Laura Ingalls Wilder on the porch of the Wilder house in the town of Mansfield, early 1900s. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
Almanzo Wilder, early 1880s. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
Images not credited are courtesy of the author.
Laura and Almanzo at their newly completed farmhouse, circa 1915. (LIWHA)
Rose Wilder in Kansas City, 1906. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
Laura in the ravine on Rocky Ridge Farm.
The house on Rocky Ridge Farm, circa 1914. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
The farmhouse parlor, World War I era. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
The sleeping porch, later the bedroom and writing office of Rose Wilder Lane, circa 1914. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
One of Laura’s frequent letters to Almanzo, written while en route to California, 1925. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
A postcard view of one of the Colorado mountain roads that frightened Laura. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
Almanzo and a Morgan horse on Rocky Ridge Farm, 1925. (Herbert Hoover Presidential Library)
Laura and Almanzo, 1933. (The State Historical Society of Missouri)
Almanzo, Neta Seal, and Laura in Yellowstone National Park, May 1938.
Almanzo and Laura in the De Smet News office, June 1939. (Photo by Aubrey Sherwood)
Al Turner in 1937.
John Turner studying in Paris, 1937.
Rose Wilder Lane, circa 1940.
Laura at seventy, September 1937. (Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)
Rocky Ridge Farm, October 1944. (Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)
Aubrey Sherwood at his De Smet News office, circa 1950. (Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society)
Nancy and Alvilda Sorenson, South Dakota correspondents of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Laura’s inscription in one of Nancy Sorenson’s books.
Jack and Mary discuss the Little House books in the Wilder Room of the Pomona Public Library, 1950.
Garth Williams in his Aspen, Colorado, studio, 1950s. (Dilys Williams Collection)
Laura’s desk in her writing study at Rocky Ridge Farm. (LIWHA)
Laura in her rocking chair, March 1953.
At the Laura Ingalls Wilder Library in Mansfield, 1953. (LIWHA)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
LAURA INGALLS WILDER (1867–1957) was born in a log cabin in the Wisconsin woods. With her family she pioneered throughout America’s heartland during the 1870s and 1880s, finally settling in Dakota Territory. She married Almanzo Wilder in 1885; their only daughter, Rose, was born the following year. The Wilders moved to Rocky Ridge Farm near Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, where they established a permanent home. After years of farming, Laura wrote the first of her Little House books in 1932. The nine Little House books are international classics. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s writings live on into the twenty-first century as America’s quintessential pioneer story.
WILLIAM ANDERSON is a historian, educator, and author of twenty-five books of biography, travel, and history. His groundbreaking research on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her books led to many HarperCollins titles, including Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography, Laura Ingalls Wilder Country, and A Little House Sampler. He has also written for Travel & Leisure, the Saturday Evening Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and many other national magazines. Anderson is a frequent speaker at conferences, schools, and libraries. His home is in Michigan.
www.williamandersonbooks.com
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ALSO BY LAURA INGALLS WILDER
Little House in the Big Woods
Farmer Boy
Little House on the Prairie
On the Banks of Plum Creek
By the Shores of Silver Lake
The Long Winter
Little Town on the Prairie
These Happy Golden Years
The First Four Years
ALSO BY WILLIAM ANDERSON
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography
Laura Ingalls Wilder Country
The Little House Guidebook
Pioneer Girl: The Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder (illustrated by Dan Andreasen)
River Boy: The Story of Mark Twain (illustrated by Dan Andreasen)
A Little House Sampler
CREDITS
COVER DESIGN BY GREGG KULICK
COVER PHOTOGRAPH © LAURA INGALLS WILDER HOME ASSOCIATION
COVER: Laura Ingalls Wilder at the age of thirty-nine, photographed in Kansas City, 1906. (Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Association)
Images not credited are courtesy of the author.
COPYRIGHT
THE SELECTED LETTERS OF LAURA INGALLS WILDER. Copyright © 2016 by William Anderson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees,ov you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Letters © 2016 Little House Heritage Trust Introduction, annotations, footnotes, explanatory text, photograph captions © 2016 William Anderson
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-241968-2
EPub Edition March 2016 ISBN 9780062419705
16 17 18 19 20 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder Page 36