A mother from Wisconsin described her child’s pleasure when Laura’s letter arrived: “You will never realize, Mrs. Wilder, how happy you made our little boy, James, by writing him after he’d sent you a little card and letter. I’ll never forget the sparkle in those little black eyes of his when he read your letter. He will keep that letter—forever he said.”
On into the twenty-first century, the warm, friendly feeling toward Laura Ingalls Wilder still persists. Back in 1950, a reader apologized for addressing her as “Dear Laura”—too familiarly, she feared.
The answer was genuine, as one might expect from Laura Ingalls Wilder:
“Certainly you may call me Laura. I am glad you feel like doing so.”
A NOTE ON EDITING
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s letters appear in this book essentially as she wrote them, leaving intact occasional antiquated language, usage of the era, and style. Spelling errors have been silently corrected. Incorrect dates have also been remedied. In some cases, the contents of the letters contain redundant information. These sentences have been removed and are indicated with ellipses, or italicized summaries of the excised passages.
To avoid unneeded repetition in these pages, return addresses have been deleted from most of the letters. Unless otherwise indicated, the reader may assume that the bulk of the letters were written from Rocky Ridge Farm, in Mansfield, Missouri. Laura’s dating system has been regularized. Throughout the book, the use of the familiar “Laura” is used in place of the more scholarly “Wilder.” This was an editorial decision, and it seems a valid choice.
A LAURA INGALLS WILDER CHRONOLOGY
1836 January 10: Charles Phillip Ingalls born.
1839 December 12: Caroline Lake Quiner born.
1857 February 13: Almanzo James Wilder born.
1860 February 1: Charles Ingalls and Caroline Quiner marry.
1863 September 22: Charles Ingalls and Caroline’s brother, Henry Quiner, jointly purchase 160 acres in Pepin Township, Wisconsin.
1865 January 10: Mary Amelia Ingalls born.
1867 February 7: Laura Elizabeth Ingalls born.
1868 April 28: The Ingalls-Quiner farm is sold.
1870 Ingalls family lives in Montgomery County, Kansas. Caroline Celestia Ingalls is born on August 3.
1871 Ingalls family returns to their farm near Pepin, Wisconsin, after the buyer defaults on payment.
1873 October 28: Charles Ingalls sells his farm a second time.
1874 Ingalls family settles along Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota.
1875 November 1: Charles Frederick Ingalls born.
1876 July 10: Charles Phillip Ingalls sells the Plum Creek farm.
August 27: Charles Frederick dies near South Troy, Minnesota.
1876–1877 Ingalls family lives in Burr Oak, Iowa. Grace Pearl Ingalls is born on May 23, 1877.
1878 Ingalls family returns to Walnut Grove.
1879 Mary Ingalls loses eyesight. Ingalls family moves to Dakota Territory.
1880 Ingalls family settles in De Smet, living in town and on their homestead.
1881 Mary Ingalls enrolls in the Iowa College for the Blind.
1884–1885 Laura Ingalls teaches the Bouchie, Perry, and Wilkin schools.
1885 August 25: Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder marry.
1886 December 5: Rose Wilder born.
1889 August: Infant son of the Wilders born and died; Wilder home burns.
1890 Laura, Almanzo (“Manly”), and Rose live with Wilder family in Spring Valley, Minnesota.
1891–1892 Laura, Manly, and Rose live near Westville, Florida.
1892–1894 Laura, Manly, and Rose live in De Smet.
1894 July: Laura, Manly, and Rose leave for Missouri. September: Laura, Manly, and Rose settle on Rocky Ridge Farm.
1898 Laura, Manly, and Rose move to Mansfield.
1901 October 16: Grace Ingalls and Nathan Dow marry.
1902 June 8: Charles Ingalls dies in De Smet.
1903–1904 Rose Wilder spends the school year in Crowley, Louisiana, living with Eliza Jane Wilder Thayer.
1905–1906 Rose learns telegraphy at Mansfield’s railroad depot; works in Kansas City as a telegraph operator, where Laura visits.
1909 March 24: Rose marries Claire Gillette Lane in San Francisco.
1910 Laura writes agricultural articles for the St. Louis Star-Farmer.
June: Laura and Manly sell the house in Mansfield and resettle on Rocky Ridge to try full-scale farming.
