myth #3
...a young lawyer name Alfred Thomas came in and stayed and kept on staying for no reason that I could see, until I was afraid Pa and I would be late. At last he asked Pa if he were going to the meeting and to my surprise Pa said "No!" Then he asked me if I were going and I thinking if Pa didn't go of course I wouldn't said "No!" too... So Mr Thomas went away alone and then Pa laughed at me and said all Mr. Thomas had come for was to take me... I had refused my first offer of an escort...

Do you believe that? It's in the handwritten Pioneer Girl. It's also in Donald Zochert's biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Supposedly Mr. Thomas wanted to take Laura to one of the literaries in De Smet.

Yes, there was an Alfred Thomas in De Smet. He moved there in April 1883 with his wife and two children. They had two more children. Alfred was not a lawyer; he started an abstract business and later sold insurance. He was on the school board. He was born in 1851, so he was 6 years older than Almanzo Wilder and 16 years older than Laura Ingalls.

Alfred Thomas did, however, have a younger brother who lived in De Smet for a while, and this brother was a lawyer. He came from law school in Wisconsin to go into the land business with Alfred, but returned shortly to Wisconsin to be married; and he didn't return. And no, I'm not going to tell you his name.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
the difference between research and a book report
Do you believe that everything Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in the "Little House" books was true? Probably not. Do you believe everything you read about Laura Ingalls Wilder? You shouldn't. Do you believe anything anybody tells you about Laura Ingalls Wilder because they seem to know what they're talking about or have been correct in the past? They might just be perpetuating a myth, and you might just be falling for it.

Think about some of the things that Laura wrote in the "Little House" books, and pretty much all serious fans know to be historically incorrect. Uncle George didn't fight in the Civil War, but Uncle James and Uncle Hiram did, and that's not the way it goes in Little House in the Big Woods. Almanzo has an older sister Laura and a younger brother Perley who aren't mentioned in Farmer Boy. Baby Carrie was really born in Kansas, but travels there as a baby with the rest of the family in Little House on the Prairie. The Ingalls family didn't spend their whole stay in Walnut Grove living on the banks of Plum Creek, and the book doesn't even mention the time spent in Burr Oak. Cousins Lena and Jean aren't Hiram Forbes' children like it says in By the Shores of Silver Lake; they were Docia's children by her first marriage, which ended in divorce. Almanzo was old enough to file on a homestead, even though The Long Winter says he wasn't. Tay Pay Pryor from Little Town on the Prairie was really Thomas Power, the tailor. And Laura and Almanzo weren't married on a Thursday, like it says in These Happy Golden Years, but on a Tuesday.

Certainly there was a time when you read the "Little House" books and took Laura's stories on faith. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's perfectly okay for people to read the books, enjoy them (or not!), move on to something else, and never be curious about a single thing. You may disagree with me, but I think it's wrong to teach the "Little House" books and constantly be pointing out things that Laura made up, changed, or got wrong. For Pete's sake, readers (especially children) deserve to fall in love with the books and not be immediately hit in the face with the fact that Nellie Oleson is a composite character, and her name wasn't even Oleson, it was Owens. Of course, it's also fine to be curious and want to know the answer to both "What happened next?" and "Did it really happen that way?'

If you knew the "truths" above, how did you learn them? If you heard them somewhere, believe them to be true, and share the information with others, you're a book reporter. If you looked at a census or marriage record or searched through deeds to either figure it out on your own or make sure somebody else knew what they were talking about, you're a researcher.

I was going to blog tonight about another "myth" in the world of LIW - something I keep hearing or reading online or in books as the truth but I know to be incorrect. But I got to thinking about where these myths come from. Many start because Laura herself simply was incorrect, and nobody took the time or effort to check out her story. If you read the same thing a few times, it's common knowledge, and people believe it whether it's correct or not.

I'm not sure if there's a point in all this, or if I'm merely putting off until tomorrow what I could have written about today.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:44 AM

 
guest blog
Cyberbessie is in the middle of a research muddle and simply doesn't have the time to blog. Today's guest blog is brought to you by Tay Pay Terrana.

