True Pioneers: Laura and Almanzo Wilder

 

While vacationing in Missouri last month, I visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. Decades ago, my children and I read through all of her books. And we’d talked about visiting this museum. But time passed and it never happened. So fulfilling a goal even thirty years later was an awesome thing. And for those of you who grew up on the Little House on the Prairie TV show you would find the museum and the books far more interesting.

 

The couple married in De Smet, South Dakota in 1885. Almanzo was 26 and Laura was 18. They met when her father Charles Ingalls got a job with the railroad there and moved the family to De Smet.

They are true examples of the pioneer spirit. In her book The First Four Years, Laura writes about the hardships of the early years of their marriage. The list of hardships is daunting. Their newborn son dies, the crops fail, their barn, hay and house burn. They lost their homestead to the bank. They both succumbed to diphtheria.

They then spent a few years living with his parents and then with his brother Peter’s family in Minnesota. The extreme cold in the north wasn’t good for Almanzo after his bout with diphtheria. They moved briefly to Florida, but the weather was too humid. They moved back to De Smet while they saved money. Laura had read about successful fruit orchards in the Ozarks. 

Photo by Charles Huff of the Wilders home in Mansfield, Missouri

 After saving a hundred dollars, they traveled for six weeks by covered wagon to the Ozark Mountains. The milder weather of Missouri appealed to them. They purchased 40 acres with an apple orchard among the assorted trees that grew on the property for $10 an acre and lived in a windowless cabin with their seven-year-old daughter Rose until they could build a house. The Wilders were determined to be debt free and diversified their crops, something they failed to do in South Dakota. Along with the apples, they grew other crops and raised chickens. Laura always had a large garden. And Almanzo used the wood from the trees on their property to build onto their cabin, converting it into their house still on the property as when they lived there. Using the variety of tree types, he made much of their furniture and several canes, as well.

Photo By Charles Huff 

 It took seventeen years to build the house on their property, Rock Ridge Farm. Almanzo  and Laura worked together on the construction. Nothing was wasted in the building. They moved the original cabin to the house site, added windows, and installed a full kitchen in the original cabin. They lived in the home as they added rooms. Staying debt free, while milling the wood from their own land to build walls and make shingles took time. The first thing they sold when they took ownership of the land was firewood. Once crops were doing well, they sold all their excess.

Before Laura ever put pen to paper, she was featured in the Country Gentleman Magazine for her unique kitchen. Almanzo had piped water into a water reservoir on the stove so there was always hot water in the kitchen. He’d added lots of extra storage under the windows. And he’d specially designed the cabinets and countertops for her 4’8” height. Some of the chairs in the home are shorter than normal to make things more comfortable for her. Almanzo was also short at 5’3”.

Cutout  of Laura in the kitchen Almanzo made for her. Photo: Charles Huff

 

 

 While Almanzo worked on the farm and built their home, Laura wrote for the local paper and even served as a loan officer for a local bank. She was active in her community, and loved to entertain. At one point, their home had a large rooftop porch where during the summer she could serve 20 guests a cold supper.

They raised their daughter to be independent and encouraged education. Rose became a successful author and journalist. She moved to California and traveled for various writing assignments. Rose took every opportunity to modernize her parents’ home with her own earnings. The Wilders had the first electric stove in the area. Laura only used it on very hot summer days or for heating the kettle for tea. She preferred her wood-burning stove, claiming the food                                                                                         tasted better.

Almanzo continued to create things for their home. He built tables with three legs from the trees on his property, asserting a three-legged table had more balance. The tour guide pointed out the handwoven rugs, needlepoint pillows, and all manner of handcrafted items the Wilders used in their home, all made by Almanzo.

Why she began to write her stories 

Rose encouraged her mother to write her childhood stories. She felt it would bring hope to the new generation (the depression era) that things could get better. Rose also hoped the royalties would help her parents financially. The 1929 stockmarket crash had taken what little savings the Wilders had.

 Rose worried about her parents living in a house with lots of stairs. One Christmas she gave them a Sears House. Yes, you could order house plans from the Sears Catalog. Rock House was an English cottage design. A simple two-bedroom, one-bath, with a kitchen, parlor and dining room. The rock siding came from the rocks around the property. They lived there seven years, during which time Laura began writing about her childhood.

Rock House where Laura began writing her books. photo by: Charles Huff

Once Rose moved back to California, Laura and Almanzo moved from the quaint retirement home back to the homestead, the house they had built themselves and were very proud of.  Eventually the rock house and most of the land was sold to another farmer as it was too much for the elderly couple to care for.

