The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder

by William Anderson

  My father with his family drove from Tracy, Minnesota, the end of the railroad track, to where Brookings is now located. He was a bookkeeper and timekeeper at the railroad construction camp there.

  Later in the summer as construction work moved west, we drove from Brookings to the railroad camp on the banks of Silver Lake, which was then a wild, beautiful little body of water, a resting place for the wild birds of all kinds. There were many varieties of ducks, wild geese, swans and pelicans.

  In the late fall when the work on the grade stopped, Father was put in charge of the railroad property left on the ground, which included the house built for the railroad surveyors on the bank of the lake. We moved into the house and lived there during the winter of 1879–1880.

  At Christmas time Mr. and Mrs. Boast arrived and lived in a little house within a few steps of us. It was there that Mr. and Mrs. Boast entertained the population of De Smet and Lake Preston at a New Year’s dinner. Our family was De Smet; Lake Preston’s population at that time was one lone, single man named Walter Ogden. He was present and that was the whole of the crowd.

  The first church services in Kingsbury County were held in our house, or rather the railroad house in which we were living. That was the last of February [1880]. . . . The Congregational Home Missionary, E. H. Alden [a descendant of the Mayflower’s John Alden and the Ingalls family’s minister in Walnut Grove], with another preacher . . . drove up one night after dark, to our surprise. They stayed a few days and held church services before driving on west. Besides our family and Mr. Boast’s, there were present only several other men who were traveling through.

  About a week later Reverend Alden and his friend came again, stayed overnight, and held another service before going on east, promising to return later in the spring. These were the only church services held in this house.

  The house was later moved from the banks of the lake to the eastern part of town and converted into a section house.

  Church services were held in the depot as soon as it was built, by Reverend Woodworth, a retired minister who was the station agent. . . . Father and Mother were very active in the organization of the church and Sunday School during the spring and summer.

  Father may be said to have kept the first hotel in De Smet, for ours was the only place one could stop between Brookings and Huron, and when loads of travelers drove up cold and hungry, he took them in and we did the best we could for them.

  As soon as Father was relieved from charge of the railroad property we moved into a building he had built on the corner where Couse’s Hardware Store stood [at Main and Second Streets]. After selling that location to Mr. Couse, Father put up a building on the [opposite] corner which he later sold to Mr. Carroll for his bank.

  I know he was the first Justice of the Peace. His office was in the front room of the building on the Carroll corner, while we lived in the back rooms.

  My husband lived on his homestead, north of De Smet, in the fall of 1879 but went out to civilization for the winter and we did not meet until sometime later. We were all there through the winter of 1880–1881, known to all the old timers as the Hard Winter.

  Mr. Wilder and myself are planning on being with you people on June 10th and if so, Mr. Wilder can tell you tales of that winter that will present to your imagination the lives we lived at that time. [The Wilders did not travel to De Smet until 1931.] Mr. Wilder can tell the story better than anything I can write about the Hard Winter. Can it be 50 years ago?

  Sincerely,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  CHAPTER 3

  A NEW ENTERPRISE (1931–1936)

  Laura and Manly with their dog, Nero, on the terrace of the Rock House, September 1929. (Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Association)

  Of her emergence as a children’s author Laura wrote: “For years I had thought that the stories my father once told me should be passed on to other children. I felt they were much too good to be lost. And so I wrote Little House in the Big Woods.”

  Although Pioneer Girl failed to find a publishing home, writing about Laura’s childhood was not abandoned. Through her old friends the author-illustrators Berta and Elmer Hader, Rose met a children’s book editor who was smitten with the idea of a book based on Laura’s frontier memories. Piecing stories together from Pioneer Girl, Laura produced a new manuscript. The book was an account of a year in the life of the Ingalls family in early 1870s Wisconsin. Ultimately, it came to the attention of Harper & Brothers, and was accepted for publication.

  Little House in the Big Woods was well received when published in 1932, but the deepening Depression limited the market for new books. Sales were respectable enough to encourage Laura to write a second book, this one about Almanzo Wilder’s boyhood on a farm in upstate New York. Farmer Boy was published in 1933.

  “My mail was full of letters begging for still another book,” Laura said. “The children were still crying, ‘Please tell me another story!’ My answer was Little House on the Prairie, being some more adventures of Pa and Ma, Mary, Laura and Baby Carrie. . . . I have gotten the idea that children like old fashioned stories.”

  By the time On the Banks of Plum Creek was under way in 1936, Laura Ingalls Wilder was well launched as one of America’s most important children’s writers.

  Postcards to Rose

  In 1931 Laura and Manly packed the Buick for a return trip to South Dakota. Manly had not seen the prairies since 1894; Laura’s last visit had been in 1902. With their Airedale, Nero, riding on the running boards, the Wilders reversed the route of their 1894 journey from De Smet to Mansfield. They drove through heat and blistering winds, observing drought conditions as they traveled through north Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and into South Dakota. Along the way, Laura kept a journal for Rose to read (published in A Little House Traveler in 2006 by Harper Collins.)