Today I moved my LIW collection to a larger bookcase. I have one shelf of non book items. A wooden spoon with the image of Carrie Ingalls in the bowl. Little mittens, red and Fourth of July colors. A "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread" plate. An apple, full of cloves that still has not lost its goodness. Dresser Scarf, needle worked with roses, by Neta Seal. An ear of dried corn. Postcard of Ida Wright. A Big Green Book, bursting with tales of Esquimaux. Independent Fifth Reader. Pure Gold for the Sunday School.

That is one shelf's worth. Next comes the actual series books. The latest hardbound publication. A couple of Sewells. Little House in the Big Woods. In Finnish. Some Spanish, some French, some British. The colorized set. The Target paperbacks without illustrations. The stories on C.D.

A shelf full of Rose books. A shelf full of other LIW related books.

Five file crates full of LIW related papers. A bunch of microfilm, and reader to use it on. What am I going to do with all of this STUFF? [cyberbessie suggests you remember her in your will...]

I subscribe to the De Smet News. I could buy a bottle of wine from an area vineyard run by Mary Power's great-great nephew. Who knows my sister-in-law's brother.

I have attended mass at the same church that held Mary Power Sanford's funeral. I have visited her grave. I have visited the graves of Frank and Mabel Harthorn. Who knew that they were buried at the same cemetery where my folks are? I have visited the grave of Jake Hopp. I have seen the house lived in by the son of Reverend Alden.

I have not left Washington state. Washington is truly where many of those that paused in De Smet moved to.

MUMPS (My Unknown Mary Power Society) coined from the initials of Mary Power Sanford is a bit of a joke. But it is also very real. Research can be done here. There is a lot more research to BE done here.

Some answers to long standing questions await.

Where can I buy some art by Madalene Power? Was Ada Power school superintendent for the city of Yakima?

Why is Tay Pay buried in De Smet and Eliza in Bellingham?
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:23 AM

 
bumper stickers
Here are some "Little House" bumper sticker ideas. Do buggies have bumpers?

(1) I poke badgers with sticks.
(2) Slough hay: the renewable heat source.
(3) My other vehicle is a cutter.
(4) Get out of my way. I'm coming through the rye.
(5) Put your bonnet on. You'll be brown as an Indian.
(6) Seed wheat. It's not just for breakfast anymore.
(7) Holler nuff!
(8) My child is an honor student at the Bouchie School.
(9) Salt pork. The other white meat.
(10) De Smet Revival Days, 1884.
(11) I went to Brookings and all I got was this lousy tree claim.
(12) WWWTAD? (What would William T. Anderson do?)
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:55 PM

 
the new little house movie
I don't think I'm going to watch any more of the new series. It will give me added excuse not to discuss it. I'm glad to hear that some people are enjoying it, and hopefully it will bring readers to (or back to) the "Little House" series.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:09 PM

 
calm before the storm
Tomorrow night, that new Ed Friendly "Little House on the Prairie" miniseries or movie (I haven't been paying much attention) will air on ABC. I'm sure that the minute it's over, LIW fans everywhere will run to the computer to put in their two cents' worth about it by comparing it to whatever Laura they know and love.

Will it be like "Beyond the Prairie" - annoying yet temporary? Will it be entertaining or become a constant thorn in our sides? At the very least, it's going to add yet another Laura Ingalls to our collection of them: historical, mythical, book, tv, tv movie... Why can't somebody make the effort to give us documentary Laura?
- posted by pioneergirl at 5:37 PM

 
poor man's fertilizer
We got about a foot of snow last night. The calendar may say that spring is here, but in Montana, spring usually means June. We had the worst snowfall of the year on June 20 a few years ago (if you watched Frontier House on PBS, it was the year they were filming in Montana). Even after ten years living here, I haven't quite learned to plant later rather than sooner, and the nurseries have often reaped the benefit of me having to buy a second batch of bedding plants.

