The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Page 23
I would have written you sooner, but have had a lame hand and could not use it to write.
I wish for you a very happy New Year.
Sincerely your friend,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Our rubber is good, our gas is short
Laura’s wartime letters were peppered with references to the home front situation, including rationing.
FEBRUARY 12, 1943
Dear Mrs. Masoner,
I was very much surprised and pleased to find the photo of you in your letter. Thank you a lot. It was a sweet thought. The picture is lovely and looks exactly like you. It seems as though you would look up and speak in a moment. I am proud to have my book photographed with you.
Glad you like my “By the Shores of Silver Lake” and am interested to know if you think my descriptive powers are as good in “The Long Winter.” . . .
I find myself constructing sentences and situations in what might be another book, but I hope I will not be driven to write it, for there is really more than I should do without that.
There is so much to be done and “The bird of time has just a little while to flutter and the bird is on the wing.”
I would like to see you again, but while our rubber [car tires] is good, our gas is short. Wishing you success in [the] “Writer’s Digest” contest, I remain
Sincerely your friend,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I appreciate the good words you have given
FEBRUARY 23, 1943
Dear Mr. Sherwood,
This is a letter I had expected to write last fall and although it is somewhat late to answer yours of August 19, 1942, I still wish to thank you for telling me how to spell Lake Kampeska.
Under separate cover I am sending you my latest book, which I expected to be published last November. “These Happy Golden Years” is the last of the series of eight . . . and is the end of the story.
Like the others, this book is true to facts, with touches of fiction here and there to help the interest. Some names are fictitious for which you will see the reasons. I hope you will like Golden Years.
Have you seen Rose’s latest book, “The Discovery of Freedom”? It was published in January by the John Day Company Inc., 40 East 49th Street, New York City. I think it is the best work she has ever done and it is fascinating reading.
Mr. Wilder and I are in the best of health and wish to be remembered to any friends who may inquire. With kindest regards to yourself and family, I am
Yours sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
P.S. I appreciate the good words you have given my little books, and any time I can return the favor let me know. L.I.W.
It seems that my mind is tired
MARCH 1, 1943
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
. . . It seems that my mind is tired. It refuses to go to work again on a new book, which is mostly floating around in disconnected anecdotes. But after I have recovered from making out income tax reports and other first of the year business, I will see if I can make the new book jell.
Sincerely yours,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I am getting some lovely fan letters
APRIL 3, 1943
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
The book for Mrs. Wallace arrived yesterday and today I am sending it on its way, autographed. This is our first mail out.
Is “Happy Golden Years” getting good reviews? I am getting some lovely fan letters . . . really fine ones. . . .
Rose writes me she thinks you did a fine job on the book which pleases me, for Rose is nothing if not critical.
With kindest regards,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
The book is certainly being well received
These Happy Golden Years sold five thousand copies within six weeks of its publication in March 1943. Ursula Nordstrom begged the decision makers at Harper to reprint ten thousand copies immediately. She pled her case well, even citing “Rose Wilder Lane’s attitude toward the House.” But the large reprint was impossible; publishers were contending with wartime paper shortages.
APRIL 16, 1943
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
I must write you a small note to say how pleased I am with the reviews of These Happy Golden Years, and to thank you for sending them.
The book is certainly being well received. Already letters are coming to me from children and teachers who have read it.
This is house-cleaning time so that I am very busy, but thankful I can still do my own work when help is so hard to get.
Sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I will tell you in my rambling way
Ursula Nordstrom reported that Irene Smith of the Brooklyn Public Library was writing a profile of Laura’s life and books for the Horn Book Magazine’s upcoming September 1943 issue. Laura responded with information and anecdotes about her family and her current daily life.
APRIL 26, 1943
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
It is great news that the Little House books will be given first place in the Horn Book. I will tell you in my rambling way what I think may be useful to Miss Smith and you can choose what you want from it.
Mary graduated from the Iowa College for the Blind in 1889. Her part in an entertainment given by her literary society was an essay entitled “Memory.” You may recollect, in the books, I told of Mary’s remarkable memory.
In the graduating exercises on June 10th, Mary read another essay, “Bide a Wee, and Dinna Weary,” which showed the influence of Pa’s old Scots songs. After her graduation Mary lived happily at home with her music, and her raised print and Braille books. She knitted and sewed and took part in the housework.
Pa and Ma and the girls lived for some years in the little house on the homestead, but later Pa built a house in the residential part of town and they moved there to be nearer church and neighbors.
Grace married and lived near the little town of Manchester, seven miles west of De Smet.
Carrie married later. Her home was and still is, at Keystone, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, near the foot of Mount Rushmore where the faces of four of our presidents are carved in the rock of the mountaintop. Carrie is a widow now, and she and I are the only ones of our family still living.
