Jeremiah Lawrence Hall was born in Fargo, North Dakota April 25, 189t, the eldest son of Frank Drew Hall and Nellie Maud Hart Hall. He was named after his grandfather Dr. Jeremiah Hall and his other grandfather Daniel Lawrence Hart.

There was no kindergarten for the Hall boys, but he received basic training at home. By the age of seven he was able to read from newspapers and magazines and in his grade school days he devoured at least thirty volumes of his library of G. A. Henty, the popular reading material of intellect-ually inclined youngsters of his day. He also read avidly from a collection of volumes on the dramatic events of British history - particularly the campaigns in India.

Lawrence’s religious tendencies developed in the devout household. His grand-father, James Ransom Hall, baptized him. He matured rapidly so that at age nine he successfully operated a canvassing "business" taking orders for groceries and delivering them in a little cart. In addition to his meager profits he received a sterling silver Elgin watch.

He usually topped his classes in grades and took every opportunity to develop his speaking ability. He planned ambitiously to attend Denison University of which his great grandfather had been president. He was uncertain whether he wanted to take up the ministry or the law. His father supported his ora-torical abilities and purchased a set of the great orations of history, from Cicero to William Jennings Bryan. The books were boring to his peers, but he lived in and with them, applying as much time to them as he had to the G. A. Henty stories.

Lawrence's record in grammar school was excellent. He was either valedictorian or salutatorian of the graduating class when he received his diploma in the old Fargo Opera House. His oration, prepared by himself, was on the life of Richard Wagner, the German composer, whose opera "Tannhauser" was enjoying popularity at the time.

The summer before entering high school he was employed at the Everhart Candy Factory in Fargo, making chocolate bon-bons. He usually came home from work covered with the starch used on the ripening boards, and he ruined two or three pairs of high-buttoned shoes due to the effect of the starch on the leather.

Prior to entering high school he made a trip to either Portland or Seattle to attend a convention of the Baptist Young Peoples Union. Following the convention he boarded a coast-wise steamer and went to San Francisco where he spent the day sight-seeing. He then returned home by rail crossing the Morgan Pass on a Union Pacific train to St. Louis or Kansas City. That same coastal steamer was sunk in a heavy storm during its north-bound return voyage.

Memorable incidents in his life included the time when a gang of ten rowdies came to his house at Halloween, with evil intent towards the little house out in back (there was no inside toilet in that house in those days). They found a very decided young man waiting for them with a 12-guage shotgun (not loaded) with which he persuaded the whole gang to pull out for other areas. The gang included one of the toughest boys of the town and it took no little courage for a “Sunday School boy" to stand up to that gang. At an earlier age, about six, he raided a large sack full of white sugar and then stoutly denied that he had done it. But the sugar on his hands and face forced him into a corner and he and his father had quite a long conference on honesty. In the old Baptist Church an ancient pipe organ was in use, which had to be pumped by volun-teers behind a screen. One Sunday when his grand-father was preaching Lawrence and one of his pals were doing the pumping. During the sermon it was noticed that all the talk was not coming from Grandpa. Stopping suddenly the old gentleman (he must have been sixty) stopped the sermon, stepped to the screen, snapped his fingers and said "Boys, you are disturbing us" and went back to his sermon.

Lawrence and Lucy Josephine Babcock were both very active in the Baptist Church in Fargo and the congre-gation just assumed that someday they would marry. That they did in Minneapolis about August 1, 1908. After a brief sojourn in Milwaukee they returned to Fargo where they set up housekeeping in a scantily furnished four room cottage on Ninth Street South, on the south side of the street back of the Haw-thorne grade school. Lawrence took a job at the Hall-Allen Shoe Store (no family connection).