Anna Larson

Also went by the name Örn Anna Jonsdotter
  • Birth:  1819, Dala-Järna, Sweden.
  • ​Emigrated 1880.  Settled in Minnesota: Cokato, Wright County.
  • Death:  1903​.  Howard Lake, Wright County, Minnesota.  Howard Lake Cemetery, unmarked.   
​Svensk säckpipa belonging to Gudmunds Nils Larsson (1892-1949) Dala Järna.   Included is the "blind pipe", which is common in Venjans-made bagpipes.
Photo credit  Dalarnas Museum
Anna Larson was born in 1819 in Dala-Järna, Sweden, where she learned to play traditional Swedish bagpipes, known as säckpipa.

There's a documented story in Per Alf Allmo's book, "Säckpipan I Norden" in which Anna played the pipes around 1875 for a wedding where the bride was a second cousin to säckpipa player Erik Persson, who immigrated to Iowa in 1868. 
The book also mentions that Anna Larson played with a fiddler from Järna named Monings. Two waltzes in the Svenska Låtar series are attributed to him, and it’s fun to imagine that he and Anna might have played them together.

In 1880, Anna immigrated to Cokato, Minnesota, United States, alongside her husband Lars to join her säckpipa playing daughter Britta Skifstrom in Minnesota.   

Fast forward to a century later, a story about Britta and her mother surfaced on a bagpiping forum.  According to the account, which was later verified in a conversation with Britta's great-granddaughter, "I only know that in Sweden they (Britta and Anna) played the pipes in the bars and the men would throw money at their feet. If they didn't pay well, the women would cuff their ears. I heard from my aunt that they kept sheep or cattle in Sweden and brought the pipes along and played while the animals grazed."  
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Credit to Per-Ulf Allmo, Sweden, ​Norden Säckpipa Association of the Americas, and John-Francis Goodacre Archivist at  Folkmusikens hus for providing valuable information for this story.  
FUN FACTS: 
  • The säckpipa has a long tradition in Dala-Järna, Sweden, where its been used for herding and dancing among other uses.    
  • Skifstrom Land and Skifstrom Lake, now affectionately known as "Mud Lake"  in Wright county.   U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1901 
  • Laura MacKenzie and Renee Vaughan located Anna's unmarked grave and played "Visa frå Järna"
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