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Disasters
Dan Gunderson

Minnesota fiddle maker loses home and workshop to fire

a blackened, burned home
Minnesota fiddle maker Bud Larsen and his wife Marlys narrowly escaped a fire than destroyed their home and workshop near Brainerd.
Courtesy photo

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Bud Larsen has spent years teaching others the art of building Norwegian hardanger fiddles.  

On Jan. 16, Larsen and his wife Marlys escaped an early morning fire at their home near Brainerd. The home and basement workshop were destroyed. The family dog and two cats died in the fire.

Larsen said he was awaked early in the morning by flames in the loft above their bedroom. There was little time to save anything.

“We ran around trying to pick up a few things that were especially special to us,” Larsen recalled. “We went down into the workshop quickly. And by the time we were carrying out some of my hardanger fiddles, the fire was already falling down into the basement."

The Larsen’s ran barefoot through the snow to their car, where they watched firefighters try to save the home.

Larsen saved four hardanger fiddles, but many instruments were destroyed or badly damaged.

“Marlys has her mandolin and I have my fiddle, so we could at least go busking on the street,” said Larsen with a thin chuckle. “I feel something like the phoenix rising from the ashes at the moment.”

a man and a woman look at a violin
Bud Larsen examines a Hardanger fiddle being built by retired professor Rinita Dalan at a workshop in Moorhead.
Dan Gunderson | MPR News

In addition to the damaged and destroyed fiddles, Larsen said he lost most of his tools to the fire. Also gone are the nearly 200 musical instruments the couple collected earlier in life when they traveled around the world teaching.

The Larsens are living with their daughter while they consider the future.

“It’s sad and hard sometimes,” said Larsen. “But we have a good faith background and many people praying for us and we’re here, we got out and we’re here because there’s still things for us to do.

Family members have set up a Go Fund Me account to help the couple rebuild.

Larsen will be back teaching fiddle building classes this weekend in Fargo-Moorhead.