Jean Wilson – Photo courtesy of Sue Larson.
by Jim Stull
Jean Evelyn Wilson was born February 23, 1894, in Erie Colorado. She was the third of four children of James Lyon Wilson and Charlotte “Lottie” (Richards) Wilson. She attended Erie schools, graduating from the 11th grade in 1910, and from the State Teacher’s College of Colorado in Greeley in 1913. She moved to Hanna, Wyoming, where her brother, Fred, had moved in 1913, to work at the Union Pacific Railroad store. Jean was hired there to teach. While in Hanna, she met Harold Larson (nee Harald Gottfred Larsson), and the two were married in 1921. She and Harold moved back to Erie along with Fred, and Fred and Harold opened the Wilson-Larson Store at 500 Briggs Street. Jean taught school in Erie and at Serene, the town at the Columbine Mine. When Harold died, Jean worked with Fred at the store, while she continued to teach. In 1951, she remarried Will Slater of Longmont. According to her granddaughter, Sue Wilson, of Boulder, Jean and her siblings were all buried in Boulder’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Sue remembers visiting her grandmother in the house James Wilson built for himself on Holbrook Street. Former Erie resident Henry Amicarella recalled Jean as being his favorite teacher when he attended the Serene school, and Tom Chrisman remembers her fondly as being his fifth-grade teacher in the early 1950s at the Lincoln School. Jean was also active with the Preparing for Marriage organization. Photo courtesy of Sue Larson.
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