Scope and Content Note
The papers of the Frans August Larson family span the years 1864-2021, with the bulk of the material dating from 1900 to 1980. The papers document the lives of a missionary family during their many years (1893-1939) in Mongolia and Kalgan (Zhangjiakou), northern China, on the border of Mongolia, as well as their later lives in the United States. The papers are in English with occasional items in Swedish or Mongolian.
At the heart of the collection are the papers of Frans August Larson, Swedish-born missionary, expedition guide, entrepreneur, diplomatic advisor in Mongolia, and author of Larson, Duke of Mongolia. Larson's file includes drafts of his posthumously published memoir and of an unpublished book about Mongolia, both written in the 1940s. The largest correspondence file in the entire collection is his letters written to his daughter, Mary, beginning when she left China to attend high school in California and continuing until his final days when he was living in California and she in Connecticut. The letters document family life, missionary activities, life in Mongolia, social occasions with friends, his work with expeditions and business concerns, and world events as they unfolded in China and Mongolia and the part that he played. The majority of the the letters to his daughter, however, were written during his later years while living in Alabama, California, and British Columbia, Canada. His file also includes material documenting his art collecting of Ordos bronzes and his work with art dealers. Additional material about Frans August Larson is found throughout the papers.
The letters of Mary Rodgers Larson include the oldest correspondence in the papers. Mary Rodgers was an American missionary in China from Albany, New York, who married the Swedish missionary Frans August Larson. Her earliest letters were written to Rodgers family members while she was a student at Northfield Bible Training School in Massachusetts and while doing mission work in Vermont, a time when she was contemplating life as a foreign missionary. Letters to her brother, James Rodgers, and his wife Anna Rodgers, missionaries in Brazil and later in the Philippines, date from her time as a student and when she was serving in Vermont as an "evangelist." Letters to her mother, Mary Rodgers, document her early missionary years in China and Mongolia. Subsequent letters from Mary Rodgers Larson were written to her daughter, Mary Larson Walker.
Another large portion of the family papers is the file for C. Lester Walker, husband of Mary Larson Walker. They met in China while he was teaching for the Yale-in-China program and she was working as a nurse for a hospital in Beijing, China. Walker later returned to China as a war correspondent during World War II. His file contains some correspondence but is primarily composed of drafts of writings dating from the 1940s to the 1980s. The writings kept in these papers focus on China-related topics, both fiction and nonfiction.
Photographs in the papers are primarily in the photographs file and in the photograph albums, but also can be found in other folders as attachments. The photographs cover the entire date range of the family papers and include family portraits, including extended members of the Rodgers family, and images from Sweden, the United States, Canada, China, and, of course, Mongolia, where the photograph collection is particularly strong. Frans August Larson served as expedition guide in Mongolia for both the American naturalist and explorer Roy Chapman Andrews (the 1923 expedition that discovered dinosaur eggs and fossils) and the Swedish geographer and travel writer Sven Anders Hedin (in 1927). Photographs from both expeditions are present, but the Hedin expedition is especially well-documented. Other photographs from Mongolia present images of landscapes, animals, daily life, special occasions, and Mongolian friends. Diluwa Khutugtu Jamsrangjab, a Lamaist dignitary and a Living Buddha, refered to as Delwa Gegen by Larson, appears in photographs and is frequently mentioned in letters. Photographs of China include the family's home in Kalgan (Zhangjiakou). Also of interest is Mary Louise Larson Walker's photograph album from around 1915 featuring The Chefoo School, Chefoo (Yantai), China, where she was a student. Chefoo was a boarding school for children of Christian missionaries and other westerners in China.
Many of the individuals represented in the papers were also involved in mission work and provide additional perspectives on missionaries in East Asia. Folders often have a handful of letters and perhaps some photographs or a newsclipping, but researchers should bear in mind that individuals that have slim folders will also appear in photograph albums and will be discussed in the family correspondence. For example, the folder for Eleanor and Owen Lattimore holds three letters by Eleanor to Mary Larson Walker and one from Owen to Mary's brother James plus an article by Owen Lattimore, but there are items in the photograph files, and frequent descriptions of meetings with Owen Lattimore in Frans August Larson's letters to his daughter. Although not focused on the Larsons, the Kalgan Mission Reports summarize yearly missionary activities, 1896-1900. The file on Ruth Ingram, in addition to a news article about the murder of her husband, a missionary doctor in Kalgan, and some personal correspondence, includes a set of lengthy mimeographed letters sent to friends providing detailed information on her work with nursing schools for UNRRA in China and Burma, 1946-1951. Also of interest is the file on writer Nora Waln, who assisted Larson with the writing of Larson, Duke of Mongolia. The file includes an article describing her first meeting with Larson. Finally, many of the letters in the collection are from the years after the family left Asia and concern life in the United States primarily in Alabama, California, and Connecticut, and on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The letters relate Frans August Larson's and Mary Rodgers Larson's short-lived venture as chicken farmers in Alabama, Mary's difficult onset of dementia and her passing, Frans August Larson's triumphant trip to Sweden as the famous Duke of Mongolia, and his final years in California and British Columbia. Throughout his correspondence, he returns again and again to thoughts of Mongolia. Due to Cold War political realities, he was never able to return.