  The Wilders found their arrival in De Smet to be both perplexing and nostalgic: the town was modernized, therefore unfamiliar. Friends and family were gone. The sole relative who remained was Laura’s sister Grace. With her husband, Nate Dow, she lived in Manchester, seven miles west of De Smet. Both Dows were as depleted physically as their burned-out farmland was. Laura wrote that a day spent in De Smet was “stupid, tiresome and hot.” She and Grace made a bittersweet visit to the Ingalls home, now a rental property. There the sisters examined “Ma and Mary’s things that had been stored in one room.” Laura and Grace discovered that “everything of value has disappeared.” Manly drove past his old farms and Laura wrote that no buildings remained, only a grain field and acres of grassland.

  JUNE 8, 1931

  Came cross lots from Eureka to Highway 81. Wonderful roads. On 81 headed north for De Smet, all the way on 81.

  Love,

  M. B. & A. J.

  Belleville, Kansas

  JUNE 9, 1931

  Just to let you know everything is fine. Car running like a top. In Belleville, only a few miles from Nebraska state line. 9:30.

  Mama Bess

  Howard, South Dakota

  JUNE 11, 1931

  Here at 8 a.m. 26 miles from De Smet. Everything fine. Had breakfast and about ready to go on.

  Love,

  Mama Bess

  Manchester, South Dakota

  JUNE 12, 1931

  Rose Dearest,

  Am sending you notes made along the way. Please keep them for me. Everything is fine. Nero good as can be. Both of us feeling well.

  Will stay a few days longer and then go on to the Black Hills. Will write more later. Lots of love,

  Mama Bess

  Manchester, South Dakota

  JUNE 14, 1931

  Rose Dearest,

  “So this is De Smet, not London” and here we are. The width of the streets is something beautiful.

  Lots of love,

  Mama Bess

  The trip west continued to South Dakota’s Black Hills. In Keystone there was a reunion with Laura’s sister Carrie, who had married David Swanzey, a mine owner. Together they visite
d Mount Rushmore, where only Washington’s face was complete on the mountainside. Sounds of jackhammers and dynamite blasts echoed through the hills as Thomas Jefferson’s face was being etched into the granite. Laura and Manly toured the Black Hills, driving through tunnels and forests, past rock formations, and visiting tourist attractions. They were assailed with intense heat on the return trip home, and overcome with an aura of dissatisfaction. Laura thought the feeling was the loss of their youth. When they drove into the yard of the Rock House, under the shade of the walnut trees, Laura commented, “East, west, home is best.”

  Circa 1931

  Very little written material remains to trace the evolution of Little House in the Big Woods. Laura and Rose obviously discussed the book manuscript during visits or over the telephone. This letter fragment indicates that Laura was aware of literary process. She understood that characterization included an accurate depiction of the characters’ speech patterns.

  Don’t give either Pa nor Ma any dialect. I never heard Pa swear; never anything stronger than “Gosh all hemlock, Well I’ll be darned or Great Gehosophat.”

  But of course a lady like Ma would never use such expressions. Her language was rather precise and a great deal better language than I have ever used. She was a school teacher and well educated for her time and place, rather above Pa socially.

  Mary and Carrie were like her. Grace and I were more like Pa, using an expletive now and then as we grew older and inclined to laugh and joke and sing.

  On page 12—you have Ma say “she vowed she didn’t believe these young ones were ever going to sleep.”

  Never in the world would she have said [that]. Many times she said “Charles I don’t believe those children will ever go to sleep.”

  Neither of them ever did or would have thought of calling us “young ones”—we were always children and “I vow” was something Ma would never have said, being a lady and a school teacher.

  I feel lucky too

  A procession of Rose’s literary friends visited Rocky Ridge, and Laura met them all. Genevieve Parkhurst, a magazine editor and author, was a houseguest several times. Laura informed her of the publication of Little House in the Big Woods.

  FEBRUARY 16, 1932

  My Dear Genevieve,

  Hurrah! And congratulations!

  Rose has just told me your good news and I am so glad.

  I am sure it is not too late to wish you a happy new year in your work and every other way.

  Perhaps you have heard of my little book which Harpers is publishing in April. So I feel lucky too.

  I have missed having you in for tea this winter. We have all been very quiet this winter. I have played what we call bridge only once.

  Best regards,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Postcard to Carrie

  During his retirement from farming, Manly raised goats, gardened, and harvested walnuts and pecans on Rocky Ridge. Several fruit trees remained from the former orchard, enough to share fruit with friends and family. Shipments were sent to Laura’s sisters in South Dakota.

  SEPTEMBER 24, 1932

  Dear Carrie,

  Manly is sending the pears today by express to Hill City. Hope they reach you all right. They must stand awhile before they are good to eat, but cook all right now. Will answer your letter soon.

  Laura

  I hope you will like it

  Ida Louise Raymond was Laura’s editor when Farmer Boy was being written.

  MARCH 3, 1933

  Dear Ida Louise Raymond,

  I am sorry to have been later than expected in sending you the revised manuscript of Farmer Boy. Because of sickness in the family I have been unable to finish it sooner. You will see that I followed your suggestion of adding incident and tightening up the plot. I hope you will like it in its latest form.