I remembered that there was something in one of the Little House books about plowing under snow and it being called "poor man's fertilizer." Was it a spring snow? Fall snow? I couldn't remember (sad, but true). I found one reference in Farmer Boy (Chapter 22, "Fall of the Year"):

That night Father said they'd seen the last of Indian summer. "It will snow tonight," he said. Sure enough, when Almanzo woke the next morning the light had a snowy look, and from the window he saw the ground and barn roof white with snow.
Father was pleased. The soft snow was six inches deep, but the ground was not yet frozen.
"Poor man's fertilizer," Father called such a snow, and he set Royal to plowing it into all the fields. It carried something from the air into the ground, that would make the crops grow.

Most of the references to "poor man's fertilizer" that I've been able to find refer to spring snow being plowed into the soil, not fall snow. But it turns out that both are beneficial. Snow contains Nitrogen and a bit of Phosphorus (even more so since the 1800s due to acid rain), plus traces of other elements. If you've ever bought commercial fertilizer, you know that there's going to be a N-P-K ratio posted on the container or bag somewhere. N= Nitrogen, P= Phosphorus, K= Potassium. Simply put: Nitrogen is for greening, Phosphorus is for root growth, and Potassium is for flowering.

Plowing snow under in the fall also helps improve the tilth of the soil. Good soil is composed of particles surrounded by air. That's also what snow is when it's lying on the ground. So plowing snow under before the ground freezes adds both moisture and air to the soil, and it brings the nutrients found in the snow crystals themselves. Add a few freeze/thaw cycles before hard winter sets in, and you're moving the moisture and nutrients deeper into the ground, plus they go to work to break up clods of soil into finer pieces.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:07 PM

 
william steadman
Today I pulled together a few sentences about the Steadman family. It's hard to do that when you're not particularly interested in the subject matter; the Steadmans are pretty much a family of faceless, transient, unpleasant people in Pioneer Girl. The fact that LIW didn't "remember" that there was a younger Steadman daughter doesn't exactly make me want to take the little bit she wrote about the family as the gospel, either. Of course, LIW didn't accurately remember a lot about a lot of people and places, and I've learned not to take anything Laura wrote as the gospel unless I can find proof.

You've got Mr. Steadman, born in England, a blacksmith. Mrs. Steadman "made" Laura and Mary look after the baby, Tommy, which might have been Mary Steadman, but Laura didn't include her, so you never know. When you're ten years old - like Laura was in Burr Oak - the truth might have been that they looked after a baby one time and it blew all out of proportions in Laura's mind. After all, she once wrote that she didn't suppose any of her readers would ever take the time to check her books for accuracy. Ha!

Then there's the Steadman boys: Johnny, Reuben, and Tommy. I'm losing interest just trying to write about them here... It's a shame that when I think about the Steadmans, the only things that come to mind are Johnny's lame leg, Mr. Steadman cheating Pa out of his share of the money (or so Laura said), and Mrs. Steadman's forty pounds of tumors she underwent an operation to remove. I'd like to think that if I spent the time and money it takes to research a family properly, the Steadmans would turn out to be a most interesting family. But since they didn't even end up as characters in a Little House book, I think I'll be content with my few sentences and move on to something else.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:50 PM

 
vanity cakes
This recipe appeared in the Iroquois Herald, a Kingsbury County newspaper, in 1882:

Recipe for "PUFFS, which are nice made for tea, call for one pint of sweet milk, six ounces of sifted flour, four eggs, a good pinch of salt. The milk must be scalded, and then be allowed to cool a little, then stir the flour in, not leaving a single lump. Beat the eggs till they are very light, then add the milk and flour. Fry these in hot lard, dropping a spoonful at a time, as you do for fritters. By taking pains you can make these puffs as round as balls. Do not let them string from the spoon, but, holding it down close to the lard, cut the batter off with a knife. Sift powdered sugar over them just before sending them to the table."
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:57 PM

 
the pin in charles' arm
When Laura taught the Bouchie school, she was required to spend ten minutes twice weekly teaching from Julia Colman's book, Alcohol and Hygiene. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) was active in De Smet and had given a copy of Colman's book to each teacher in Kingsbury County. It's a small volume, 231 pages, published in 1880.

