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CONTENTS
Map
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Author’s Note
Prologue
ONE: Early Journeys
TWO: Grasshoppers and a New Baby Brother
THREE: A Terrible Illness
FOUR: A Train Trip and Life on the Prairie
FIVE: Married life
SIX: A Budding Writer, and Rose Leaves Home
SEVEN: Building the Dream House
EIGHT: The Little House Books
Epilogue
Quotes from Laura Ingalls Wilder
Games Laura Played
A Prairie Craft: Corn-Husk Doll
What Laura Ate
Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Other Writings by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Glossary
Sources
About the Author and Illustrator
Copyright
For Katherine Constance McDonough, darling daughter, beautiful girl
—Y. Z. M.
For Kirsten
—J. T.
Author’s Note
Many writers have used people, places, and events from their own lives to form their fiction. But Laura Ingalls Wilder was a writer who used the events of her life to form the basis of her novels in a more direct way. She changed hardly anything about her past when she recast it into fiction; she even used her own name and the names of her family members, so that the character Laura Ingalls of the Little House series shares her name with her creator, Laura Ingalls Wilder. The same is true for her sisters, friends, neighbors, and teachers. She did change the last name of the unkind girl from Owens to Oleson, and she chose not to include the death of her baby brother. But mostly, Wilder used her life as the basis for the wonderful books she wrote. In this biography, readers of the Little House books will recognize many events and details from the fictional versions; it is my hope that knowing the facts that inspired the stories will deepen an understanding of these much-loved classics.
Prologue
In 1839, Caroline Lake Quiner was born in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area. Some people said she was the first non–Native American baby to be born there. Her parents, Henry and Charlotte, were pioneers who had come from the east to settle the new land. It was not uncommon for pioneers to move many times. Sometimes they were pulled in a new direction by the promise of fertile or free land, or new job opportunities. Other times they were pushed away from a place by disease, drought, or other calamities.
Even though Caroline’s early life was hard (and it became even harder after her father drowned), her mother, Charlotte, believed in the importance of education, even for girls. This was a very unusual idea for the time. Women were expected to tend house and raise children, so girls were taught to cook, clean, sew, and garden. “Book learning” was a luxury that most girls were not given. But Charlotte had been educated at a female seminary in Connecticut, and she wanted her daughters to have book learning too.
Little Caroline was a star pupil. She loved to read, and she excelled at writing essays and poetry. A schoolteacher who boarded with the family praised Caroline’s compositions. So when Caroline told her mother she wanted to follow in her footsteps and become a teacher, she not only had Charlotte’s support, she had her blessing.
At 16, Caroline finished school and passed the examination for her first teaching certificate. She was hired to teach at the very same school where she and her sisters and brothers had been students. Her salary was somewhere between $2.50 and $3.00 a week. Though the wages were modest, she was proud to be earning money of her own. She used her salary to buy clothes and to help her parents and siblings.
Even out on the frontier, Caroline had a sense of grace and elegance. She may have been a country girl, but she didn’t have country manners. Her unusual poise caught the eye of a neighbor’s son, Charles Ingalls. They began “keeping company”—an old-fashioned term for dating—and were married in Concord, Wisconsin, on February 1, 1860. She had not yet turned 21 years old.
Caroline understood that her new husband craved adventure. And he understood that, although she would indulge his craving and follow him willingly on his travels, her refined nature would set the tone for the life they led together. Wherever they went, Caroline was a lady.
In 1863, Charles and Caroline followed some members of the Ingalls family to the Big Woods of Wisconsin, near the village of Pepin. Charles and his brother-in-law Henry Quiner built two rough-hewn log cabins, not too far apart from each other. It was important to have family nearby. They helped each other with the building and with other chores as well. The cabin Henry shared with his wife, Polly, was busy and noisy—they had three children. In contrast, the cabin shared by Charles and Caroline was a much calmer and quieter place.
All that changed in 1865. Just as the Civil War between the North and the South was ending, Caroline gave birth to a baby girl she named Mary. Two years later, Laura came along. Now Caroline had two little girls and a bustling, noisy cabin of her own. But no matter where she went and what hardships she endured, she never lost that special sense of grace, and she imbued her daughters with her own rare spirit.
As much as Laura loved her strong, cheerful blue-eyed father, who could play the fiddle and fix just about anything, she was deeply shaped by the women around her—her mother and her sisters, Mary, Caroline (born in 1870), and Grace (born in 1877). It was these strong, resourceful pioneer women who became her role models. And in the end, it was these same women who helped define and populate the fictional world of the Little House books, for which she became so well known and loved. Laura learned so much from her mother—lessons that lasted a lifetime. But even more important were the tender feelings she had for her mother, which she described this way: “dearer than Mother’s teachings are little personal memories: Mother’s face, Mother’s touch, Mother’s voice.”
