Who Was Laura Ingalls Wilder? Read online

  This time, there was another little girl in the wagon. Laura’s baby sister, Grace, had been born in Iowa. Now the Ingalls family was complete. There was Pa and Ma and four daughters: Mary (thirteen), Laura (eleven), Carrie (seven), and baby Grace.

  The girls in Walnut Grove were happy to see Laura. She became the leader once again. Mary was shocked by her sister playing ball games meant for boys, with hairpins tumbling from her hair.

  The sisters were so different. Mary was well-behaved and quiet. Laura was high-spirited and strong-willed. Then a tragedy brought the girls closer than they had ever been.

  One day a terrible headache and high fever overcame Mary. She grew weaker and sicker. Everyone, even the doctor, feared Mary would die.

  Slowly, she got better—but Mary was left blind. She “could not see even the brightest light any more.” Still, she stayed calm, never complaining.

  Mary’s blindness greatly changed Laura’s life, too. Pa explained to Laura that from now on she would need to be Mary’s eyes. This new role became very important to Laura. Whatever Laura saw, she tried to help Mary “see,” too. Laura trained herself to observe details and bring them alive in words. Mary said that Laura made pictures when she talked. Laura didn’t know it, but she was preparing for her life as a writer.

  AUNT DOCIA

  The Ingallses were happy in Walnut Grove. But they didn’t have a farm of their own anymore. One day, Pa’s sister, Aunt Docia, trotted into town. She had come by herself all the way from Wisconsin. And she had a special offer for Pa. Would he like to help her husband manage a railroad crew in Dakota Territory?

  What an opportunity! Pa could save up money. Then the Ingallses could put a claim on their own homestead! Pa itched to go. But would Ma agree? Yes, Ma said, on one condition: Dakota Territory would be their final move.

  THE HOMESTEAD ACT

  THE HOMESTEAD ACT OF 1862 PROMISED SETTLERS 160 ACRES—FOR FREE. IN RETURN, HOMESTEADERS HAD TO LIVE ON THE LAND FOR FIVE YEARS—THAT MEANT BUILDING A HOUSE, DIGGING A WELL, CLEARING UNBROKEN SOIL, AND PLANTING CROPS.

  IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1800S, THE HOMESTEAD ACT SPURRED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF SETTLERS TO MOVE WEST. THEY CAME FROM THE EASTERN STATES AND ALSO FROM EUROPE. THEY PUT DOWN ROOTS, CLEARED LAND, AND BUILT TOWNS. BY 1900, HOMESTEADERS HAD LARGELY SETTLED THE GREAT PRAIRIES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND EAST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. THE FRONTIER WAS GONE.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  Dakota Territory

  Laura looked outside the window at the prairie whizzing by. For the first time, Laura, her mother, and sisters were going west by train. The speed astonished Laura. In one morning, the train went as far as a horse could go in a week.

  Somewhere in Minnesota, the train stopped. Why? Because there were no more train tracks ahead! Pa’s railroad crew was laying the new track that would extend this line all the way through Dakota Territory, and beyond.

  Pa had gone ahead of his family to start his new job. Now he met his wife and daughters at the station. They traveled the rest of the way to Dakota Territory by wagon.

  Laura’s new home was a railroad camp that sat all alone on the empty prairie. It looked like they were in the middle of nowhere. Ten years later, in 1889, it would become the state of South Dakota.

  During the day, the air was filled with the loud clangs and bangs of railroad men driving spikes into the ground.

  The railroad crews left for the winter, but not the Ingallses. Pa had agreed to watch the railroad company’s equipment in exchange for staying in a two-story house. It was the biggest house that twelve-year-old Laura had ever lived in.

  THE GREAT DAKOTA BOOM

  * * *

  THE GREAT DAKOTA BOOM REFERS TO THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WHO CAME TO LIVE IN DAKOTA TERRITORY BETWEEN 1878 AND 1887. THE ARRIVAL OF THE RAILROAD IN THE AREA CAUSED THE BOOM. TO ATTRACT SETTLERS, RAILROAD COMPANIES RAN ADS BOASTING ABOUT THE “BEST FARMING LANDS, BEST GRAZING LANDS IN THE WORLD!” ALMOST OVERNIGHT, PRAIRIE TOWNS GREW UP ALONG THE RAILROAD TRACKS, SPACED APART EVERY SEVEN TO TEN MILES.