Laura’s parents, Charles and Caroline Ingalls instilled a work ethic in her that served her well. She sold eggs, wrote for the local paper, and helped do all the chores around the farm. So it was no surprise that her daughter could persuade her to write books. At age 60, her first book Little Cabin In The Big Woods was published. People were enamored with her life. Over time, eight books were included in the Little House on the Prairie Box Set we can still buy today. There’s a Little House on the Prairie Cookbook too. The museum has a plethoria of books written about the Wilders as well as copies of Rose Wilder Lane’s books.

Laura was shocked at her popularity, and for the first time in their fifty year marriage they were financially secure. She enjoyed speaking at various libraries and book signings and receiving copious amounts of fan mail. She answered every letter. Laura didn’t waste paper either. She wrote her response to the letters on the blank back page of the letter sent her and mailed it back. While she traveled to promote her books. Almanzo was content with staying home.

Rose bought them a car, and they both learned to drive it. Even taking a trip back to De Smit, South Dakota in their 70s to visit family.

Despite Almanzo’s health issues, he lived to be 92 passing in 1949. Laura died in 1957, a few days after her 90^th birthday.

The Ingall’s Legacy

Laura had three sisters and a brother Charles Frederick “Freddie.” Who died in infancy. Mary, the eldest, who, due to her blindness, never married live wiht her parents. Carrie, younger than Laura was in her forties when she married a widower and raised his two children. Grace’s only child was stillborn. Laura had Rose then lost an infant son at 12 days old. Rose had no natural children but fostered two teen boys. Despite the lack of natural descendants, the legacy of the Charles and Caroline Ingalls family is immortalized in Laura’s stories. The museum in Mansfield, Missouri stands as a reminder of what true resilience can produce. There a few other museum that track the travels of this inspiring couple. Here is a link  to view the videos.

Below is a list of all Laura’s writings

I found this list on Wikipedia, I saw them all at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Mansfield, Missouri.

• Little House in the Big Woods (1932) 
• Farmer Boy (1933) – about Almanzo Wilder growing up in New York
• Little House on the Prairie (1935)
• On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)
• By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)
• The Long Winter (1940)
• Little Town on the Prairie (1941)
• These Happy Golden Years (1943)

Other works

• On the Way Home (1962, published posthumously) – diary of the Wilders' move from De Smet, South Dakota, to Mansfield, Missouri, edited and supplemented by Rose Wilder Lane
• The First Four Years (1971, published posthumously by Harper & Row), illustrated by Garth Williams – commonly considered the ninth Little House book.
• West from Home (1974, published posthumously), ed. Roger Lea MacBride – Wilder's letters to Almanzo while visiting her daughter Rose Wilder-Lane in 1915 in San Francisco
• Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings (1991) collection of pre-1932 articles
• The Road Back Home, part three (the only part previously unpublished) of A Little House Traveler: Writings from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Journeys Across America (2006, Harper) Wilder's record of a 1931 trip with Almanzo to De Smet, South Dakota, and the Black Hills
• A Little House Sampler (1988 or 1989, U. of Nebraska), with Rose Wilder Lane
• Writings to Young Women – Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues, Volume Two: On Life as a Pioneer Woman, Volume Three: As Told by Her Family, Friends, and Neighbors
• A Little House Reader: A Collection of Writings (1998, Harper), ed. William Anderson
• Laura Ingalls Wilder & Rose Wilder Lane, 1937–1939 (1992, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library), ed. Timothy Walch – selections from letters exchanged by Wilder and Lane, with family photographs
• Laura's Album: A Remembrance Scrapbook of Laura Ingalls Wilder (1998, Harper), ed. William Anderson,
• Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography (South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2014)
• Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1911–1916: The Small Farm
• Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1917–1918: The War Years
• Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1919–1920: The Farm Home
• Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1921–1924: A Farm Woman
• Laura Ingalls Wilder's Most Inspiring Writings
• Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Pioneer Girl's World View: Selected Newspaper Columns (Little House Prairie Series)
• The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by William Anderson
• Laura Ingalls Wilder Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks, edited by Stephen W. Hines
• Laura Ingalls Wilder's Fairy Poems, Introduced and compiled by Stephen W. Hines

Laura Ingalls Wilder was not only a pioneer woman making her life from the land, but her writing has preserved a time in history that might have been lost to future generations.

Have you ever read any of Laura’s books? Which one was your favorite? Have you visited her museum?

Cindy Ervin Huff, is a multi-published, award-winning author in Historical and Contemporary Romance.  She’s a 2018 Selah Finalist. Cindy has a passion to encourage other writers on their journey. When she isn’t writing, she feeds her reading addiction and enjoys her retirement with her husband of 50 plus years, Charles. They love visiting museums and historical sites together. Visit her at www.cindyervinhuff.com.