I never saw Nellie Oleson after she went east to N.Y. as told in “Golden Years.” I heard some years later that she married and went with her husband to Washington state; that there the husband was arrested and sent to the penitentiary for embezzlement, and that Nellie died a few years later.
Cap Garland went his carefree, happy way for five years after Almanzo married. He was killed in an explosion of the boiler of a steam threshing machine.
Miss Wilder married and lived in Louisiana, where she is buried. Almanzo is the only one of his immediate family now living.
Almanzo and I came here in September of 1894 in a covered wagon and bought a rough forty acres of land, with five acres cleared of timber and a one room log house, where the only way for the light to enter with the door shut was through cracks between the logs where the chinking had fallen out. Another little house.
Through the years we added to our land until we owned 185 acres, cleared except for wood lots left to furnish wood to burn and fence posts.
We built the ten room Rocky Ridge farm house of materials from the farm itself, except for the pine siding on the outside. The oak frame of the house, oak paneling, solid oak beams and stairs in the living room are from our own timber, hand finished, and an enormous fireplace made of three large rocks dug from our own ground. The chimney is built of our own rocks.
There was also another house on the east end of the farm and another small house on the north.
We were very proud of our dairy and poultry farm, our Jersey cows and Leghorn hens.
We still call the place Rocky Ridge Farm but we are not really farming now. It has been increasingly difficult to get help and lately to do so at wages the farm could pay, so we have sold the othe
r two houses and land to go with them. Now we have only 130 acres of land and the one house.
Mr. Wilder is 86 years old and I am 76. We can no longer do the work of a farm as you can see. Our land is now all in pasture and meadow, which we rent, and a larger timber lot. Mr. Wilder cares for our four milk goats and two calves in the morning, while I prepare our seven o’clock breakfast. Then he works in the garden or the shop where he loves to tinker, while I do up the housework and go down the hill to the mailbox for the mail. I take our big brown-and-white spotted bulldog with me and we go for a half mile walk before we come back.
After that the day is always full, for I do all my own work and to care for a ten room house is no small job. Besides the cooking and baking there is churning to do. I make all our own butter from cream off the goats milk. There is always sewing on hand and my mending is seldom finished. The town is near and I must go to church, aid society, socials, be entertained and entertain my friends now and then.
When Almanzo and the car go anywhere, I always go along, for I love to go for a drive as well as I ever did. We don’t drive horses now. We drive a Chrysler.
And when the day is over and evening comes we read our papers and magazines or play a game of cribbage. If we want music, we turn on the radio. . . .
She is a better writer than I am
MAY 10, 1943
My Dear Mrs. Phraner,
Your curiosity is justified but your guess is wrong. Rose Wilder Lane is my daughter. Our only child.
She wrote “Let the Hurricane Roar” before I had planned the Little House series. While her descriptions of storms and grasshoppers are true to facts, her story is fiction. She had of course learned of those things from us. Her use of family names and characters came naturally.
My series of stories, as you know, are literally true, names, dates, places, every anecdote and much of the conversation are historically and actually true.
When you read anything written by Rose Wilder Lane, just think of her as my little girl grown up.
Have you seen her latest book, “The Discovery of Freedom”? It was published in January.
I am glad you like my “Golden Years.”
Sister Carrie writes me that after she read the book it seemed that she was back in those times again and all that had happened since was a dream.
I considered it a great tribute to the truth of the picture I had drawn.
I hope you will read some of Rose’s books. She is a better writer than I am, though our style of writing is very similar.
Please give my love to Mary.
Sincerely yours,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I am still surprised at the success the books have had
These Happy Golden Years won the New York Herald Tribune’s Spring Book Festival Award for a book published for older children. “Hearty congratulations,” wrote George Bye. “It was about time.” Despite the accolade and a $200 prize, Laura was not eager to resume writing.
MAY 10, 1943
Dear Mr. Bye,
It pleases me that you think “These Happy Golden Years” so attractive. I do think the book is a fine piece of work by artists and publisher.
Thank you for your wire of congratulations for its winning the award of the Herald Tribune and also your kind prediction of the success of the series. I am still surprised at the success the books have had so far.
It is not possible for me to do the short story you suggest as I have no contact with the working girls in industry today. I have no knowledge of their problems except through magazine stories and I think to write convincingly one must have a firsthand knowledge of their subject.
I believe Rose could write this story for you. She had the knowledge that I lack and is also familiar with the old fashioned, homely philosophy that is spread through the Little House series. Also she knows my character and disposition, and how I would react to situations.
Her name on the story would be worth more to your “exchequer” than mine. . . .