  By early spring, hopeful homesteaders started showing up—first in a trickle, then in a rush. The Great Dakota Boom had begun.

  The Ingallses took in travelers who were heading west. Overnight their home turned into a boardinghouse. Men camped out on the floor, then left the next day.

  Laura was Ma’s oldest helper now. Together they worked day and night—washing bedding, cleaning, and cooking. Once, when Ma was sick in bed, Laura cooked for and fed the whole crowd by herself.

  In February, Pa filed a claim for 160 acres in the town of De Smet. What town? Except for its name, the town didn’t really exist. The location was near the railroad camp where the Ingallses had spent the winter. Pa also bought two lots in town. He built a store on one lot and moved the family there.

  Laura had a close-up view of a town being born. It was thrilling to see buildings sprout up in De Smet. People were setting up shops along the new Main Street. Soon De Smet had a hotel, bank, furniture store, school, drugstore, tailor shop, butcher shop, and blacksmith. Most of the stores sported fancy false fronts.

  FALSE FRONTS

  MOST STORES IN FRONTIER TOWNS HAD FALSE FRONTS TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS. THEY WERE “TRYING TO MAKE BELIEVE THAT THE BUILDINGS WERE TWO STORIES HIGH,” LAURA WROTE IN LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE. THE BUILDING BEHIND A FALSE FRONT WAS JUST ONE STORY. USUALLY IT WAS PLAIN, MADE OF SOD OR LOGS. BUT THE FALSE FRONTS WERE MADE OF LUMBER WITH PHONY WINDOWS. THEY GAVE BOOMTOWNS A LOOK OF BEING MORE SETTLED AND PROSPEROUS.

  * * *

  Yet Laura was still a country girl at heart. She was glad when the family moved to the homestead. Pa first put up a shanty there, which he would add to later. It would be the fourth house he had made with his own hands.

  Pa also built a stable, dug a well, broke the deeply rooted prairie sod, and planted wheat. Now Laura was Pa’s right arm. She never grew over five feet tall, but Laura was strong and determined to make life easier for her father.

  The Ingallses had their homestead, and the future looked bright. But winter blizzards were on their way.

  Chapter 6

  A Hard Winter

  The winter of 1880–1881 was one of the worst in Dakota history. The first blizzard howled across the prairie in October. The Ingallses quickly moved off the claim into town, where it was safer. But one blizzard followed another, burying De Smet in fifteen-foot drifts. The winter “did its best to blot out the town,” Laura wrote. School closed for the season. And, with railroad tracks buried in snow, the trains stopped coming.

  For six months, De Smet was cut off from the outside world. Before long, stores sold out of everything—flour, meat, wheat, and coal.

  The Ingallses fought to survive. Laura wrote about “listening to the wind howl and shriek while the house rocked with the force of it.” The bone-chilling cold sometimes dropped forty degrees below zero. The family huddled by the stove, but still their breath froze in the air.

  When their coal supply was nearly gone, they used the only fuel they had—hay! Laura helped Pa twist and braid hay to make sticks that were tight enough to burn slowly.

  For food, the family ate potatoes and biscuits made out of flour and water. When their flour supply was gone, Ma ground wheat in a coffee grinder. Then one day there was no more wheat, either. The family, like others in town, was nearly starving.

  Then two young men in town crossed the open prairie in a sleigh to get wheat from a homesteader. What they brought back saved the hungry townspeople.

  ALMANZO WILDER

  One of the young heroes was named Almanzo Wilder. He would later play a very important part in Laura’s life.

  Finally, spring returned—and so did the trains. Laura later looked back on what everyone called the Hard Winter. “It is times like this that test people,” she sa
id. If it was a test, Laura passed with flying colors.

  The harsh winter drove some people back east. Still, De Smet kept growing by leaps and bounds. New board sidewalks were put down. A grain elevator was put up.

  Now that Laura was fourteen, her old dislike of town life fell away. She felt a kinship with those who had suffered through the Hard Winter. And she took more interest in the strangers coming to live in De Smet.

