Laura Ingalls Wilder

I read the Little House series when I was a young girl and watched the TV series as faithfully as I could. Do you remember the scary episode when the creepy guy is hiding in the bushes watching the girls walk to school? That scarred me for life. Anyway, it wasn’t until Peanut and I read the series together that I truly learned to appreciate them.

Ma is who I now aspire to be, and I have a long, long way to go. She was so full of wisdom and patience and she invented the word resourceful. Her resilience can’t be overstated either, when all those other women were going loopy from the Prairie winds. Maybe she survived so gracefully because she had Pa, a nearly perfect male specimen in my opinion. He was a hunter/provider, carpenter, musician. He adored his family, was always eager to see his kids in the evening, even rounding them up with his fiddle and songs. He rarely showed anger and respected and cherished Ma. These two had good old-fashioned American grit.

I guess Laura did well with Almanzo, too. We already know from The Long Winter that he was courageous and a man of integrity. But did you know the guy could weave? He designed and wove the two rugs on the parlor floor of their home, not to mention making the beautiful craftsman style furniture! Remember he also farmed, hunted and apparently made the best flapjacks for breakfast. Or was that his brother Royal? Anyway, good pioneer stock, these Ingalls/Wilder people.

I haven’t finished The First Four Years, but apparently when Laura and Almanzo lost their infant son and then their house to fire, they’d had it with De Smet, SD and headed to Mansfield, MO. This is where they lived until they died and it’s also where she wrote all of her Little House on the Prairie books. How conveeeenient that we needed to drive right through there on our way to Arkansas today!

I have to say the people working at Rocky Ridge Farm were a bunch of grumpy Prairie Women, apparently forgetting that the people coming to visit were likely to be around 8 years old and Laura devotees. This place didn’t give off a kid-friendly vibe, which baffles me still. (I wish we could have gone to Walnut Grove, MN.)

But hey, we got to see Laura and Mary's sewing (wow!) and Pa’s fiddle, which was worth the price of admission!