November: Rose delivers a premature baby in Salt Lake City; the infant boy does not survive.
1911 Laura publishes her first article in the Missouri Ruralist, the start of a thirteen-year association.
1912 August 1: Carrie Ingalls and David Swanzey marry in Rapid City.
1913 Completion of the Rocky Ridge farmhouse.
1915 August–October: Laura visits Rose in San Francisco. She writes about the Panama-Pacific International Exposition for the Missouri Ruralist.
1917 Laura takes a job as secretary-treasurer of the Mansfield Farm Loan Association.
1918 Rose launches a career as a freelance writer after working as a staff writer for the San Francisco Bulletin. Her divorce from Gillette Lane is finalized.
1920 Rose accepts a publicist position with the American Red Cross office in Paris; she works and travels abroad for three years.
1924 April 20: Caroline Ingalls dies in De Smet. Rose lives on Rocky Ridge Farm, publishing books, magazine serials, short stories, and articles; Laura ceases writing for the Missouri Ruralist.
1925 September–October: Laura, Rose, and Helen Boylston travel to California.
1926–1928 Rose and Helen Boylston travel in Europe and live in Tirana, Albania.
1928 October 17: Mary Ingalls dies. Rose and Helen return to live at Rocky Ridge. Rose has a rock house built for Laura and Manly; in December they move in.
1930 Laura writes her autobiography, Pioneer Girl.
1931 Laura and Manly revisit South Dakota.
1932 Little House in the Big Woods is published.
1933 Farmer Boy is published; Rose’s Let the Hurricane Roar is published. John Turner, an orphan, is taken in by Rose at Rocky Ridge. He is later joined by his brother Al.
1935 Little House on the Prairie is published; Rose’s Old Home Town is published.
1936 Rose’s Give Me Liberty is published; she leaves Rocky Ridge Farm permanently; Laura and Manly return to the Rocky Ridge farmhouse.
1937 On the Banks of Plum Creek is published.
1938 Laura and Manly visit South Dakota en route to California; Rose’s Free Land is published and she establishes a home in Danbury, Connecticut.
1939 By the Shores of Silver Lake is published; Laura and Manly visit South Dakota and Colorado.
1940 The Long Winter is published.
1941 November 10: Grace Ingalls Dow dies. Little Town on the Prairie is published.
1943 These Happy Golden Years is published; Rose’s The Discovery of Freedom is published.
1946 June 2: Carrie Ingalls Swanzey dies.
1949 October 23: Almanzo Wilder dies.
1954 The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award is established by the American Library Association; Laura is the first recipient.
1957 February 10: Laura Ingalls Wilder dies at Rocky Ridge Farm.
1968 October 30: Rose Wilder Lane dies in Danbury, Connecticut.
PART
I
CHAPTER 1
THE FARMER’S WIFE (1894–1920)
Laura, circa 1917. “Mrs. Wilder is a woman of delightful personality.” (The Missouri Ruralist Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s early life was shaped by the Homestead Act of 1862 and the adage repeated by her parents: “It is better farther on.” She was born in a Wisconsin log cabin in 1867, near Pepin, seven miles from the dividing line between east and west: the Mississippi River. Her parents, Charles and Caroline Ingalls, were among those who felt the post–Civil War h
unger for the open plains. For a decade, from 1869 to 1879, the Ingalls family was on the move, seeking a home. They endured nearly every challenge of pioneer life, and failed to find much success. Laura wrote, “With my parents and sisters, I traveled by prairie schooner across Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas and into Indian Territory. . . . Then traveling back to western Minnesota we lived for several years. . . . From there we went West again. . . . We lived in De Smet [Dakota Territory] and I married Almanzo Wilder.”
There were four Ingalls daughters: Mary, Laura, Carrie, and Grace. An infant son died. Mary lost her eyesight at age fourteen; the family was never the same thereafter. Settling down in De Smet, South Dakota, was due to Caroline Ingalls’s “no further” edict. Laura dutifully taught three terms of school as a young teen, adding income to the struggling family’s budget. In 1885 she became Almanzo Wilder’s bride. They were a companionable couple, known to each other as Bess and Manly.