  School resumed. Pretty, lively, and generous, she was popular with both girls and boys. Laura still stood out as a student. At night she would read her lessons aloud so Mary could learn them, too. She knew how hard it was for her sister to miss out on school. At that time there was no school for the blind in all of Dakota Territory.

  Chapter 7

  Growing Up

  When Laura was fifteen, a surprise visitor came to the house. He was named Louis Bouchie. He lived twelve miles away in a small settlement that needed a schoolteacher. Word had gotten around that Laura was smart and capable. Would she like the job?

  Not really! Mary had wanted to be a teacher. Laura never had. Then she found out she’d make forty dollars for the eight-week term. That was a fortune to Laura!

  There was a school for the blind in Iowa. Pa and Ma had brought Mary there. This special school cost money, something the Ingallses never had a lot of. Laura’s job meant she could help pay for Mary’s schooling. Yes, agreed Laura. She’d take the job.

  The challenge scared Laura, though. One day she was a student, the next day she had students of her own. And she was going to live with the Bouchies—total strangers!

  At first Laura’s class was unruly. There were only five students. Two of them, however, were older than she was. Her days at school were not easy, but it was satisfying work.

  As for living with the Bouchies, there was nothing good about it. Their house was a rundown shack. Mrs. Bouchie was cold and rude to Laura and made it clear she didn’t want her there. The children misbehaved and the couple fought bitterly.

  Right from the start, Laura was terribly homesick. Then, on the very first Friday, Almanzo Wilder, the town hero from the Hard Winter, showed up in a horse-drawn sleigh. He drove Laura back to De Smet for the weekend. He kept coming every weekend after that to take her home.

  Laura was happy to accept rides from Almanzo. But she made it clear that he was not her boyfriend. Almanzo was ten years older than Laura. She thought of him as “Mr. Wilder.” He was her father’s friend. If Almanzo had other ideas, he kept them to himself—for now.

  After eight weeks of teaching, Laura returned to her own school in De Smet. Her friends were starting to pair up, going on sleigh rides together. Laura felt left out. So when Almanzo came jingling up in his sleigh, Laura hopped in.

  Sleigh rides turned to buggy rides in the spring. Slowly Almanzo, quiet and steady, started to grow on Laura.

  For the next three years, Laura moved back and forth between going to school and working. Her weekend rides with Almanzo became longer and longer. Both of them shared a deep love of the prairie. Sometimes they rode forty miles out of town, gathering wildflowers and talking about their lives.

  Almanzo had grown up on a farm in upstate New York. When he was twenty-two, he struck out for Dakota Territory to homestead. By now, he had “proved up” on his claim. That meant it was his. Plus he owned a team of beautiful Morgans, the finest horses for miles around.

  After three years of courtship, Laura and Almanzo married on August 25, 1885. He was twenty-eight; she was eighteen. Now Laura was Mrs. Wilder.

  Before the wedding, Laura had the minister make her a promise. He mustn’t use the standard phrase “obey your husband” in the wedding vows. Laura was staying true to her independent and strong-minded self. Fortunately, Almanzo liked her that way.

  Chapter 8

  Laura and Almanzo

  Almanzo gave Laura a pony of her own, named Trixy. Before breakfast every morning, the newlyweds raced on horseback across the prairie. They had a house that Almanzo had built on the farm. And they owned 320 acres of good, fertile soil.

  This should have been a happy and carefree time. However, their first four years together were the hardest of their lives.

  Fire destroyed their new home. Hail and drought ruined their crops. Illness left Almanzo with a limp for the rest of his life.

  One joy saved Laura and Almanzo from despair during those years. Their daughter, Rose, was born on December 5, 1886. Rose was a beautiful and healthy child with bright blue eyes, just like Laura’s.

  Laura and Almanzo had to start over. A brochure about the “Land of the Big Red Apple” advertised fruit orchards for sale in the Missouri Ozarks. Almanzo was no longer strong enough for wheat farming. A smaller farm in a warmer climate might be perfect.

  In 1894, Laura set off with her family in a covered wagon one last time. Almanzo and Laura rode in front with Rose tucked in beside them. The wagon carried all their belongings, including a coop of live chickens and a lap desk that Almanzo had made for Laura.

