Little House Discussed

The official trailer for the Little House on the Prairie reboot has made its way to my feed, so of course I have to share it with you. I am hoping that I am right about what I see, that we are starting out in the Big Woods of Wisconsin before heading to the Kansas Prairie.  From what I understand, the Little House on the Prairie reboot is much more faithful to the books than the Michael Landon silliness. I look forward to next month to see if I'm right!  

Reading the Little House books over and over again during my younger years, I felt like I knew the geography of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s childhood by heart. I would map out the transition from the Big Woods of Wisconsin to the Kansas prairie , to the banks of Plum Creek , and finally to the ultimate destination of De Smet . It wasn't until I got older and started diving into the actual biographies that I learned about a glaring, empty timeline between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake . An entire, heartbreaking chapter of the family’s life was completely erased from the series. It made me wonder why a writer who dedicated her life to chronicling her upbringing chose to completely skip over a town called Burr Oak, Iowa. A side note: Mrs. Wilder's autobiography, Pioneer Girl, was a revelation. No matter how often I read it, I learn something new each time.  A Dark and Heavy Chapter My personal conclusion is that Burr Oak just wasn't a happy place...

When I read Little House in the Big Woods , one of my favorite parts of the book was the description of the "sugaring off" and of Laura's extended family, with all her aunts and uncles and cousins. As I read the later books, Laura's friends in De Smet became my friends too. My favorite parts of By the Shores of Silver Lake , The Long Winter , L ittle Town on the Prairie , and These Happy Golden Years were the parties, socials, and gatherings with the neighbors. While I did plenty of reading regarding Laura Ingalls Wilder and her extended circle of family and friends, it wasn't until the Internet came to town that I learned more about the people she fondly (and not so fondly) mentioned in her books. What follows is a nutshell version of what happened to Laura Ingalls Wilder's family and friends. Hopefully, we can expand the details of all these individuals in future posts, -if we haven't already. Laura's Immediate Family Pa ( Charles Ingalls ): The u...

I know I'm setting myself up for some varying opinions here, but I am never shy about my feelings regarding Charles Ingalls.  Charles "Pa" Ingalls was sometimes written as being larger than life.  He was the guy who could drag a horse-drawn cart across a raging river, twist hay into firewood, ward off swarms of grasshoppers with some smoke and a burlap bag, spell down a whole town, and play a mean fiddle while the blizzard howled outside. Basically, a 19th-century superhero with a broom beard cape. But if you peel back the calico and look at the actual history, a different picture starts to emerge. It’s a picture of a man who couldn't hold down a job or produce a successful crop, and seemingly had a physical allergy to staying in one place for more than twenty minutes. Little Squatter on the Prairie I ask you, if your husband came home today and told you he sold the house, the furniture, and the neighbors’ respect because he heard the grass was slightly greener three ...

  If you're like me, one of your favorite characters of all the L ittle House  books was Cap Garland. Except he wasn't a character. Unlike Nellie Oleson and Mr. Edwards, Cap Garland existed - and Cap Garland was his real name.  So, Whatever Happened to Cap Garland? It’s one of the most heartbreaking "what-ifs" in the entire Little House series. The Long Winter , Cap Garland was my first literary crush. He was the hero of De Smet, brave, athletic, and the guy who risked his life alongside Almanzo Wilder to find the wheat that saved the town from starvation. In Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, he’s frozen in time as this golden, courageous teenager. But the real-life story of Cap Garland is much shorter and more tragic than many fans realize. Oscar Edmund "Cap" Garland wasn’t just a character Laura invented to add tension to her story; he was a real staple of early De Smet. In the books, we see him as a leader among the boys, someone who could handle a team...

In the past, I've referred to the Ingalls as the family who founded the town of DeSmet, South Dakota. But the reality is that it's not as romantic as all that.   After reading  By the Shores of Silver Lake ,   I had ad a specific image of the Ingalls family arriving in Dakota Territory. In our minds, Pa, Ma, and the girls are the heart of De Smet. But if you’re a history buff looking at the legal maps and town charters (which I am not), the question of whether they "founded" the town gets a little more nuanced. It’s one of those beautiful instances where the legend and the ledger don't quite match up, but both are equally fascinating. Who Founded DeSmet, South Dakota? When we talk about the "founding" of De Smet, we’re really looking at two different stories: the legal birth of a town and the more human (and interesting) story of the people who were its first inhabitants. If we're going on facts, the Ingalls family didn’t "found" De Smet in...

  If you grew up watching the original TV show or reading the " Little House " books, Reverend Robert Alden is portrayed as the ultimate pillar of frontier morality. He was the kind-hearted man who brought the church to Walnut Grove and famously gave the Ingalls girls their Christmas Bibles. Laura Ingalls Wilder spoke about his with affection. But as is so often the case with the real people behind Laura’s stories, the historical Robert Alden was a lot more complicated and controversial than the saintly figure portrayed by both. You can imagine my disappointment when I l earned about the real Reverend Robert Alden.  The Truth About Reverend Alden While it is true that Robert Alden was a missionary who helped establish the Congregational church in Walnut Grove, his life outside of the Ingalls’ circle was marked by ambition and some very questionable financial dealings. After his time in Minnesota, Alden moved further west, and it was during his years in the Dakota Territory ...

Genevieve Masters.  From the first time she disdainfully muttered " country girls " to new girls Mary and Laura Ingalls, the name Nellie Oleson has become synonymous with the ultimate playground antagonist. However, readers of the original "Little House" books might be surprised to learn that the girl Laura Ingalls described was not actually one person. Instead, the character of Nellie Oleson was a composite super-villain created by Laura Ingalls Wilder, who blended the traits of three different girls she encountered during her childhood on the frontier. Nellie Owens The first and most significant inspiration for Nellie was a girl named Nellie Owens. Much like the character in " On the Banks of Plum Creek ," Nellie Owens was the daughter of a local shopkeeper in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Her father, William Owens, ran a general store that competed with other local merchants, and the Owens family enjoyed a level of relative luxury that the Ingalls family la...

If you grew up watching Little House on the Prairie on a heavy wood-framed TV, you probably remember Albert Ingalls as the plucky kid who brought a new spark to the show in the later seasons. But if you dig into the actual historical records of the Ingalls family, you’ll find that Albert was a total invention, a fictional addition created by Michael Landon to shake up the script. The true story of the only Ingalls son is much shorter, quieter, and honestly, far more heartbreaking.  Meet Charles Frederick Ingalls. Charles Frederick "Freddie" Ingalls In reality, Charles and Caroline Ingalls had one biological son named Charles Frederick "Freddie" Ingalls, born in late 1875 while the family was living in Walnut Grove. For a father like Pa, who spent his life breaking ground and building homesteads, having a son to carry on the family name was a massive deal. Even a young Laura was reportedly thrilled to finally have a baby brother in a house full of sisters. Unfortuna...

It’s been a few years since I last posted here. Sorry about that, Laura Ingalls Wilder fans. Life simply got in the way. Between starting a new job and the general busyness of the last few seasons, my Little House research ended up on the back burner. But even while I was away, revisiting this blog was never far from my mind. I’ve spent a lot of my hiatus thinking about the real history of the Ingalls and Wilder families especially the parts that didn’t always make it into the books or the classic 1970s TV show. Curiosity About the Real-Life Ingalls and Wilder Families When I started rooting around in this blog again, I noticed something through the comments and search queries: people are still deeply curious about the real-life history of these families. Over the years, I’ve lent my copy of Pioneer Girl to many family members and friends. Most of them are genuinely surprised to learn just how much the TV version differed from reality. Now, I’m not a Laura Ingalls Wilder scholar by ...