The Mennobrarian

If you enjoyed Laura, then you might also like...A Reading List

11:10, Saturday, June 21, 2008 .. Posted in Laura Ingalls .. 5 comments .. Link

From the book "I Remember Laura" by Steven W. Hines:

One day, Mrs. Wilder came into the library and said, "I want you to have lunch with me. I got a surprise in the mail this morning."
"What was that?" I asked.
"Well, I got a $500 royalty check that I wasn't expecting!"
Although we didn't usually close over lunch hour, she said, "I'll go on up to the cafe and order us a shrimp dinner, and then you can come up to the cafe and take time to eat a shrimp dinner with me." So I did.

-Nava Austin, Head Librarian, Wright County Missouri. (retired)

Isn't it befitting that among Laura's many friends, she counted the local librarian? Laura loved to read and learn, and it showed. The book shelves in her Ozark home were filled, the same for Ma and Pa Ingalls' home in DeSmet. Laura would donate her own used books to the library. According to the librarian, they were mostly fiction, mysteries, westerns, "and some bird books."

Of westerns she preferred Luke Shot and Zane Grey. She said the small paperbacks were easy to hold, and she enjoyed them.

Once in a while, someone will tell me how much they enjoyed the frontier stories of Laura's childhood, and that they wish for "Little House" that they can enjoy as adults. The good news is that there are many wonderful books that capture the time, place, and spirit of Laura. I wanted to share my compiled reading list of books that you might also like, now that you're a grown up!

The Children's Blizzard, by David Laskin (A true account of a blizzard in 1888 that ripped across the Great Plains- very good!)

A Lantern in Her Hand, by Bess Streeter Aldrich (Wonderful novel of faith and frontier life.)

Cimarron, by Edna Ferber

The Thread that Runs So True, by Jesse Stuart

The Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig

High, Wide and Lonesome, by Hal Borland

"Little Britches", "The Man of the Family", and "The Home Ranch", all by Ralph Moody

"The Emigrant" series by Vilhelm Moberg

The Backwoods of Canada, by Catherine Parr Traill

Mrs. Mike, by Benedict Freeman

Tisha: The Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness by Anne Purdy, as told to Robert Specht

The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, by Jane Smiley.

Letters from Yellowstone, by Diane Smith.

Mountains Ahead, by Martha Ferguson McKeown

Come Spring, by Charlotte Hinger

The Wedding Dress, by Carrie Young

Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart (true!)

These is My Words, by Nancy Turner

The Journals of Corrie Belle Hollister (series) by Michael Phillips

The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas

The Change and Cherish Historical Series, by Jane Kirkpatrick.

Winter Wheat, by Mildred Walker

Let the Hurricane Roar, by Rose Wilder Lane (Don't miss Rose's interpretation of her parent's pioneering!)

A Sudden Country, by Karen Fisher

And if you can't get enough of Laura, don't forget to read:

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks, by Stephen W. Hines.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Country Cookbook, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, William Anderson, and Leslie A. Kelly (Beautifully done, full of Laura's authentic recipes.)

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Fairy Poems (Did you know Laura wrote poetry?)

Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend, John E. Miller (Brace yourself and ask, just how much do you want to know about the real Laura?)

Feel free to make more recommendations if you have enjoyed reading similar books! And thanks again for joining me on a pioneer journey.

My Laura Ingalls Wilder Trip: The Conclusion

10:23, Friday, June 20, 2008 .. Posted in Laura Ingalls .. 8 comments .. Link

We were getting ready to leave the visitor's center in De Smet when one of the guides reminded us that it was the last day of the "special exhibit."

Oh? What special exhibit?

It was called "From Shawls and Rings to Apron Strings" and was an exhibit of the belongings of the women in the Ingalls and Wilder families. Many of the items were on display for the first time, and as of the following day, all the items would all be returned to the special archives where they are stored.

We couldn't believe it. The guide handed us a list of the hundreds of items on display, including Ma's dishes, Laura's sewing kit, the Ingalls family lap desk, quilts, linens, jewelry, dresses, and even items belonging to Eliza Jane Wilder. It was a true peek into the attic of the Ingalls family! There was also a lot of personal letters and autograph books on display, and even a page from Grace's diary. I really enjoyed reading some of the letters Laura wrote to her sisters. In one, a letter to Carrie, Laura confessed that she suspected the postal clerk was reading her mail! Yet, she had something important and private to tell her sister so she "wrote" the message in braille. It had never occurred to me that the Ingalls sisters learned braille to better communicate with Mary, but it seems they had.

Our final stop of the day, on our way out of South Dakota, was to pay our respects to the Ingalls family at the De Smet cemetery. There, Pa, Ma, Mary, Carrie, Grace (and husband) and Laura and Almanzo's "Baby son Wilder" are resting on the quiet hill top grounds. It's a cool and shady location, without so much a hint of the "Laura tourism" feeling we experienced abundantly elsewhere.

