Olav Larssen

Olav Larssen (10 July 1894 – 5 July 1981) was a Norwegian newspaper editor and politician for the Labour and Communist parties.

Olav Larssen was born in Furnes as a son of baker Kristian Larssen and Lovise Wahlum (1873–1923). He attended primary school in rural Furnes, but then moved to the nearby city Hamar to take apprenticeship as a typographer. By 1910 he dwelled as a tenant in Østregate 55 in the neighborhood Østbyen, nearby Hamar Station. He recalled having to adapt to the city culture, and shed some of his childhood dialect/sociolect.

In 1917 he married taylor's daughter Aslaug Rustad (1892–1987). She hailed from Hamar and was the oldest girl of ten siblings. After her mother's death when she was fourteen, she had to abandon plans to become a hairdresser to help her father with tending to their family.

Their daughter Randi (1924–2002) was a well-known journalist and writer. From April 1946 she was married to Prime Minister of Norway (1971–72 and 1973–76) Trygve Bratteli. Their son Erik (1921–) became a state secretary and also a permanent under-secretary of state (Norwegian: departementsråd) in the Ministry of Transport. He changed his last name to Ribu, and was married to a daughter of editor Jørgen Hustad.

Olav Larssen was involved in the temperance movement at a young age. He had a family background of interest in politics, as his father was a member of Furnes municipal council for the Liberal Party. Later, in 1915, the liberal workers' union Furnes Arbeiderforening under the chairmanship of Kristian Larssen decided to take up collective membership in the Labour Party. Olav Larssen became active in the youth wing of the Labour Party, Norges Socialdemokratiske Ungdomsforbund (NSU), already in 1911 when a local NSU branch was founded in Hamar.

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