I don’t know what to say about my writing more. I have thought that “Golden Years” was my last; that I would spend what is left of my life in living, not writing about it, but a story keeps stirring around in my mind and if it pesters me enough I may write it down and send it to you sometime in the future.
I appreciate the good work you have done for my books and thank you again for your kind appreciation of them.
Sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I am sending a collection of pictures for you to choose from
The Horn Book article included an array of Laura’s family photographs.
MAY 22, 1943
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
You must think I am a long time in answering your request for pictures. I know it, but . . .
I sent Pa’s fiddle to a neighboring town to get its picture taken and here it is at last. There is no one I could get to take a picture of the house so I am sending you some old ones. The furniture has been changed but the house inside and out is the same. The large picture of the house looks bare with the leaves off the trees so I am sending a small one taken last summer when the Scribblers Club of Topeka descended on me bringing a camera.
I am sending a collection of pictures for you to choose from. Not knowing what you might want I send those I thought may be interesting.
The [Ingalls] family group picture is so faded I feared I might lose it altogether so had a copy made some time ago. But the copy is so dark it does not look right and I am sending the original and copy both. . . .
You will note on the back of Mary’s picture that it was taken in Vinton, Iowa, while she was going to college there. Mary’s picture and Almanzo’s were taken about the same time as mine that you used at the head of the circular. You can see how we all looked at the same time.
You still have that picture of me to use again if you wish. Please be very careful of these pictures and return them to me when you are through with them and the one of me, too, if it is still with you. There is no charge for the use of these pictures of course, but the expense of photographing the fiddle was three dollars. You might send me that amount if you wish, as you suggested.
I hope you will find what you want among these pictures and that you have not been bothered by their lateness.
With best wishes,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Please do give my love to Nancy Lee
Alvilda Sorenson wrote to praise These Happy Golden Years. “Again, Mrs. Wilder,” she wrote, “let us thank you genuinely for the lovely stories you and Almanzo brought into our home.” Mrs. Sorenson also shared news of her hearing-impaired daughter, Nancy, who was successfully mainstreamed into her fifth-grade classroom.
MAY 24, 1943
Dear Mrs. Sorenson,
It was nice to hear from you again and to learn that little Nancy Lee has done so wonderfully well in school. She must be a remarkable child.
I am so glad that you all enjoyed “These Happy Golden Years” and that it helped cheer the children in their illness. Please do give my love to Nancy Lee.
I am writing a note to Sylvia and Ann Rae today.
With kindest regards I am
Yours sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I am always surprised when one of my books is a success
MAY 26, 1943
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
Your letter with the Herald Tribune check arrived. Thank you for everything. It is grand that “These Happy Golden Years” received the award.
I am always surprised when one of my books is a success and I’m glad that it is selling so well.
It pleases me that you dislike Nellie Oleson so much, which I suppose is un-Christian, too. She was a hateful girl.
By now you have the pictures. I do hope you can use some of them.
Sincerely yours,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
My sisters and I did have lots of good times
Letters from children in Detroit,
Michigan, prompted this reply.
JUNE 6, 1943
Longfellow School
Dear Children,
I thank you all for your nice letters and will try to answer your questions. . . .
I am seventy six years old. Carrie is three years younger. She and I are the only ones of our family still living.
The bulldog, Jack, died long ago, but I have another bulldog. His name is Ben.
We have nine goats and two cows, but no cats.
My middle name is Elizabeth.
My sisters and I did have lots of good times when I was a little girl. It was fun sliding down the straw stack and going fishing. Whenever we felt like it, Mary and I would go down to the creek and catch a mess of fish for dinner, but I don’t remember how many we caught.
It was many years ago when Pa built the Little House on the Prairie and I should think it would be gone now.
Sister Carrie has the china shepherdess.
I am sorry but I can’t sell the books. They will have to be bought at a bookstore or from Harpers. I am glad you like my stories and think it kind of your teacher to read them to you. It is fine that you have such a nice teacher and that you like her so much. I am sure you enjoy her stories about Mexico and seeing the beautiful things she brought from there.
Your letters were so nicely written I shall keep them carefully. With love,
Sincerely your friend
Laura Ingalls Wilder
We are safe from floods
JULY 6, 1943
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
Thinking you might be interested in the enclosed letter, I am sending it. What Mrs. May wants seems to be in line with material I have sent you.
Glad you like the pictures.
Rocky Ridge Farm was not in the flood area. The rushing waters swirled on every side of our mountain peak while rain poured down on us to run swiftly off the high land and raise the rivers still higher. We are on the very peak. Rain that falls on our Rocky Ridge runs from the north to join the waters of the Gasconade river, while the rain from the south goes on south to the White River.