With good prospects for success, the couple homesteaded near De Smet, but a cycle of bad luck dogged them during their first years together. There were fires, crop failures, illness, debt, and the death of an infant son. Their first child, Rose, was born in 1886. After the fiasco of homesteading, the Wilders sought a new life in the Missouri Ozarks. In 1894, Manly, Laura, and Rose bade farewell to family and friends, and left the prairies.
Rocky Ridge Farm, a mile from Mansfield, Missouri, became the permanent family home.
As I am going away
At twenty-seven and thirty-seven, Laura and Manly were starting over, with a $100 bill saved to buy new land. As they prepared for the 650-mile journey to Missouri, Laura wrote this note to the Bethlehem chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star in De Smet, a Masonic society to which the Wilders belonged. This is the earliest known example of her letter writing.
De Smet
JULY 9, 1894
Mrs. Seeley.
Secretary Eastern Star Chapter No. 13
As I am going away I would like the Chapter to grant me a demit. Enclosed please find 75 cents which I believe is the amount of my dues.
Yours fraternally,
Laura Wilder
It is a continual picnic
“Manly Wilder started for Missouri last Monday and will make the trip in company with Mr. [Frank] Cooley. Mr. Wilder has been a resident of De Smet for several years and he is one of those men we dislike to see move away.” The Kingsbury County Independent neglected to mention that Mr. Wilder was accompanied by his wife and their seven-year-old daughter, Rose. Frank Cooley’s wife, Emma, and their two young sons were also part of the caravan. Laura Wilder kept a daily journal during the six-week trek to Missouri. As the trip neared its end, she wrote a travel letter to the De Smet News and Leader. The paper’s editor, Carter Sherwood, printed Laura’s description. By default he became her first publisher. Years later she noted on the penciled column: “First I ever had published.”
AUGUST 23, 1894
Ed. NEWS & LEADER: Thinking that our friends in De Smet might like to hear how we are progressing on our journey, I will send you a short account of it so far.
We reached Yankton in just a week from the time we started, crossed the Missouri river on a ferry and bade good-bye to Dakota. The crops that far were about the same as they were around De Smet.
The next town of importance we saw was Schuyler, Nebraska, where we stayed a few hours for Mr. Cooley’s people to visit friends. We went through Lincoln and saw the capitol buildings, the court house and a great deal of the city; then to Beatrice, which is a nice city. The crops of wheat and oats through eastern Nebraska were good. Corn was damaged by the drought.
We saw the capitol in Topeka, famous for the legislative war. [The “war” was a heated 1893 dispute for supremacy between the Republican and Populist parties.] It is a grand building. From Topeka we went to Ottawa and from there to Fort Scott, which is a lovely place. Coal crops out of the ground all through the country around Fort Scott, and at the mines it is only two feet below the surface. It is worth $1.00 per ton at the mines or $1.25 delivered. Crops through eastern Kansas are fair. It is a grand sight to see hundreds of acres of corn in one field.
We have had a very pleasant trip so far, no bad weather to delay us, having had only a few light showers, and those in the night. Our camping places have been delightful. We camped on the Jim river in Dakota, and on the Blue in Kansas and nearly every night beside we have camped on creeks, among the trees. It is a continual picnic for the children to wade in the creeks and play in the woods, and sometimes we all think we are children and do likewise.
We have eaten apples, grapes, plums and melons until we actually do not care for any more, and to satisfy a Dakota appetite for such things is truly something wonderful.
There are hazelnuts, hickory nuts and walnuts along the road, but they are green yet. Country is full of emigrants traveling in every direction.
Our horses are in good condition and our wagons are whole yet, having had no accidents. We are near Lamar, Missouri, now and expect to be on the road a week longer before we reach the land of promise.
Laura Wilder
We each and severally sell and convey
In the beginning, Rocky Ridge Farm could not sustain the family of three, so the Wilders rented a little frame house in Mansfield, to be closer to work opportunities. They lived there from 1898 to 1910. Manly was the town drayman and delivered products for Waters Pierce Oil Company. The Wilders received an economic boost when Manly’s parents purchased the rented house for them; later they received funds from the elder Wilders’ estate. Laura penned this receipt.