While the intention was to teach the evils of drink, at the beginning it reads like an instruction manual for the home brewer. There are even simple science experiments to learn how beer, wine, and cider are made. These are followed by more complex chemistry experiments in distillation and fermentation.

About fifty pages in, it's time to get serious. Alcohol is poison, so there are lessons about alcohol and the nerves, alcohol and the stomach, alcohol and the liver. It's all disease, insantity, and death.

Lesson IX is "Alcohol and the Nerves." It begins by telling you that the body is seven-eighths water, then that blood has almost four times as much water as solid matter. Colman says: "And the body is so full of blood that you can not put in the point of the finest needle anywhere but that it will find some. You can try that for an experiment if you like."

From These Happy Golden Years, Chapter 3, "One Week" -- [Laura] turned her eyes from the window and saw Charles half-asleep. Suddenly he jumped wide awake. Clarence had jabbed his arm with a pin.

"Look, Miss Ingalls! Miss Colman was right! Clarence is bleeding."
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:01 AM

 
alpha bravo... yankee zulu
One phonetic alphabet circa 1955 is: Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey Xray Yankee Zulu.

I got to thinking about a Little House phonetic alphabet using words/names from LIW history. Off the top of my head, I can give you: Almanzo Bouchie Carrie Dan Edwards Fuller Grace Homestead Ingalls Jack Kitty Laura Mary Nelson Osage Power Quiner Rob Susan Tucker Uncle Violets Xanthophyll Yankee Zog.

I am grateful for spelling bees and Rose's time spent in Albania.
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:02 PM

 
one hundred things about cyberbessie
One hundred things used to be here, but they're now on a separate page linked to the main blog page. I'm just saying is all.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:01 AM

 
like silken robes trailing

I finished transcribing the first The Shores of Silver Lake manuscript today. Near the end, Laura wrote that sometimes she and Mary went to the top of the hill behind the stable (where the LIW Memorial Society marker is today; the house was not there; it was on a low rise to the east) and they would watch how the sun "grew into a great ball as it sank out of sight and of the beautiful colors it left floating in the sky like silken robes trailing." That reminded me of the picture I took of a De Smet sunset one night. Enjoy.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:51 AM

 
lambrequins
In the By the Shores of Silver Lake manuscript, LIW called the "pasteboard curtains" they made for the whatnot shelves lambrequins. A lambrequin, says Mr. Webster, is "a short decorative drapery for a shelf edge or for the top of a window casing." Also in the manuscript, Pa makes two whatnots; one is for Mrs. Boast. I always wondered where Mr. Boast was during all this; didn't he help?

A whatnot is something I don't yet have. I've never seen an antique one I cared for, and when all is said and done, I'd rather have one that's oak, mission style, and with no scallops or brown paper points. In the picture I've painted in my mind of the CPI one, the narrow strips of board between the shelves don't sound all that pleasing. Unless the bottom shelf was low to the ground (much lower than in the Garth Williams illustration at the beginning of Chapter 26), I think "narrow strips" wouldn't be substantial enough to hold the whole thing up.

In other words, I want a whatnot, but I don't want a Little House one, and part of me feels guilty for not wanting "the original."

It's like my clock. I should long for a Pansy clock like Almanzo traded the load of hay for in The First Four Years, right? I spent a lot of years looking for a clock like that - and I almost bought one - but I ended up buying an antique mantle clock made by the same manufacturer and in the same style as one that was always hanging over the mantle in my parents' house.

Sometimes you stop and realize that for all the "stuff" you covet because of the Little House connection, there some things that are even more meaningful because of the connection to your own flesh and blood.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:51 AM

 
found, between sunrise and sunset...
In Little Town on the Prairie (Chapter 21, "The Madcap Days"), Laura Ingalls Wilder mis-quotes Horace Mann (1796-1859, American education reformer and abolitionist):

Lost, between sunrise and sunset,
One golden hour, set with sixty diamond minutes.
No reward is offered, for it is gone forever.

The actual quote refers to two golden hours being lost:
Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.

