mary, carrie, ivan, vernon, richard, phala, & rose

As a general rule, I don't research Rose Wilder Lane. I read Rose Wilder Lane's books, stories, letters and journals. I admire the heck out of her. I leave researching her to others, simply because you have to draw the line somewhere.

But I spent a lot of hours on a plane recently, and I took William Holtz's The Ghost in the Little House with me to read for the eleventy-seventh time. And then I got hold of the photo of Rose above, so here I am. That's Rose - 101 years ago - in Crowley.

Holtz describes Rose's graduation picture (not the one above) as follows: "Her graduation picture reveals a sober, almost sullen, childish face, faintly uncomfortable in adult finery and hairdress." [page 44] By the way, Holtz got the name wrong for the one member of Rose's graduation class he mentioned. She was Phala Baur, not Phila.

This morning, I spent a little while (a very little while) trying to learn something about the other members of Rose's class. And I couldn't find a thing, except for Phala on the census in 1930. She was a widow, and her father and sister were living with her. And I probably won't dig any farther; I'll leave that to the RWLologists.

I'll admit, though, that I did LOOK up about bisecting a cone. No alarm clocks involved, Bong!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:00 PM