Alisa Larson

Alisa Larson, 80

Alisa Selma Maria Happonen Larson, age 80, of Dallas, Texas, died on February 9, 2016.

Born in Kuopio, Finland, she was the only child of John and Alma Happonen. She came to the United States as a young child.

She attended schools in Westminster, Massachusetts and graduated from Fitchburg High School in 1953. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1957, she married G. Donald Larson and moved to Michigan. While her husband was in medical school, she taught school for a few years. They also lived in San Francisco and Colorado. They settled in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1965, where she was very involved in raising their four children.

She moved back to the Boston area for awhile before deciding to move to Dallas, Texas, where all the grandchildren were at the time.

Alisa was an active community volunteer throughout her lifetime. She greatly enjoyed reading, Scrabble, crossword puzzles and traveling, with many trips taken to Mexico and Europe. She especially liked New England in the fall and spending summers at her lake home near Kuopio, Finland.

She is survived by her daughters and their husbands, Drs. Karen and Mitch Magee and Christine and Bill Shirer, all of Dallas, her son and his wife, Drs. David and Vanessa Laaksonen of Kuopio, Finland, and her son Michael Larson of Dallas, and six grandchildren in Texas and three in Finland. She is also survived by cousins in Finland.

Special thanks are given to Alisa's caregivers at the Legacy Preston Hollow and to her many doctors including Dr. Beth Yu, Dr. Allan Shulkin and Dr. Debasis Dasgupta.

A memorial service was held on Saturday, February 20th at King of Glory Lutheran Church in Dallas, Texas. Burial will be on April 30th at 10am in Woodside Cemetery beside her parents in Westminster, MA. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to King of Glory Lutheran Church, 6411 Lyndon B Johnson Frwy, Dallas, TX 75240 or a charity of your choice.