Jane Emily (Hussey) Larson was born at home to Stephen and Ethel Hussey on June 8, 1922, on a farm near Princeton, Illinois. Her claim to fame was that she took swimming lessons from Ronald Reagan at Lowell Lake, Dixon Park, when she was about 8.
Jane graduated from Princeton High School in 1940. After one year of nurses’ training at the University of Michigan, she moved to Chicago, where she acquired her RN at Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in 1944.
In February 1945, Jane married Louis M. Larson at a small Lutheran church in Peoria. Louie was completing Naval pilot training, and they lived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and Oxnard, California, where Jane worked as a nurse caring for wounded military. Later in 1945, they moved to Louie’s family farm near Trent, SD, where Keith (1946), Karen (1948) and Pamela (1950) were born and attended Flandreau Public Schools. The family was active in Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Flandreau, and in Lutheran churches wherever they lived, and they made lifelong friends in their community. Jane and Louie loved to host dinners and card parties. In 1960 they moved to Madison, WI, then to Austin, MN, Rochester, and finally to Waconia, MN. Jane practiced nursing everywhere they lived, until retiring in 1987.
Jane was tireless in her devotion to her children, nieces and nephews, and grandchildren. She also cared for family, friends, and neighbors, as a nurse, counselor, hostess, friend, babysitter, and mentor.
Louie passed away in 2001, and Jane moved to Spokane, WA, in 2012, to be near her daughter. She lived in an Assisted Living facility until May 2020, when she moved into Pam and Berne Indahl’s home, where she passed away on April 21, shortly before her 99th birthday. Her favorite pastime was playing cards.
Jane was proceeded in death by her parents, Stephen and Ethel Hussey, brother Howard Hussey, sister Ethel Mae Swinehart, husband Louie, son Keith, and daughter Karen.
She is survived by her sister, Lillian Joan (William) Landers, daughter Pam (Berne) Indahl; her special bonus daughter, Christine Larson (Doug) Ferguson; grandchildren Eve (Bill) Vines, Ian Larson, Bill (Jessica) Druliner, Andrew (Anna) Indahl, Ben (Tiffany) Indahl, and Bethany (William Gonzalez) Indahl; 14 great-grandchildren, and 2 great-great grandchildren, as well as nieces and nephews and their families whom she dearly loved.
Jane will be inurned with her husband, Louis M. Larson, at Ft. Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.
