“The reason I’ll never leave this house is because of my roses and my swimming pool,” said Dotty Larson of her 1950s Huntington estate. “I still swim laps and I love my rose garden.”
That beloved home is also where Larson, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday, began teaching a Bible study class nearly 50 years ago. Since then, Larson has touched thousands of people by teaching Community Bible Study classes, a form of interdenominational Bible study that has spread to over 60 countries in 30 languages with over 700 classes worldwide.
Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer
After devoting so much of her life to spiritual education endeavors, Larson has finally retired from teaching Bible study. In May she was honored at a farewell party and was presented with a plaque by Congresswoman Janice Hahn to commemorate her accomplishments.
Larson lives in the Palisades but grew up on a ranch in Texas and had a close relationship with her father. She describes her childhood as idyllic, having spent it riding horses, swimming in the creek behind her house and shooting guns.
“I’m a very good shot,” Larson said.
Dotty Larson was 26 in 1946 when she and her husband Hav came to the Palisades and moved into a small house at the foot of what is now Marquez Knolls. Four years later they sold their home (and with it the then-breathtaking views of rolling hills and grazing horses) and bought the plot of land on Alma Real Drive where they built their house in 1950. The Palisadian-Post met with Larson and her good friend Jan Lindsey at Larson’s home, which has been added on to over the years but was empty when they moved in.
“The first thing we put in this house were the halfway Dutch curtains in the living room so people couldn’t look in and see we had no furniture,” Larson said, laughing.
Larson is an established woman in both the Palisades and Christian communities. Before the age of 30 she had been named Pacific Palisades Citizen of the Year for her efforts in bringing the first Youth House to the Palisades. She is the published author of Flight 2031: A Journey into Eternity, was room mother to her four children, and now enjoys spending time with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. However, she is best known in the Palisades for her branch of Community Bible Study, an endeavor that Larson says all started with a skiing accident and a broken leg.
“I didn’t know how to say no to anything,” said Larson. “God had to literally knock me down to get me to be quiet enough to think some thoughts about eternity and what matters.”
Larson says breaking her leg made her slow down and, now with time to read, she picked up the Bible and realized she didn’t quite understand it. Larson sought clarification at Calvary Church where Jan Lindsey’s husband Hal, who would later author The Late Great Planet Earth, was teaching at the time. Dotty was inspired by his teachings and quickly formed a close relationship with the couple.
“Hal and Jan Lindsey had profound influence on me when I first started studying the Bible and that’s what directed all my years of service—my relationship with them,” Larson said.
Despite her lengthy list of personal achievements, Larson knows what is truly important.
“I’ve never heard anybody say ‘I wish I had spent more time working,’” said Larson. “What they always wish is that they spent more time with people. Life is about relationships. Life is not about accomplishments. I think we get confused about that.”
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