  If it is still too long, the chapter “Breaking Roads” could be cut entirely without injuring the thread of the story, as could also “Breaking the Calves” though I think both add interest to the winter life on a farm. They show also the great contrast between those days and now. But if the story must be shortened still more, it will be all right with me to cut them out.

  Yours sincerely,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Your frank opinion of Farmer Boy

  MARCH 21, 1933

  Dear Ida Louise Raymond,

  Indeed I am very grateful to you for giving me your frank opinion of Farmer Boy.

  An honest opinion even though not favorable is much more to be desired than one more flattering if insincere.

  Yes! George Bye is my agent. All business arrangements must be made with him and such agreements will, of course have my approval.

  Since sending you Farmer Boy, I have been planning my next story. It will tell of my childhood experiences in Indian Territory [now Oklahoma] when my father’s family was the only white one living there among the Indians. [The locale of the Ingalls cabin in Indian Territory was actually in the Osage ceded lands of southeast Kansas. Not until the 1960s was the cabin site thoroughly researched and located.]

  The surroundings, the country and events have an altogether different character than Little House, but in my memory they have the same glamour as the Wisconsin woods. I am sure the story will be as good as, if not better than Little House, and much shorter than Farmer Boy.

  I work slowly and it takes a long time to bring such old memories to the surface of my mind and verify the facts. But the more I remember of Mary and Laura in those days; of the wild range cattle and the wolves; and prairie fires and huge watermelons; of the wild panther that screamed in the creek bottoms—the more impatient I grow to begin writing it.

  I am sorry you have been ill and hope you are quite recovered by now. Again thanking you for your kindly criticisms, I remain,

  Yours sincerely,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  An old daguerreotype of my Father and Mother

  Laura loaned a 1860 image of her parents to the illustrator Helen Sewell, who duplicated it for the opening page of Little House in the Big Woods. Miss Phillips is unidentified, but she was likely a librarian or a teacher. The following letter fragment was a portion of Laura’s reply.

  APRIL 19, 1933

  Dear Miss Phillips,

  Thank you so much for writing me and for the kind things you say about my little book. I appreciate them all the more as coming from you, who are doing good work yourself.

  It makes me very happy that you felt the spirit of those days which were so happy for it assures me that I did not fail in my attempt to make it live again.

  You may be interested to know that the first picture in the book, the little oval on one of the first leaves, is a very good copy of an old daguerreotype of my Father and Mother, Ma and Pa in the story. . . .

  A good contract for “Farmer Boy”

  In addition to being the literary agent for Rose and Laura, George T. Bye represented prominent writers including Rebecca West, Heywood Broun, Alexander Woollcott, and Charles A. Lindbergh. Bye was also First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s agent, encouraging her to write her newspaper column “My Day.”

  APRIL 26, 1933

  Dear Mr. Bye,

  Am returning contracts for revision as suggested in your telegram. Your efforts in securing a good contract for “Farmer Boy” are appreciated.

  Yours sincerely,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  You know a great deal about the history of the Indians

  Before Farmer Boy was published, Laura began her third book, Little House on the Prairie. Her memory was sometimes vague about her family’s interlude in Kansas. She and Rose made a road trip to the general vicinity, near Independence. Since the Osage Indians were significant in the story, historical research was required. This letter fragment indicates Laura’s search for data.

  JUNE 26, 1933

  Dear Sir,

  Mr. and Mrs. Lyn have told me about your wonderful collection of Indian relics and that you know a great deal a
bout the history of the Indians in your part of the country. So I thought perhaps you could tell me the name of an Indian chief that I have forgotten. I do not know even the tribe of which he was chief but the time was the years of 1870 and 1871. . . .

  I shall appreciate the honor

  JULY 8, 1933

  Floyd S. Shoemaker, Secy.

  Missouri State Historical Soc.

  Dear Sir:

  In reply to your letter of June 26, about the middle of October I will have a shipment of books from my publisher and will send you for your Missouri Authors collection a copy each of my children’s books, Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy. I shall appreciate the honor of having them preserved in the collection of the Missouri Historical Society.

  Sincerely,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  I did enjoy the letters from your pupils

  Soon after Little House in the Big Woods was published, Laura received letters from readers praising the book. Her earliest responses to reader mail were lengthy and detailed, as is this letter to students from Tipton, Iowa.

  Fourth Grade

  Tipton Consolidated School

  Alfarata Allen, Teacher

  SEPTEMBER 26, 1933

  Dear Miss Allen,

  Perhaps your pupils of the spring are with you again this fall and would be interested to know that my new book “Farmer Boy” will be published by Harper & Brothers on October 12th. I feel sure they would enjoy the story, both the boys and the girls.

  Please tell Jack Fields that I have been a long time answering his question about “Little House in the Big Woods.” But here is the answer. I never went to the town [Pepin] again while I was a child. When I was 23 years old I went back from South Dakota and took my own little girl to the town of Pepin. [They were visiting Laura’s aunt, Martha Quiner Carpenter.]