby Dick Larsen, Grama Larsen, Robert holding Gregg
Robert Sr. had a damaged heart from having rheumatic fever when he was a child. He suddenly died of a coronary heart attack and that changed everything again. At 37, years old, I was a widow with two little boys to raise. I sold the Laird Avenue house and moved into my parent’s home. Gregg was 3 and Bob was 8 years old. My brother Richard and his family built a house next door to my parents. We were all together with 2 new homes, beautifully landscaped and we had 20 acres with 8 acres planted in fruit trees behind the houses.
I wanted my boys to attend church so I became active in the Mormon Church again and became a Sunday School teacher. I also got involved in the local PTA (parent teacher’s association). I was the Secretary. I also volunteered to be secretary of the Big Willow Irrigation Company that my parents had bought stock in. I also became a member of The Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and was active in that organization for many years.
The boys had horses, and the back section of land was planted in hay. Tango was a beautiful sorrel quarter horse that had a tail and mane of gold. He pranced when someone was on him. There was a very large pond where the boys and their friends went ice skating in the winter and swimming in the summer. The boys were also allowed to drive a huge old-fashioned tractor that we used for work on the farm. A cistern as large as a small house was built underground between the two homes. To fill the pond and cisterns I would drive Gregg about two blocks away and sit in the car while he slipped thru a barbed wire fence and disappeared down a small slope to turn the water in our ditch. The man who owned this property had about two hundred turkeys he raised for commercial use. They would come gobbling and surround Gregg while he took care of this chore. I had no idea how dangerous turkeys could be but nothing bad ever happened. They probably thought it was feeding time. My boys learned to irrigate plough the ground, spray and harvest the fruit. Gregg had five friends who practically grew up at out place. My mother said one time that we seldom sat down to a meal that one of his friends was not there. Their mother’s told me how grateful they were that their boys were welcome at our home. Their mothers all worked. This little group of like-time friends were Lynn Garner, Rick Dougdale, Rick Perkins, Dennis Jones and David Asay. At that time we couldn’t see our closest neighbor. It was rural and the developers had not yet discovered this beautiful area nestled between Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon. It was a great place to grow up. The name changed from Butlerville to Butler and finally to cottonwood Heights. It seemed that every time I backed out of the garage I had a car full of boys with me going to school, sports, or ward activities.
My boys went to Butler Elementary School, Union Jr. High school and Jordon High School. Gregg changed to Hillcrest High School when he was a senior and graduated from there. Gregg attended classes at LDS Business College in the summers. After graduation he attended the University of Utah. Bob didn’t attend college but went into the Marine Corps and later the Marine reserves.
Gregg married Priscilla Anne Kay on August 11, 1967. Over the years they have lived in Sugar House, Cottonwood Heights, Sandy, Bountiful and Kaysville. They have 4 children---my grandchildren--- Lisa, Robert Louis, Nicole and James Gregg.
My parents were getting older and my dad had retired. I took care of them until there death. Dad died on my birthday, September 15, 1975. Mom died March 30, 1975 on Easter Sunday. They both died at Cottonwood Hospital after very short illnesses. Mom was 87 years old and Dad was 88 years old.
When my parents died I moved to Woodstock Village on Rainsbough Road, a development just east of 13th East at about 62nd South. It was a new house in a new area of homes.
I am now 88 years old and have been a widow for fifty years. I live with my son Gregg and his wife Priscilla in an apartment in their home in Kaysville. An Aunt of mine asked me once why I had never remarried. I just replied, nobody ever asked me! She got a chuckle out of that. When I die I will be buried by my husband, and I will be the last member of the whole family to be buried there.
In Louise’s last few years she moved into an assisted living center called Apple Village in Layton Utah. She lived there until she had a stroke on her birthday, September 15, 2005. She then moved into a Care Center in Ogden where she died peacefully in her sleep a little over a month later on October 22, 2005 at the age of 93 years of age.
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