True Pioneers: Laura and Almanzo Wilder

 

While vacationing in Missouri last month, I visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. Decades ago, my children and I read through all of her books. And we’d talked about visiting this museum. But time passed and it never happened. So fulfilling a goal even thirty years later was an awesome thing. And for those of you who grew up on the Little House on the Prairie TV show you would find the museum and the books far more interesting.

 

The couple married in De Smet, South Dakota in 1885. Almanzo was 26 and Laura was 18. They met when her father Charles Ingalls got a job with the railroad there and moved the family to De Smet.

They are true examples of the pioneer spirit. In her book The First Four Years, Laura writes about the hardships of the early years of their marriage. The list of hardships is daunting. Their newborn son dies, the crops fail, their barn, hay and house burn. They lost their homestead to the bank. They both succumbed to diphtheria.

They then spent a few years living with his parents and then with his brother Peter’s family in Minnesota. The extreme cold in the north wasn’t good for Almanzo after his bout with diphtheria. They moved briefly to Florida, but the weather was too humid. They moved back to De Smet while they saved money. Laura had read about successful fruit orchards in the Ozarks. 

Photo by Charles Huff of the Wilders home in Mansfield, Missouri

 After saving a hundred dollars, they traveled for six weeks by covered wagon to the Ozark Mountains. The milder weather of Missouri appealed to them. They purchased 40 acres with an apple orchard among the assorted trees that grew on the property for $10 an acre and lived in a windowless cabin with their seven-year-old daughter Rose until they could build a house. The Wilders were determined to be debt free and diversified their crops, something they failed to do in South Dakota. Along with the apples, they grew other crops and raised chickens. Laura always had a large garden. And Almanzo used the wood from the trees on their property to build onto their cabin, converting it into their house still on the property as when they lived there. Using the variety of tree types, he made much of their furniture and several canes, as well.

Photo By Charles Huff 

 It took seventeen years to build the house on their property, Rock Ridge Farm. Almanzo  and Laura worked together on the construction. Nothing was wasted in the building. They moved the original cabin to the house site, added windows, and installed a full kitchen in the original cabin. They lived in the home as they added rooms. Staying debt free, while milling the wood from their own land to build walls and make shingles took time. The first thing they sold when they took ownership of the land was firewood. Once crops were doing well, they sold all their excess.

Before Laura ever put pen to paper, she was featured in the Country Gentleman Magazine for her unique kitchen. Almanzo had piped water into a water reservoir on the stove so there was always hot water in the kitchen. He’d added lots of extra storage under the windows. And he’d specially designed the cabinets and countertops for her 4’8” height. Some of the chairs in the home are shorter than normal to make things more comfortable for her. Almanzo was also short at 5’3”.

Cutout  of Laura in the kitchen Almanzo made for her. Photo: Charles Huff

 

 

 While Almanzo worked on the farm and built their home, Laura wrote for the local paper and even served as a loan officer for a local bank. She was active in her community, and loved to entertain. At one point, their home had a large rooftop porch where during the summer she could serve 20 guests a cold supper.

They raised their daughter to be independent and encouraged education. Rose became a successful author and journalist. She moved to California and traveled for various writing assignments. Rose took every opportunity to modernize her parents’ home with her own earnings. The Wilders had the first electric stove in the area. Laura only used it on very hot summer days or for heating the kettle for tea. She preferred her wood-burning stove, claiming the food                                                                                         tasted better.

Almanzo continued to create things for their home. He built tables with three legs from the trees on his property, asserting a three-legged table had more balance. The tour guide pointed out the handwoven rugs, needlepoint pillows, and all manner of handcrafted items the Wilders used in their home, all made by Almanzo.

Why she began to write her stories 

Rose encouraged her mother to write her childhood stories. She felt it would bring hope to the new generation (the depression era) that things could get better. Rose also hoped the royalties would help her parents financially. The 1929 stockmarket crash had taken what little savings the Wilders had.