  The Wilders rode southeast, through Nebraska and Kansas. After six weeks, they reached the hilly and rocky Missouri Ozarks. They climbed up and up, until they reached the small town of Mansfield.

  On the outskirts of town, the couple bought a forty-acre farm. Laura named it Rocky Ridge. It was to be her home for the rest of her life.

  ROCKY RIDGE

  ALMANZO AND LAURA BUILT A ONE-OF-A-KIND HOUSE ON THEIR ROCKY RIDGE FARM. THE HOUSE TOOK THEM FIFTEEN YEARS TO COMPLETE, USING MATERIALS FROM THEIR OWN LAND. A STAIRCASE WAS SOLID OAK, MADE FROM THEIR OWN TIMBER. CHIMNEY STONES CAME FROM THE FIELDS THAT ALMANZO CLEARED. A HUGE FIREPLACE WAS MADE FROM THREE ROCKS DUG FROM THEIR GROUND.

  TODAY, ROCKY RIDGE IS OPEN TO VISITORS. READERS OF THE LITTLE HOUSE BOOKS CAN SEE LAURA’S WRITING DEN UPSTAIRS AND THE DROP-LEAF DESK WHERE SHE WROTE ALL THE BOOKS.

  * * *

  As the years passed, the Rocky Ridge house grew bigger. More rooms were added, until there were ten. Meanwhile Laura and Almanzo were purchasing more land. They ended up with about two hundred acres.

  The couple’s life took on a peaceful routine that flowed from one year to the next. Laura helped Almanzo on the farm and raised a flock of chickens that were prized for their egg laying.

  They were active in their community and close to their neighbors. And each morning Laura walked to a ridge to watch the sunrise. Nature was still a source of wonder to her.

  Rose was at school in Mansfield. A brilliant girl, she was far ahead of her classmates. But Rose didn’t like farm work or small-town life. She wanted a very different life from that of her parents.

  AUNT ELIZA

  One day, when Rose was sixteen, she got her chance. Almanzo’s sister, Aunt Eliza, arrived from Louisiana for a visit.

  Rose loved her independent aunt. Aunt Eliza invited Rose to come home with her and finish high school. (Mansfield didn’t have a real high school yet.) It was a hard decision. But Laura and Almanzo agreed to let their gifted daughter go.

  The move set Rose on a very different path from her mother’s.

  The opportunities that Rose found eventually changed Laura’s life, as well.

  Chapter 9

  Reliving Memories

  By 1930, there was a famous author in the Wilder family. But it wasn’t Laura; it was Rose. At the start of her career, Rose wrote for newspapers and magazines. Travel was in her blood, and Rose lived in cities on both the East and West Coasts. She also lived abroad. Rose’s travels took her to France, Turkey, Albania, Egypt, and Iraq. Now and then, she returned to Rocky Ridge. But it never suited her. Rose’s far-flung way of life was highly unusual for a woman in her day—especially a woman from the rural Ozarks!

  In time, Rose became a well-known novelist—Rose Wilder Lane. “Lane” was her husband’s last name, and Rose kept it even though the marriage didn’t last long.


  Laura had begun writing herself. But her writing was part-time. She wrote for a farm paper that came out twice a month. Laura’s first article was about raising chickens. She had a talent for telling stories while giving useful information. Readers liked her style so much that Laura got her own column, As a Farm Woman Thinks.

  Then one day in 1930, Laura’s writing took off in a whole new direction. She decided to write her autobiography. She believed that she had “stories that had to be told.” Pa, Ma, and Mary had all died. And the frontier was long gone. But, in Laura’s memory, these people and places were bright and alive.

  Laura got out a pencil and a wide-lined school tablet. Then, sitting at her drop-leaf desk, she began writing her life story. One story after another tumbled out. She entitled the finished work “Pioneer Girl” and mailed it to Rose.

  Rose passed along “Pioneer Girl” to some editors in New York. But no one was interested in a book for grown-ups about pioneer days. There already were plenty. Laura and Rose then set to work to turn Laura’s memories into a picture book. Still, no one wanted to publish it—not in that form, anyway. One editor had a suggestion, though. Why not use the stories in a book for middle-grade readers? Nothing about that time period had been written yet for them.