The tallest stone in the foreground belongs to Pa.

On our way to the Minneapolis airport, we passed Sleepy Eye, located several miles outside of Walnut Grove. Sleepy Eye was the main hub of commerce during Laura's day.

There are of course, several other Laura tourist sites scattered throughout the mid-west, which we chose not to visit. There is nothing original left of Laura's little house in the big woods in Pepin, Wisconsin. It is merely a recreation of the cabin and small gift shop. The former Ingalls homestead in Kansas only contains a well that Pa dug, and nothing else original. Burr Oak, Iowa where the Ingalls helped run a hotel for two years (not mentioned in the Little House book series) has a small Laura museum in the restored hotel. Again, we didn't feel this was a location that played a substantial part in Laura's life. Mainly, we had wanted to see the significant sites. We wanted to see places that capture the real spirit of Laura.

This post is the conclusion of my Laura trip. Thanks for reliving the memories with me, it was fun to travel with friends!

I do have one more Laura-themed treat coming up, so watch for it soon.

Laura Trip Part 3: DeSmet, South Dakota

03:54, Tuesday, June 17, 2008 .. Posted in Laura Ingalls .. 1 comments .. Link

Remember Silver Lake? As in “On the Shores of Silver Lake”? It was drained and is now a big marsh. I guess you can’t expect every Laura destination to be perfectly preserved.

Close to the marsh lies the land the Ingalls family first attempted to settle when they arrived in1879 Dakota Territory. A few trees Pa planted still remain, but they are all that is left of the authentic Ingalls homestead on the outskirts of town.

It was when we drove into the town proper of De Smet (pronounced Dez-mit by locals) that we uncovered structures from Laura’s life that were carefully maintained. The surveyor’s house where the Ingalls lived during the Long Winter- Oh! To be in that tiny house knowing that it sheltered Laura’s family (and quite a few other people, we learned) really gave us a taste of the history. All that I had imagined the surveyor’s house to be like while reading was suddenly transformed by seeing the true place. The LIW Society had done a wonderful job of filling it with items mentioned in the Long Winter, and it doesn't take much to imagine the Ingalls family huddled around the stove.

We had asked where the actual school might be, that Laura had attended. Although historians have tried relentlessly to find its possible location, the original one-room school is lost to time.

Our next stop in town was a real treat. It was the Ingalls' home, built by Pa in 1887, and was lived in by Ma, Pa, and Mary until they died. It even housed the young Wilder family for a while, until they set out for Missouri. The unassuming two-story home had many of the family’s possessions on display, although many of their personal items were lost forever when the Ingalls family passed on and the house went to new owners. The new owners threw much of the items away!

Still, we saw Ma’s heirloom shepherdess statue that she carefully packed and displayed on mantles all over the prairie, and a host of other objects used by the family. I enjoyed reading the spines of their books to see what the family enjoyed reading. The second story contained many of Rose Wilder Lane's personal things, such as her writing desk and typewriter. The desk was an enormous three-sided piece. Another interesting living museum!

Next: Even more to see!

Laura Ingalls Wilder trip, Part 2

06:48, Monday, June 9, 2008 .. Posted in Laura Ingalls .. 5 comments .. Link

After seeing the Wilder's grave in Mansfield, MO, we started our drive north to Minnesota to see the infamous town of Walnut Grove. It has come to my attention that many Laura fans have been mislead into believing that she spent most of her childhood in Walnut Grove, when in fact, the Ingalls family lived there only three years. It was an important stop on our trip, however, because Plum Creek is nearby. Plum Creek was where the dugout house was located, where the crab that threatened to nip aura and Mary's toes lived in the sandy creek, and where the girls walked to town to go to school. We were going to see the creek!

We saw the town of Walnut Grove, first. It was a very small town, its main attractions being the Wilder museum, a yearly Laura Ingalls-themed pageant, and a few minor Laura sites. The church bell that Pa Ingalls donated $26.15 to purchase (the equivilant of about $500 today; add $25 for you Aussies) now hangs in the belfry at a neighborhood Lutheran church. Laura fans will remember Pa went without a new pair of badly needed work boots that winter, after donating the money. The museum contained a redwork quilt made by Laura and her daughter Rose, and the Bible from the church the Ingalls attended.

But the real spirit of Laura lingered at the old dugout homestead at Plum Creek. The prairie grasses and wildflowers have been meticulously restored (they had been farmed over during the years, of course!). But the creek still runs just as described, and on such a hot day we could not resist taking off our shoes and dipping our feet into the cool, clear water.

A small path takes you to the mound that once was the Ingall's dugout home, and the site of the massive grasshopper plague. Also, once you see for yourself the long distance that the girls had to walk to get to school in town, you wonder how it was they didn't perish from severe weather. In a day where school buses come directly to children's doors where today's kids wait supervised by concerned parents at the curb, I am telling you no one today would send their two little girls off to walk a few miles to school through dense prairie.