brother alden
Not everyone thought as kindly of Reverend Alden as the Ingallses did. In the late 1870s, E.H. Alden was a missionary to the Indians in Berthold, Dakota Territory. He was there for about eighteen months and forced to resign or else be removed by force. His clerk wrote that Alden "is about the most absurd and incompetent man that could have been selected," that he couldn't keep his accounts straight, and wouldn't keep his word with the Indians. Every Indian on the reservation was said to hate him and Alden received death threats more than once.

Alden put his wife on the payroll while she was living in Minnesota and swore that she was living with him and working for him as clerk at a salary of $1000 per year. Alden later admitted that his wife wasn't there, but a girl was working in her place, making $25 per month; his wife back in Minnesota was being sent the rest.

In Pioneer Girl, LIW wrote that Alden left his wife and ran off with a young woman in Dakota, so it makes you wonder if this was the woman... It's true that Reverend Alden left his wife and two sons when heading west, and he never lived with his Minnesota family again.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:21 AM