ONE
Early Journeys
1870−1871
Wisconsin–Kansas–Wisconsin
The Wisconsin woods were very big. The house was very small. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was small too, a little girl in the big, big woods. She lived in a log cabin with her Pa, Ma, and older sister, Mary Amelia. The trees surrounding the house stood proud and tall. Oak, ash, and elm. Maple, butternut, and birch. The dense woods were home to many of the animals Pa hunted and trapped for their meat and skins. He farmed, too, in the clearings where the forest opened up and the land was exposed to the sun and the wind.
To Laura, the woods around the cabin must have seemed vast and endless. There were no other houses, buildings, or streets, just the trees and the occasional sight of an owl as it flapped its great wings against the sky. In the winter, glittering white snow piled up against the sides of the cabin. In spring, the woods and fields were filled with flowers.
Laura and Mary played outside, watched by their Ma and Jack, the fiercely loyal spotted bulldog that was their family pet. They had no reason to think of leaving. Everything they ever needed or wanted was right there.
But Pa had other ideas. He had a yen to go out west. He wanted even more land, more space, and more opportunity. He’d heard that out west there were deer, antelope, prairie chickens, and wild turkeys. The land was level and the soil fertile. And best of all, it was free! In 1862, Congress had passed the Homestead Act. Th
is meant that the United States government was offering 160 free acres of land to people willing to settle on the prairie and farm for at least five years.
Once Pa learned that, he was all set to pack up and leave Pepin behind. But in the Ingalls family, Pa and Ma made all the big decisions together. In the evenings, after the chores were done, they sat by the table and talked over the pros and cons. They would be leaving their families behind. The trip was dangerous. Ma loved their snug little cabin and saw no reason to leave it. Pa pointed out that the land cost nothing. They could farm and make money. He could afford to build a frame house, and to buy a buggy and a team of horses. He promised Caroline fine clothes and jewelry too. Long into the night they talked. And the next night, and the night after that. Soon it was decided. They would go to Kansas!
Once they made the decision, preparations for the long trip began. First Pa had to fit a white, waterproof canvas over their wagon’s curved bows. The wagon would become their home while on their journey, and even after they arrived; it would take some time to build a new house and they would need shelter in the meantime.
Then Ma started on the packing. Into the wagon went their clothes, dishes, books, and bedding. Patchwork quilts and tablecloths, pots and pans. Pa’s fiddle rode up front, cushioned on a pile of quilts. In late April 1870, everything was ready. Ma, Pa, Mary, and Laura said good-bye to all their relatives. Then they climbed into the wagon, with faithful Jack following alongside. Pa drove the horses to the edge of Lake Pepin. Fortunately, the lake was still covered in ice, so they could get the wagon across it. On the other side of the lake was Minnesota.
For weeks they lived in the wagon, crossing the state of Minnesota, then traveling south through Iowa and Missouri, and finally heading west into the wide-open state of Kansas. Laura was too little to remember the trip. But Ma and Pa told her so many stories about it that the stories became a part of her. Eventually, it was as if she did remember the covered wagon, the unfamiliar landscape filled with woods, hills, creeks, and rivers, and the little rabbits that hid in the grass and prairie chickens that fluttered in the road.
It was a long and hard journey. Sometimes it poured. Other times it was blisteringly hot. But when they stopped for the night, Pa played his fiddle and Ma cooked a good supper over the campfire. Even on the lonely, desolate prairie, Ma managed to make the girls feel at home.
The family came to the Verdigris River, and when the horse pulled the wagon across, they found themselves in the frontier town of Independence, Kansas. But Pa had not come all this way to settle in a town. He wanted the expansive spaces of the prairie. They got back in the wagon and continued on for another 13 miles southwest. He kept looking until he found a spot that seemed just right. It was near a stream. The stream played a big part in his decision because they needed to be near water. And the trees that grew along the banks could be used to build their house and provide wood for a fire.
Pa started in on the new house straight away. First he had to find the right trees—only the straightest ones would do. Next he had to cut them down and haul them to the building site in his wagon. It took several days to prepare enough logs—about 50 logs in all. Then he started to build. Day by day the walls of the new cabin grew higher, and then higher still. When it was high enough, he made a temporary skeleton roof from slender saplings. Over this he tied the canvas wagon cover. Later he would put on a more secure roof, made from wooden logs that had been split into thin slabs. But there were other, more important things to do first. He had to dig a well. And he had to build a log barn, to protect the horses from thieves and from the packs of wolves that roamed the prairie.
After the building came the backbreaking work of plowing. Although Pa often traded work with neighbors for help with building, he worked long days alone in the fields with his sod plow, breaking up the tough grasslands into fields where he could plant. He planned to grow wheat, potatoes, corn, and other crops. The tall grass was thick and not easy to cut. The underground root system was so strong that Pa had to get off the plow and hack it with his ax. But he was strong and determined. He got the job done.
Laura and Mary were too little to help with building a house or plowing the land, and Ma could not do much because she was watching them. But as the girls grew older, they pitched in more and more.
