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The first child of J.J. and Margaret was named Lawrence Palmer Brown. Nicknamed Larry, he was born on August 30, 1887 in his maternal grandparents’ four-room cottage near the Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri. The middle name “Palmer” was chosen to honor J.J.’s mother.

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After moving to Denver in 1894, Larry was enrolled in the prestigious Sacred Heart College, a Catholic school in Denver. Larry next attended boarding school in France at the Jean D’Arc College and later the Phillips Exeter Academy in Pennsylvania to take prep courses with the hopes of attending first Yale then the Colorado School of Mines.

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After J.J. purchased the Avoca property west of Denver along Bear Creek, both children enjoyed spending time on the farm. Margaret would host dances in the barn, which was outfitted with a special hardwood floor built for dancing, and these became notable social occasions often mentioned in the society columns. Their first family trip took them across the southern United States and concluded with a stop at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1895 they took their first trip to Europe sailing to Naples and staying several months in Italy, then continuing on to England, Scotland and Ireland.

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While attending Exeter Academy, Larry was involved in adventurous outing with some fellow students which resulted in his expulsion. After a night in jail, Larry is quoted as assaying “My, but I regret this affair. I can hardly think of facing mother. I am very fond of her and sis, and they will suffer the most for what has occurred.”

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Instead of returning to school, Larry married his sweetheart Eileen Elizabeth Horton, a socialite born in 1890 in Kansas City, Missouri, who nicknamed her sweetheart Laurie. While Margaret approved of Eileen, J.J. counseled Larry to wait and go back to school or settle in a career. Larry chose to marry Eileen against his parents’ wishes with neither parent attending the ceremony. The couple was wed on January 16, 1911 in the Loretto Heights Chapel here in Denver; Larry was 24, Eileen 21.They spent their first night together in his childhood home on Pennsylvania Avenue, sleeping in his sister Helen’s room, before departing the next day on a honeymoon in Leadville. Partly due to Larry’s popularity with the Newport social set, Larry’s nuptials made the New York Times.

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After being cut-off financially by J.J., Larry and his new bride moved to Victor, Colorado, where he took a job as a day miner.  It was here in November of 1911 that their first child, Lawrence Palmer "Pat" Brown, Jr. was born. Newspaper headlines reported that “Rich man’s son toils in mine to feed wife and baby”. With Eileen’s encouragement, Larry began taking correspondence courses, and soon J.J.’s temper cooled and he began sending small installments to Larry from his trust fund. J.J. also had Larry take over his mining interests while J.J. attended to his other businesses. After moving to California, the couple had their second child, Eileen Elizabeth "Betty" Brown, was born in July of 1913. After an ever-changing employment situation and many moves, the strain took a toll on their marriage and they divorced in the summer of 1915, and each parent was awarded custody of one child. Upon hearing the news, Margaret visited Larry, who was now living in Golden where he had finally enrolled at the Colorado School of Mines. J.J. and Margaret did not approve of divorce and encouraged Larry and Eileen to reconcile and remarry.

 

When the United States entered World War One, Margaret and J.J. Brown fully supported their son in his decision to enlist. After enrolling in officer’s school at Fort Sheridan, Larry quickly took to military life, attracting distinction for his “competency in military manners and enthusiasm.” He earned the rank of captain and was deployed to France in August, 1918 as part of the American Expeditionary Forces. Soon after arriving in France, he was stationed at the Hindenburg Line, part of Germany’s heavily fortified defense system. In a letter to his mother, Larry wrote: “It’s next to impossible to write here. You do it in the most impossible places and you are never in the humor… I become intensely lonely at times.”

 

On September 29, 1918, while serving north of St. Quentin, France, Larry was hit with mustard gas. Larry was in the hospital for two months and was able to recover. With his military career over, he was awarded a Victory Medal for helping to break through the Hindenburg Line, and received an honorable discharge in January, 1919.

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After the death of his father in 1922, Larry and his sister Helen wanted to remain in control of the estate and put Margaret on a fixed income. The estate was finally settled four years later in 1926 with the children receiving $100,000 and Margaret receiving $100,000. Shortly after this outcome, Larry divorced Eileen again and married Hollywood actress, Mildred Gregory on November 17, 1926 in Beverly Hills, California. Larry met Mildred while working for the John Gorman Pictures studio as a general manager in the silent film industry. Larry also took over his father's interests in the Evans Gulch Group after his father's death. When his mother passed away in New York City in 1932, Larry asked for the funeral to be postponed until he could travel from La Jolla, California. Accounts say Larry seemed haunted by the fact that he hadn’t seen his mother in years.

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In 1935 Larry and Mildred returned to Colorado to live in Leadville where he became a board member of the Leadville Historical Association, and eventually served as the Director of the Colorado Mining Association. Reportedly Larry was troubled by the growing number of false stories about his mother as first Timberline by Gene Fowler was published, and later on the Unsinkable Molly Brown play then movie. Larry would petition the Denver Public Library for helping sorting out the stories, and even contacted the head of NBC studios to halt a broadcast about her. Larry never did reconcile the real Margaret and the mythic “Molly”.

After contracting severe pneumonia, Larry died in Leadville on April 2, 1949 at the age of 61. Larry left several boxes and suitcases to the Colorado Historical Society with the caveat 

that they not be opened for 25 years to help protect his sister and all of their offspring from any further harm by the seemingly derogatory media that had replaced their mother’s life story. In 1978, with representatives of Historic Denver present, those boxes were opened, and after eighteen months of sorting, a clearer picture emerged about the life and family of Margaret Brown.

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Larry was survived by his wife Mildred, ex-wife Eileen, and their two children. Their daughter “Bets” attended the Dominican Convent in San Rafael to become a nun, taking the name Sister Mary Laetitia Brown. Their son “Pat”, the sick baby for whom Margaret was returning on the Titanic, married and had two children, Lance and Muffet Laurie Brown. Years after their divorce, Eileen reflected back on her time with Larry that “He had a bad habit of chasing women; he was extremely popular and could dance divinely. Laurie was very handsome, having inherited his mother’s full lips and soft eyes.”