MARY E. LARSEN, 89

Mary E. Larsen, 89, died March 31, 2009, at her home at Johansen Manor in Blair.

A memorial service, planned for a later date, will be held at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Community Chapel.

Mary Edith Larsen was born Jan. 26, 1920, on the island of Fyn, Denmark, to Ella and Lars Larsen. She was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran faith.

Trained as a nurse, she served in hospitals in Jutland and Copenhagen from 1940 to 1945. During the Nazi occupation of Denmark, with fellow nurses, she was active in the resistance movement, aiding Jewish Danes to escape persecution by fleeing to Sweden, hidden on fishing vessels.

After the close of World War II, she pursued her love of travel by working in Sweden and Norway. In 1959, she received a two-year leave of absence from the University of Lund Medical School to come to the United States. Arriving in Los Angeles on New Year’s Day, 1960, she worked for two years at California Lutheran Hospital.

Her decision to become an American citizen was made largely because she had discovered the National Park System. Hikes in Yosemite and the Grand Canyon led to her great respect for both state and national government in providing for American citizens and foreign visitors to learn about the history and geology of the parks from information centers staffed by well-trained rangers and guides. In coming decades, she took many Danish friends and relatives through parks as far east from Los Angeles as Mount Rushmore, S.D. She was a lifetime member of the Leaders Club of the National Park Conservation Association.

Two years of nursing in Boston, Mass., and two more years in New York preceded returning west to San Francisco, where she worked for the Kaiser Permanente Foundation. She then ended her career as a private duty nurse when doctors told patients about the “little Danish nurse.” Among her home patients were Mrs. Randolph Hearst of the newspaper family, and several members of the Giannini family, founders of Bank of America.

In 2004, she moved to Blair along with a longtime friend, Ada Jeppesen. Since living at Blair, Larsen has been a volunteer as a translator at the Danish American Archive and Library at Dana College. She also was responsible for translating the early Danish records of First Lutheran Church.

She is survived by one sister, Elizabeth Osterby, and one brother, Erik Larsen; by cousins in California and Washington; and by her friend, Ada Jeppesen.

Campbell-Aman Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.