Author Grace Larson is preserving the past one word at a time

Grace Larson took an interesting route to becoming a writer.

The local author of eight books, Larson has worn many hats over the years, including owning and operating a daycare center, working as a journeyman painter, log skidder, chemical dependency counselor and now, writer.

By the time Larson was 25, she had five children, had been divorced twice and was on her way to filing for a third.

Born in Hot Springs in 1940, Larson grew up on the Flathead Reservation near Big Arm in a house with no running water, no insulation, heated by a wood stove and lit by a single Coleman lantern.

Larson remembers mornings waking up in her upstairs bedroom to find snow had blown in to cover the floor.

Despite the hardships, Larson says she thoroughly enjoyed her childhood spending most of her time with beloved grandparents, Dan (who had immigrated from Romania in 1916) and Mae Poloson on their 2,000-head sheep and horse ranch near Lonepine.

“He came over from Romania and learned the language and had to do everything from scratch,” Larson recalled.

“Was it hard work growing up on a sheep ranch? Sure it was. But it was also wonderful. I loved it, I really did.”

When she wasn’t putting up hay, herding livestock and training horses, Larson would make the eight mile ride over the hills to Polson to take in a movie, often not returning home until after 2:00 in the morning.

“I look at that hill now and think about how steep it is,” Larson said. “When you are a kid, you don’t pay any attention to things like that.”

A die-hard Clark Gable fan as a teen, Larson says she remembers making the trip to take in movies, including the 1950 western “Sierra” with Burl Ives and Audie Murphy.

“I thought there would never be a movie like that again,” she remembered. “It was so good. I saw it again as an adult and it really didn’t stand up. It just wasn’t the same.”

At age 14, Larson spent her first extended time away from home, living with a friend in Bigfork, where she shod horses for the family and helped out with chores. In the fall, they would cut Christmas trees to sell.

When a hired hand began “chasing her around,” Larson made the quick decision to leave the family and make the 70-mile ride back to Lone Pine, sleeping beneath a loading chute in Elmo along the way.

At 16, she bought her first car and made the drive to Whitefish to find work, where she met her first husband.

It would be the first of three rough marriages before Larson found the “love of her life” in Lyle Larson, who she had met 25 years before they were married.

On her way to finding Lyle, Larson learned to become a skilled painter, earning jobs all over the state, including at the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge as well as the Anaconda Company, becoming the first woman hired in the trades by the company.

While she did a variety of jobs there, Larson says there is one day of work that will always stand out the her.

“I remember we were working in the carpenter shop when we got the news that Elvis had died,” she said. “We were all crying. Not just the women, but the men too. I will never forget it. I can close my eyes and still see that scene today.”

It was also shortly before reconnecting with Lyle that Larson enrolled in the Chemical Dependency Counselor Training Program at Spokane Falls Community College in 1981. For the first time in her life she gained the confidence to believe wholly in herself.

Larson, who had only attended school through the eighth grade and earned a high school diploma via correspondence course, earned all As and a single B to graduate from college with honors before going on to a career as a chemical dependency counselor.

After Lyle’s death in 2013, Grace put the finishing touches on “An Immigrant, A Homesteader, and Sheep,” the story of her grandparents.

Her next book, “Once in a Lifetime comes a Man,” was written in memory of Lyle after Grace found a cigar box he had saved collecting every letter they had written to each other over the years.

Larson’s other books include “Fay,” which records the life and championship rodeo career of her aunt, Fay Poloson Haynes, inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2010.

“Grace” tells Larson’s own story as a neglected child who finds her way through the world as she struggles against codependency and a need to feel needed on a journey to find her own sense of agency, and eventually, unconditional love.

Larson’s book “The Making of a Con” tells the story of Grant Hamilton, a convict she had met and befriended during her time supervising an 11-man work crew at the Montana State Prison.

Larson says her life has not been an easy one, but it has led her to gather some great stories.

“I’ve done a lot of things I did not think I would be able to do simply because I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “What can I say? The Lord has really been there for me throughout my life.”