Supercentenarian Profile

Gertrude Larson

Born:

1916-04-04

Barnes County, North Dakota

United States

Current Residence:

Fergus Falls, Minnesota

United States

✔ Age Certified by LongeviQuest

Gertrude “Trudy” Larson is an American supercentenarian whose age has been validated by LongeviQuest.

BIOGRAPHY

Gertrude Larson was born in Barnes County, North Dakota, on 4 April 1916. She was the third child of Norwegian parents who lived on a farm near Kathryn, North Dakota. During the 1918–1919 Spanish flu pandemic, her mother kept the children isolated on the farm, protecting them from outside contact.

She attended a small local schoolhouse and later studied at St. Luke’s School of Nursing in Fargo, graduating in 1938. Her first job was at Wright Hospital in Fergus Falls, which later merged with St. Luke’s to become Lake Region Hospital.

Trudy met her future husband, Ed Larson, in Fergus Falls, where he worked for the Otter Tail Power Company. They married in 1940 and had two children, Maggi and David. During World War II, Ed served in the Navy, and Trudy found nursing work in the communities where they lived, including Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1945, before returning to Fergus Falls, she worked as a pediatric supervisor at St. Luke’s Hospital, now known as Sanford Medical Center. Her husband, Ed, passed away in 1990. Their son David died at age 45 from a brain aneurysm.

In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, at the age of 104, she used the Singer sewing machine she had purchased in 1939 to sew masks for nursing home staff and residents. At 106, she moved into a senior living home.