 Rose worried about her parents living in a house with lots of stairs. One Christmas she gave them a Sears House. Yes, you could order house plans from the Sears Catalog. Rock House was an English cottage design. A simple two-bedroom, one-bath, with a kitchen, parlor and dining room. The rock siding came from the rocks around the property. They lived there seven years, during which time Laura began writing about her childhood.

Rock House where Laura began writing her books. photo by: Charles Huff

Once Rose moved back to California, Laura and Almanzo moved from the quaint retirement home back to the homestead, the house they had built themselves and were very proud of.  Eventually the rock house and most of the land was sold to another farmer as it was too much for the elderly couple to care for.

Laura’s parents, Charles and Caroline Ingalls instilled a work ethic in her that served her well. She sold eggs, wrote for the local paper, and helped do all the chores around the farm. So it was no surprise that her daughter could persuade her to write books. At age 60, her first book Little Cabin In The Big Woods was published. People were enamored with her life. Over time, eight books were included in the Little House on the Prairie Box Set we can still buy today. There’s a Little House on the Prairie Cookbook too. The museum has a plethoria of books written about the Wilders as well as copies of Rose Wilder Lane’s books.

Laura was shocked at her popularity, and for the first time in their fifty year marriage they were financially secure. She enjoyed speaking at various libraries and book signings and receiving copious amounts of fan mail. She answered every letter. Laura didn’t waste paper either. She wrote her response to the letters on the blank back page of the letter sent her and mailed it back. While she traveled to promote her books. Almanzo was content with staying home.

Rose bought them a car, and they both learned to drive it. Even taking a trip back to De Smit, South Dakota in their 70s to visit family.

Despite Almanzo’s health issues, he lived to be 92 passing in 1949. Laura died in 1957, a few days after her 90^th birthday.

The Ingall’s Legacy

Laura had three sisters and a brother Charles Frederick “Freddie.” Who died in infancy. Mary, the eldest, who, due to her blindness, never married live wiht her parents. Carrie, younger than Laura was in her forties when she married a widower and raised his two children. Grace’s only child was stillborn. Laura had Rose then lost an infant son at 12 days old. Rose had no natural children but fostered two teen boys. Despite the lack of natural descendants, the legacy of the Charles and Caroline Ingalls family is immortalized in Laura’s stories. The museum in Mansfield, Missouri stands as a reminder of what true resilience can produce. There a few other museum that track the travels of this inspiring couple. Here is a link  to view the videos.

Below is a list of all Laura’s writings

I found this list on Wikipedia, I saw them all at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Mansfield, Missouri.

• Little House in the Big Woods (1932) 
• Farmer Boy (1933) – about Almanzo Wilder growing up in New York
• Little House on the Prairie (1935)
• On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)
• By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)
• The Long Winter (1940)
• Little Town on the Prairie (1941)
• These Happy Golden Years (1943)

Other works

• On the Way Home (1962, published posthumously) – diary of the Wilders' move from De Smet, South Dakota, to Mansfield, Missouri, edited and supplemented by Rose Wilder Lane
• The First Four Years (1971, published posthumously by Harper & Row), illustrated by Garth Williams – commonly considered the ninth Little House book.
• West from Home (1974, published posthumously), ed. Roger Lea MacBride – Wilder's letters to Almanzo while visiting her daughter Rose Wilder-Lane in 1915 in San Francisco
• Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings (1991) collection of pre-1932 articles
• The Road Back Home, part three (the only part previously unpublished) of A Little House Traveler: Writings from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Journeys Across America (2006, Harper) Wilder's record of a 1931 trip with Almanzo to De Smet, South Dakota, and the Black Hills
• A Little House Sampler (1988 or 1989, U. of Nebraska), with Rose Wilder Lane
• Writings to Young Women – Volume One: On Wisdom and Virtues, Volume Two: On Life as a Pioneer Woman, Volume Three: As Told by Her Family, Friends, and Neighbors
• A Little House Reader: A Collection of Writings (1998, Harper), ed. William Anderson
• Laura Ingalls Wilder & Rose Wilder Lane, 1937–1939 (1992, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library), ed. Timothy Walch – selections from letters exchanged by Wilder and Lane, with family photographs
• Laura's Album: A Remembrance Scrapbook of Laura Ingalls Wilder (1998, Harper), ed. William Anderson,
• Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography (South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2014)
• Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1911–1916: The Small Farm
• Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1917–1918: The War Years
• Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1919–1920: The Farm Home
• Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1921–1924: A Farm Woman
• Laura Ingalls Wilder's Most Inspiring Writings
• Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Pioneer Girl's World View: Selected Newspaper Columns (Little House Prairie Series)
• The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by William Anderson
• Laura Ingalls Wilder Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks, edited by Stephen W. Hines
• Laura Ingalls Wilder's Fairy Poems, Introduced and compiled by Stephen W. Hines