I thought about Laura's use of Mann's words today, because I've been procrastinating about a "Little House" project I started ages ago, never seeming to find or make the time to work on it. Today I decided to take the hour after lunch and settle down. Let's see how often I can put that hour to good use!

The project is transcribing all of the LH books and manuscripts. I've done most of the books (for some reason I've repeatedly gotten bored transcribing The Long Winter - must be all that cold and sameness, as if typing isn't "samey" enough), and I have transcriptions of FB, TLW, LTP, THGY manuscripts so far. LHP is such a mess and hard to decipher that it's a challenge to transcribe and has to be done when I feel like (1) concentrating with a magnifying glass and (2) dealing with a headache afterwards.

But today I worked on the SSL manuscript for more than an hour and it was pretty satisfying. Why am I doing this? Because it's so nice to have everything on the computer and to be able to search for words or phrases or names in a hurry - to be able to compare manuscript and published book easily. I usually flip through my set of LH sacrifice books (the set that is by the computer and full of handwritten notes in the margins; they're falling apart from so much use!) to look things up, but if I can't find it easily and know it's in a certain book, it sure is nice to be able to find it without spending too much time on it.

Rose Wilder Lane was a firm believer in copying, and she once recommended to her mother that she transcribe other author's works to get the feel of their words and to learn from them. I haven't found that a single golden hour I've spent transcribing has been wasted, and I hope to remember Horace Mann's words and be more consistent in an effort to get this done and learn something in the process.
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:35 PM

 
laura and voting
In These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls tells Almanzo Wilder that she is not for women's rights and she does not want to vote. Women already had a few rights in Dakota Territory in 1885, and one of them was the right to vote in school elections if they had a child of school age. That meant that Caroline Ingalls - as well as Charles Ingalls - could vote in school elections.

Speaking of Dakota Territory schools during the "Little House" years, almost every time I see a discussion of "schools back then," someone points out that only single women could teach. Even Laura Ingalls implies that in THGY. That was not true! From the first Dakota School Law in the 1860s, both married men and women were allowed to teach. One of the first Kingsbury County teachers was a married woman (Mrs. Hilton), and both married persons and parents were also teachers. One teacher in the 1890s (Mrs. Dow) taught a term and had a baby before the term ended, so she obviously taught while pregnant.

Btw, when George Williams ran for Kingsbury County Superintendent of Schools in 1882, he was opposed by Samuel O. Masters. In 1886, George Williams left the county, and V.S.L. Owen (Laura's teacher, Mr. Owen) ran for office to replace him. Owen was opposed by Eloise Stead (a woman!) and was defeated by her in the election.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:00 PM

 
mary power's skating partner
About the time Laura Ingalls was wondering what Almanzo was up to, and he would surprise her with an early return at Christmas-time, Mary Power won a skating race in De Smet with "D. LeSuer" as her partner. When Gina sent me the info about Mary Power's skating prowess, my first thought was: "I bet I can find out who D. LeSuer was." Easier said than done.

First of all, I had that it was spelled LeSueur so right there you've got two names to look for. And because it's not a common name, chances are, records aren't going to always get it right. I've got one of those surnames myself... I looked through all my school stuff (apparently he never taught school in Kingsbury County), the entire tract book (that took over an hour, but no LeS-anybody filed a claim), SD birth records, census records, and the few Kingsbury County books that I have with name indexes. So, Mr. LeSuer, be it Delbert or Dwight or Dugold or whatever, I salute you. And congratulations on winning the race.

Times like these, I wish three things. One: that the 1890 census hadn't been destroyed. Two: that men didn't go by their initials all the time and it wasn't almost impossible to research women because of maiden names changing to married names. And, three: that I lived somewhere close enough to Little House sites that I didn't have to make impossibly long lists of things to research and then try to do it all on my too-few-and-far-between research trips.