Although Ma and Pa didn’t meet too many settlers, they did meet Native Americans, who in those days were called Indians. They did not know it then, but they had settled on an Indian reserve. Sometimes the Indians they saw came to their cabin and asked for food. Other times they just barged right in and took it. Ma never tried to stop them. She and Pa thought it best to try to get along with their Indian neighbors, not fight with them.
One day when Laura was three, Pa took her and Mary on a long walk in the prairie. He was taking them to see an Indian camp. The Indians were all off on a hunting trip, so the camp was empty. But Laura and Mary were excited to find the ashes where the fires had been, and the holes from the tent poles. Then Laura saw something bright shining up from the dust. When she leaned down to pick it up, she saw that it was a bead. And look, there were more of them! Red, green, and blue beads, strewn around the camp. Since the beads were scattered all over, it didn’t seem like the Indians cared too much about them, and it didn’t feel like stealing. Laura and Mary filled their apron pockets. Pa helped. They didn’t leave until the sun started to go down.
Laura couldn’t wait to show Ma the beads. She would be so surprised. But Ma had her own surprise. They found her dozing in bed, holding the girls’ brand-new baby sister with jet-black hair in her arms! Mrs. Scott, a neighbor, had helped with the delivery. Back then there were few hospitals. Babies were born at home with help from family members, friends, or neighbors.
Ma named the new baby Caroline Celestia and decided they would call her Carrie. Life with the new baby was even busier. Ma had all her regular chores of cooking, cleaning, washing, and mending. Added to that was taking care of the baby.
Soon Ma and Pa noticed that the Indians were showing up more often. They were from the Osage tribe. Pa had not known that he had built the cabin along one of their old trails. He had been in such a hurry to start that he hadn’t filed a proper claim on the land. If he had, he might have chosen to build somewhere else.
The Indians were angry with the white settlers for moving onto their land. There was talk that the Indians might decide to wage war on them. Night after night, Laura and her family could hear their loud chanting and war cries. The sound was terrifying—even worse than the howling of wolves.
Meanwhile, far away in Washington D.C., the government was trying to decide what to do about the Indians. Over the years, white settlers had been forcing them off their ancestral lands, and there was now a lot of tension between the two groups. Feeling threatened, the Indians were attacking the settlers. The settlers were retaliating against the Indians. Something had to be done.
In 1870, Congress voted to pay the Osage $1.25 an acre for their land in Kansas. They also voted to give them new land in Oklahoma. The Osage accepted their offer. They would leave Kansas and head to Oklahoma.
Laura and her family were watching on the day the Indians left. To Laura, the long line of Osage on foot and horseback was fascinating. She loved the different-colored ponies and was curious about the children riding bareback. Some of them didn’t even wear clothes!
After the Indians left, things settled down. No more surprise visitors. No more war cries in the night. Fall turned to winter, and the Ingalls family all came down with whooping cough. Kindly Dr. Tann—an African-American doctor who had treated the Osage—came to help. A lot of folk cures were prescribed for whooping cough: eating the skin of a snake, drinking white ant tea, tying a bag of live bugs around the throat.
Perhaps Dr. Tann used some of these methods to cure Laura and her family. Perhaps not. Whatever he did, it worked, because they survived and got well again. Soon after they had recovered, Pa got a letter from Gustaf Gustafson, the man who had bo
ught their house in the Big Woods. Mr. Gustafson had been paying off his debt a little at a time, but he was unable to keep up with the payments. Instead, he wanted to head west and asked Pa if he would take the house back.
Ma thought of the time and effort that they had put into their prairie home. What a waste it had been. But Pa didn’t see it that way. He thought of the hunting in the Big Woods and the fishing in Lake Pepin. He was willing to go back and reclaim their former home.
As they always did, Ma and Pa talked the matter over. And in the end, the lure of the journey won out. The covered wagon would be packed up once more, and the Ingalls family would make their way back to Wisconsin.
TWO
Grasshoppers and a New Baby Brother
1871−1876
Wisconsin–Minnesota–Iowa
The 1871 trip home in the covered wagon took many weeks. Laura was almost five, and this time she remembered more of the journey. When they finally got back to the Big Woods, the Gustafsons were still living in their house, so they moved in with Uncle Henry and Aunt Polly. Laura liked living with her cousins—they had so much fun playing together.
Laura was not quite old enough to join Mary and her cousins when they walked half a mile down the road to the Barry Corner School. But when Mary returned, she showed Laura everything she had learned. Soon Laura was reading as well as her big sister. Ma and Pa loved reading too. Often, Ma read aloud to Pa in the evenings. She read novels, biographies, and a book about the holy city of Jerusalem called The Land and the Book. Laura always associated reading and books with the gentle sound of her mother’s voice.
In the fall, Laura was finally old enough to go to school with her sister and cousins. How exciting! She and Mary had a shiny new dinner pail and shared a schoolbook. Their teacher was named Annie Barry. Although she was only 25 years old, she knew how to keep order in her classroom.
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