Laura Ingalls Wilder was not only a pioneer woman making her life from the land, but her writing has preserved a time in history that might have been lost to future generations.

Have you ever read any of Laura’s books? Which one was your favorite? Have you visited her museum?

Cindy Ervin Huff, is a multi-published, award-winning author in Historical and Contemporary Romance.  She’s a 2018 Selah Finalist. Cindy has a passion to encourage other writers on their journey. When she isn’t writing, she feeds her reading addiction and enjoys her retirement with her husband of 50 plus years, Charles. They love visiting museums and historical sites together. Visit her at www.cindyervinhuff.com.

 

 

 

 

 

HIS JUSTICE CANNOT SLEEP FOREVER, PART 3

 

By Catherine Ulrich Brakefield

In our nation’s crucial times, God produced the leaders we needed to guide us through life’s battles. Whether it be good versus evil, truth versus a lie, or dependency versus liberty.

Out of the birth pangs of the Revolutionary War, God-fearing men bodily marched forward, displaying wisdom, perseverance, and faith unparalleled in history, leading our country to greatness. Unashamedly adhering to their forefathers’ teachings and continuing to seek God’s guidance through prayer, fasting, and petitions.

The very foundation of our existence was shaken to its core the day of that surprise attack upon Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This blatant and terrible attack threw the pride of America, our young men, and women, into war with Japan and Germany, as I write in Waltz with Destiny.

This was a time for testing the grit and stamina of our youth, but also our leaders. At the time, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was president and bound to a wheelchair. What would be his next move? From whom would he seek guidance? Through the grueling years that followed, the perseverance of every American’s faith was tested.

Here is an excerpt from Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his prayer on D-Day during his radio address on June 6, 1944.

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

“They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph...

“Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

“And for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them - help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.”

When victory loomed upon the horizon, our leaders gave credit where credit was due - to our Divine Creator. When General Dwight D. Eisenhower became the 34th President of the United States. He did not hesitate to show his humble regard for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He knew firsthand that God had been with them in the cockpits, the foxholes, and on those bloody battlefields. Dwight D. Eisenhower said this in a statement upon signing the bill to include “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag on June 14, 1954.

“From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. To anyone who truly loves America, nothing could be more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each school morning, to our country’s true meaning. Over the globe, mankind has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, by the millions, deadened in mind and soul by a materialistic philosophy of life. In this somber setting, this law and its effects today have profound meaning. In this way, we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way, we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource, in peace or in war.” 

One bedrock group of our community, the American Legion, on February 20, 1955, said these remarks at the “Back-to-God program”.

“Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first - the most basic - expression of Americanism. Thus, the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God’s help, it will continue to be.”

Schools in the 1940s and 1950s taught the patriotic strengths of our nation, reciting the National Anthem and singing songs like “My Country Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty” before each school day.

Families ate together, prayed together, and went to church together. Children were taught not to talk back to their elders, to obey their parents, and learned the Ten Commandments.

In President Roosevelt’s 1936 acceptance Speech for the presidential nomination, he stated that our government has an "inescapable obligation to its citizens" to protect "the family and the home".

So, what happened?  Could it be that we have forgotten what caused our ancestors to become victorious? Check out next month’s blog for the answer.

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (Ephesians 6:10,11 NKJV)

Waltz with Destiny:  Esther (McConnell) Meir finds herself in a story-book romance that swirls into a rendezvous with destiny when Eric Erhardt is swept up into Hitler's diabolical war. Eric wages his battle for survival as a rifleman in the 34th Infantry Division traveling up the boot of Italy—.

