Can We Talk About Burr Oak Iowa?

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 for the Ingalls family. In fact, it was arguably one of the darkest, heaviest periods of their lives. The neat, wholesome narrative of pioneer resilience that Laura crafted for children didn't quite fit the harsh realities of what happened there. It makes perfect sense that their time in Iowa wasn't deemed appropriate for a historical fiction series geared towards young readers.

The journey to Iowa began in the summer of 1876, when the family packed up and left Walnut Grove after relentless grasshopper plagues drove them to bankruptcy. Before they even crossed the Iowa border, they stopped in Zumbro Falls, Minnesota, to stay with Peter and Eliza Ingalls. For a quick family tree refresher: Peter was Pa’s older brother, and Eliza was Ma’s sister. Because two Ingalls brothers married two Quiner sisters, their kids were double first cousins.

But this family visit was overshadowed by an unimaginable tragedy. While staying there, Laura’s infant brother, Charles Frederick "Freddy" Ingalls, fell terribly ill. He died on August 27, 1876, at just nine months old, and was buried in nearby South Troy. It was a devastating loss for a family that absolutely doted on their only baby boy, casting a long, grief-stricken shadow over them before they ever reached Iowa.

Not Off to a Good Start

They pushed on to Burr Oak because a friend from Walnut Grove, William Steadman, had bought a local establishment called the Masters Hotel and asked Pa to help him manage it. When the grieving family arrived, the reality of the situation hit them immediately. This wasn't a quiet homestead. The hotel sat right next to a rowdy saloon, and Laura later wrote in her memoir, Pioneer Girl, that she absolutely detested the atmosphere.

Ma and Pa were equally miserable. The constant presence of drinking men hanging around the property, frequently using foul language and causing disruptions, made the environment feel entirely unsuitable for raising young girls.

To absolutely no one's surprise, Pa didn't enjoy working in a hotel either. Managing a hospitality business for transient travelers was a far cry from the independent farming life he dreamed of. He quickly grew tired of the arrangements, and the family moved out of the hotel and into an apartment located over a grocery store down the street. It was a slight step away from the saloon, but still a long way from the quiet prairie.

Flashes of Normalcy

That is not to say everything about Burr Oak was terrible. There were brief flashes of childhood comfort. Laura and Mary actually liked their teacher at the local school, which was a rare blessing given how sporadic their education could be. Interestingly, Laura also found a strange sort of comfort spending time at the local cemetery. Given the recent loss of her baby brother, it is easy to see how a quiet graveyard might have felt like a peaceful sanctuary for a grieving, sensitive nine-year-old girl.

But the town also forced Laura to grow up much too fast. Because money was incredibly tight, she was sent out to work as a live-in babysitter for strangers at the shockingly young age of nine or ten. During one of these jobs, a terrifying incident occurred when she woke up in the night to find her employer, the husband of the household, drunk and cornering her in her bed. Showing the fierce bravery that defined her character, Laura threatened to scream, catching him off guard and making him back down. When she went home and told her mother what happened, Ma immediately told her she never had to go back.

In May of 1877, a bright spot finally arrived when baby sister Grace was born after the family rented a small brick house near the creek. The local community seemed to take a liking to the family as well, though sometimes in bizarre ways; a local couple actually tried to adopt Laura, an offer Ma and Pa firmly rejected.

Fleeing in the Middle of the Night

But the financial strain on Pa was becoming completely unbearable. Between the failed hotel venture and taking whatever odd jobs he could find, he had racked up a significant amount of debt that he simply couldn't pay off. Having no other choice, the family packed their things in total secret. They fled from the town in the middle of the night, slipping away in the dark to head right back to Walnut Grove.

When you look at the sheer weight of what happened in Burr Oak: the death of a baby brother, the rowdy saloons, the financial desperation, a terrifying brush with a predator, and a midnight escape from debt- it becomes entirely clear why Laura left Iowa out of her books. The Little House series was always meant to be an idealized, comforting version of the American frontier. Burr Oak was simply too raw, too broken, and too real to fit into the story.