DECEMBER 2, 1903
For ($500) Five Hundred Dollars to us in hand paid we each and severally sell and convey to Mrs. E.J.W. [Eliza Jane Wilder] Thayer, widow of Thomas Thayer, deceased, interests in the estate of our Father James Wilder, deceased.
Almanzo J. Wilder
Laura E. Wilder
Postcards to Rose
Rose Wilder was a bookish, unconventional teen. Farm life and small-town mores bored her. She joined the ranks of early twentieth-century bachelor girls, eager to be self-supporting, ambitious to experience big-city life. By 1908 Rose was a telegrapher in San Francisco. She reported to her parents that “I go to work at Fairmont, largest hotel here, tomorrow. Everything fine. Will write you heaps on typewriter at office. Hurrah! Rose.” The popular penny postcard of the era, including an illustration or photograph provided by the sender, was a means of communication frequently used by the Wilder family.
AUGUST 30, 1908
Out by Williams Cave, with Mrs. Quigley and Ava. That is Manly’s foot, not mine. Notice Shep [the family dog]. Look at us with a magnifying glass.
Bess
AUGUST 31, 1908
Dear Rose,
How does this look to you? School began today & made me think of you & wish you were trotting along with the crowd.
Mama Bess
As the family’s finances improved, Laura indulged in travel. In 1902 she returned to De Smet at the time of her father’s death; in 1906 she visited Rose, who was then a telegrapher in Kansas City. In 1908 she traveled by train to Sedalia, Missouri, as a guest of Mrs. John Quigley. Mr. Quigley had boarded with the Wilders while he superintended the building of the Bluebird Railroad spur from Mansfield to Ava, Missouri, in 1908. On each jaunt she updated Manly on her well-being and activities.
Having a fine time
Sedalia
OCTOBER 4, 1908
Arrived last night. Am feeling good & having a fine time.
Bessie
Dear Manly—
I’m in on the ground floor and having a fine time.
Bessie
Sending you the rewritten poultry article
To supplement the farm’s income, Bessie Wilder—as she was known in Mansfield—embarked on a career as a country journalist. Her first submission to the Missouri Ruralist was in 1911; it was the start of a thirteen-year association with the publication. Wilder’s editor, John Cas
e, relied on her for feature stories, interviews, poetry, and op-ed columns. “I am bursting with congratulations,” Rose wrote when she read her mother’s first published writing.
MARCH 17, 1915
Mr. John Case
Kansas City
Dear Mr. Case:
I am sending you the rewritten poultry article, as you requested, and I think it is about what the other was. Sorry you had the trouble of searching and trust this will meet your approval.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. A. J. Wilder
The Wilder farm, with its showplace house, became known as a unique example of successful agriculture in the Ozarks. This unidentified clipping dates to circa 1910.
MRS. A. J. WILDER
Several farmers, and particularly those interested in poultry, have inquired who Mrs. A. J. Wilder is. This question was asked again by Rev. David Long, who lives in the eastern portion of the county and who in company with several gentlemen called on the Republican last week [unidentified newspaper]. Mrs. A. J. Wilder and her husband reside on Rocky Ridge Farm, one mile east of Mansfield. Mrs. Wilder has for some years been a contributor to various state publications. At present she is editor of the poultry department of the Star Farmer. She also contributes to the Missouri Ruralist and is on the staff of the Globe Democrat, as well as several eastern papers. A visit to Rocky Ridge Farm would probably give the inquirer a better insight to poultry raising than could be obtained in any other section of South Missouri. Mr. Wilder is a model farmer and can not only exhibit fine poultry but can undoubtedly show a greater percent of actual profit than anyone we know. Profit is the main thing and Mr. Wilder being in poultry raising for the money, has as a result of experiment, arrived at a knowledge of how to care for poultry, which would be beneficial to farmers of this section. An hour spent on Rocky Ridge Farm would, in our opinion, be more beneficial than to spend a week at any state poultry farm where the desire is to know how to raise poultry at a profit.
The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder Page 2