"…of Waltz with Destiny… I was reading Capt. Kimble’s words about D-Day… the music I had going started playing “God Bless the USA.” Goose bumps popped up all down my arms and legs, and I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes. The message of the Destiny series is even more applicable to today than when it first released…" Debra B.

Catherine is the award-winning author of Wilted Dandelions, Swept into Destiny, Destiny’s Whirlwind, Destiny of Heart, Waltz with Destiny and Love's Final Sunrise. She has two pictorial history books, The Lapeer Area and Eastern Lapeer, and short stories for Guideposts Books, CrossRiver Media Group, Revell Books, Bethany House Publishers. Catherine and her husband of fifty-two years live on a ranch in Michigan and have two adult children, five grandchildren, four Arabian horses, three dogs, four cats, chickens, and bunnies. See CatherineUlrichBrakefield.com.
https://washingtonstand.com/commentary/the-best-gift-20-presidents-speak-on-the-bible-and-christianity

Spotlight: Thomas Goodman

Hi all! I’m looking forward to contributing to the Heroes, Heroines, and History blog. I’ll be posting tidbits I’m finding in my research on Texas life and culture from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. The research helped me as I wrote my first novel, and it's helping me as I write my second novel now.

I write early in the mornings before the office opens at the church where I serve as a pastor. I am a graduate of Baylor University and Southwestern Seminary in Texas, and I hold a doctorate from New Orleans Seminary. I have served as a pastor in Louisiana, north Texas, and overseas in Grand Cayman before becoming the pastor of Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas (www.hillcrest.church). I have been married to my high school sweetheart, Diane, for 45 years and counting. We have two sons. I enjoy scuba diving, fly fishing, hiking, and puttering around my wood-working shop.

My debut novel is closely based on a Texas true crime. I first heard about it in the 1990s, when I served as a pastor in the county where it all took place in the 1920s.

It’s called The Last Man: A Novel of the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery.

Here’s the back cover copy:

 

When Santa Claus enters a Texas bank just before Christmas in 1927, no one expects him to pull a gun.

 

The fake white beard hides his identity from his neighbors while he and three others take everything. But their easy heist goes sideways fast when armed lawmen and citizens assemble to claim a new reward for dead bank robbers.

 

Taking hostages, the gang forces a path through a frenzied and bloody shootout, setting the whole Lone Star state on their trail.

 

One bandit dies in the getaway. One is executed in the electric chair. One swings from a rope in a mob lynching. The last man finds a life he always hoped for … if only he can keep it.

 

Closely based on a true crime, The Last Man is a gritty Prohibition-era Western novel filled with flawed characters and second chances.

 

As grim as this story sounds, I was attracted to it because of the conversion of the true-life “last man” during his prison stay, and the substantive life-change that resulted.

 

I was thrilled that the book received a 2024 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America and a 2024 Will Rogers Medallion Award.

 

Here’s a photo of me with Craig Johnson, who also received a 2024 Spur Award for his latest book in the Longmire series:

Here’s a photo of me with Jane Kirkpatrick, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Will Rogers Medallion Awards. Many of you probably know Jane for her Christian westerns.

At my website (click here), you can listen to the first chapter of the audiobook and find out where to get the book in all formats.

 

I have a free book on my website called “The Santa Claus Bank Robbery in Photos.” It’s filled with images of the real characters and places that my novel is based on. Click here to find out more.

 

I’m working on my second novel now, and it is also based on a Texas true crime from the early twentieth century.

 

While The Last Man is my only work of fiction so far, I have several nonfiction books out as a part of my work as a pastor. My most recent project is a series called Bible Portals. The digital format of the first book of that series is permanently 99 cents, so check it out!

 

 You can find all my nonfiction books at my Amazon author page (click here), including a fun Christmas devotional about the four “Christmas carols” of Luke’s Gospel.

 

I write a weekly devotional newsletter on Substack called “Winning Ways.” If you want a quick shot of encouragement from the Word each Thursday, check it out here.

 

I look forward to sharing with you interesting glimpses into Texas life and culture from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. See you soon!