Keith Loren Larson

Keith Loren Larson
(b. Nov. 18, 1944 – d. Dec. 17, 2023)
Keith Loren Larson of Florence, Alabama, died peacefully onDec. 17, 2023, with loved ones by his side.
Keith was born in Rockford, IL, on Nov. 18, 1944, and raised inthe nearby Swedish-American farming village of Pecatonica.Youngest child of the late Clarence Arthur Larson and the late Edith Katherine Minert, he attended Pecatonica High School where he competed on the cross-country, basketball and track teams, setting the school's long-standing mile-run record of 4:35 (best he could recall). He was also a paper boy and a Boy Scout and loved his job as a summer counselor at a Boy Scout camp.
As his mother endured health struggles and his father worked long hours for the local farmers' co-op, Keith often talked about how he was "raised by a village." He often found himself wandering the neighborhood and spending chunks time at friends' houses. The family supplemented their income by selling some of the vegetables from their garden and giving the rest to the needy.
For at least two years after high school Keith worked severaljobs-including on the assembly line of a jet-engine manufacturer and as a nightshift worker at a funeral home-in order to save money and attend the Milwaukee School of Engineering. There he was a founding member of that campus's Sigma Pi Rho chapter and fraternity house, where, in addition to the brothers' service projects he helped to engineer an innovativecold-beer delivery system.
After graduation, Keith job hopped as an electrical engineer between paper plants in New York State, Ohio, and, finally, Northwest Alabama, where he and his family settled for good. For the next 20-plus years, Keith drove 45 minutes each way to the Champion Paper plant in Courtland, leaving by 6 in the morning from his home in Florence and returning by 4:30 like clockwork to eat his dinner. Keith was nothing if not punctual with his meals.
As a project engineer in Courtland, Keith's proudest moment was planning and assembling a configuration of paper equipment on the plant floor that moved a giant roll of paper through a sophisticated coating process. When the machines fired up and processed the full roll flawlessly on the very first try, he spied the division manager on the other side of the noisy room pumping his fist with one hand and giving a thumbs-up with the other.
Soon after Champion was sold to International Paper, Keith accepted early retirement and threw himself and his perfectionist tendencies into woodworking, creating custom furniture for clients. His pieces were impeccably crafted and will now be fought over by his survivors. Alas, in calculating the time spent making the pieces against the prices they fetched from the public, he came to the realization that this was a sweatshop operation and needed to be shut down. But Keith never stopped investing in carpentry tools (sometimes several versions of the same tool) and used them to fix things around the house (so long as it felt like the right calendar year in which to do it).
Enduring and even at times celebrating Keith's particular way of doing things was his devoted wife of 54 years, Susie. The pair were introduced while both were in college in Milwaukee. Keith often said it was love at first sight as Susie came down the staircase of her nursing-school dorm for their first date. Upon her graduation he gave her a dozen white roses; by then he'd already told her she would marry him someday, a pronouncement that aroused initial hearty laughter on her part. However, he wasn't wrong. The pair wed on November 22, 1969.
In the last years of his life, Susie kept Keith gluten-free (a dubious self-diagnosis, according to some observers) and well stocked with cannisters of whipped cream, which often renderedthe dessert on his plate hard to locate. Diet research scientistscontinue to investigate how Keith failed to gain weight despite his notorious sweet tooth, which often found him eating with a spoon from a Blue Bell half-gallon carton.
Keith liked to fish with his sons and daughter when they were young and tackled that hobby with the same all-or-nothing gustohe did everything else. With his father-in-law he built a bass boat from a DIY kit and sold it 20 years later for more than itcost to build, it was that well made.
Once when Keith was fishing in the Tennessee River below Wilson Dam the TVA dropped the water level suddenly, rendering the engine's propeller useless. His eldest son then observed with amazement as his father lowered himself into the shallows and used a rope to pull the boat a half mile to deeper waters.
Keith did not walk on water, but he came close.
Keith's Christian faith was very important to him. He often said that learning to love Jesus helped him to love others much better. His family and friends can attest to the love he showed them. He supported his children in everything they did and was a living testament to the maxim that a good dad qualifies as a great man.
Keith was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2021. Ultimately, multiple myeloma was an engineering challenge that Keith could not completely troubleshoot. Yet, for more than two years of treatment Keith employed his familiar can-do, positive attitude. The family is grateful to the doctors at Clearview Cancer Institute as well as to the medical staff at North Alabama Medical Center for their loving and professional care.
Keith is survived by his wife, Susan Jean Engel Larson; his sister, Julie Larson of Los Angeles; his sons, Eric Larson (Marian) of Raleigh, NC, and Wade Larson (Beth) of Franklin, TN; his daughter, Katy Reynolds (Chris) of Signal Mountain, TN; and seven grandchildren: Stella, Meg, and Liam; Bayleeand Hannabelle; and Addy and Alaina. He is preceded in death by his brother, Mark Larson, and his parents, Clarence and Katherine Larson.
A memorial service will be held Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024, at 2 p.m., at Elkins Funeral Home (Hermitage Drive) in Florence, Alabama.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Russel Hill Cancer Foundation at 3601 CCI Drive, Huntsville, AL 35805 (www.russelhill.org), which assists patients in the Tennessee Valley with vital services.
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