Elsie Evelyn Larsen

Elsie Evelyn Larsen, age 93, passed away Monday, January 5, 2009 at her home in Savanna.Funeral services will be 10:30 a.m. Friday, January 9, 2009 at the Community United Church Of Christ, Savanna with Reverend Nancy Carr officiating. Burial will be in Savanna Township Cemetery. Friends may call 4:00–8:00 p.m. Thursday, January 8, 2009 at the Law-Jones Funeral Home, Savanna. A Memorial fund has been established in Elsie’s name.Elsie was born May 23, 1915 near Lanark, Illinois. Elsie was the third child born to Charles and Hattie Welker. She attended country school and graduated from Lanark High School in 1932. Elsie became the bride of Axel Larsen on July 12, 1934, after meeting at a PTA meeting in Brookville, Illinois. Axel and Elsie eventually settled on their farm, south of Savanna on Scenic Bluff Road, to farm and raise their family. Together they had six daughters and one son. Elsie was always the homemaker and enjoyed every minute of doing it, providing for her children, and later on, the grandkids. Cooking and canning were an important part of living and providing for her family throughout the year. Lots of vegetables and fruits lined her shelves, as well as the favorite topping for her pancakes- Jelly. Every child and grandchild will remember all of the breakfast meals that included her thin pancakes that were rolled up and smothered with homemade jelly.Although she was considered the disciplinarian of her family, she didn’t have to tender the responsibility too often. She was a crafts person at letting her kids develop their own sense of worth and where they fit in around the farm and around their daily lives at work and school. Everyone took on their fair share of the responsibilities according to their interests and everything got done.She also loved to attend “Club” meetings once a month. Meetings always had a special agenda with occasional guests sharing travel or history lessons. Elsie had a strong faith and was a longtime member of the Hickory Grove Methodist Church. Elsie was preceded in death by her parents as well as two brothers and one sister, her husband, Axel, and her daughters, Karen (Tillquist) Sandoval and Doris Schupbach, and daughter in-law, Debra Hope (Price) Larsen.She is survived by her children, Barbara (Stanley) Trousdale, Wilma (Robert) Acuff, Donna (John) Grimm, Donald Larsen and Paula (Robin) Brown, three sons in-law, Duane Schupbach, Warren Tillquist and Ed Sandoval, as well as nineteen grandchildren, forty-six great grandchildren and twenty-one great-great grandchildren.