I'm sure there are John Bozeman or Lewis and Clark researchers sitting at home somewhere, wishing to be in my little corner of the world, and I don't give a hoot about Montana history except where it involved LH characters who lived here. John actually dared to suggest once (only once...) that I find an obsession that is closer to home. Just like a man.... The logical solution is to simply move to where my obsession is...
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:14 AM

 
finding wilder feed

I went through my De Smet images to post a couple with the Little Town on the Prairie pages. I have one that was also printed in De Smet: Yesterday & Today, which supposedly shows the west side of Calumet, including Royal Wilder's Feed Store. In the photograph, the hotel is said to be on the north end of the block, then Wilder Feed.

I never questioned this, because it is such a nice little store and it made sense for that to be the feed store. But, according to the deeds and plat, the hotel was on a double lot at the north end of the block, then Henry Hinz's saloon, then the building belonging to Mr. Cheever, then Royal's property. I've seen other photos of the Exchange Hotel from other angles (the one pictured), so I tend to believe it's the hotel in this photo, too.

But that would make the little building in the photograph in question the saloon, and the feed store a much larger building two doors down. It's going to take some getting used to: looking at another building and thinking "Wilder Feed," because it's been years that I've never given any of the other buildings in the photo a second thought.

I have no idea who told the Poppens that the little building was the feed store. I also thought that Wilder Feed wasn't torn down until the 70s, but in newpapers from the 1920s, it was almost condemned because it was falling down. Oh, to be able to just step into that photograph for a minute or two and ask somebody!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:47 AM

 
hanged for his crime
De Smet, S. D., Oct. 21. 1893- All preparations having been made, at 1:25 o'clock Sheriff Richardson adjusted the black cap and Nathaniel R. Thompson swung into eternity. He remained firm to the last, running lightly up the steps to the gallows and accepting spiritual consolation from the minister present. After twenty-one minutes the physician declared life extinct and the body was cut down. There was not a movement of a muscle after the drop fell. A large crowd of people was in town, but no manifestations of disorder were made. None but the privileged few allowed by law were admitted, until the drop fell. Thompson’s final words were: "Pray for me, I am ready; drop me quick." But fifteen minutes were taken for the trip from the jail and the execution. There was not a hitch in the entire proceedings. Sheriff Richardson was assisted by Sheriff Collins of Clark county. Great praise is heard for such an orderly and prompt execution.

Thompson killed Mrs. John Britton on the morning of July 4, 1892. Mrs. Thompson had secured a divorce and was staying with Mrs. Britton. Thompson wanted her to go home with him and tried to kill her when Mrs. Britton stepped between them and was stabbed to death.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:55 AM

 
laura was never graduated from anything
In the spring of 1885, Laura Ingalls left school to teach the Wilkin School. As she was to be married, she would not be returning to school as a student. Mr. Owen was sorry that he hadn't graduated her in the spring, but only she had been ready and he wanted to graduate the class together.

Why, then, was there no graduating class in De Smet until 1889? This class was oft reported as the first in De Smet history - four students who graduated from the ninth grade. What about Mary Power? Ida Wright? Cap Garland? Ben Woodworth? Weren't they graduated from anything either?

It sure doesn't seem like it.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:51 AM

 
what happened to silver lake
That's not a question, because every time I've visited De Smet, Silver Lake has been alive and well and full of water (and junk cars and no telling what else). The point is: I'm tired of being told that Silver Lake was drained in the 1920s, like that settles the matter and nobody should even head over to the eastern part of De Smet to look where it was because you simply won't find any sign of any lake. No sir, no lake. Don't bother looking. Period.

Yes, in 1923 there was a grand plan to dig ditches from Silver Lake to Lake Henry. This was supposed to (according to the newspaper) "entirely drain Silver Lake and while it may be a long time before the land is made tillable, it will turn the wet marsh into hay and pasture land." The goal was to "reclaim many acres of land adjacent to De Smet." Explain, then, why Silver Lake is full of water, surrounded by wet marsh, and there's not a hay field or pasture in sight? Once you drained [sic] Silver Lake, wouldn't you then need to fill the lake depression with dirt? That never seems to be mentioned in the Grand Plan, but maybe that's where the junk cars come in...

Obviously there was some sort of effort to drain Silver Lake, but it was neither long-lasting nor untimately successful. That stands to reason, being followed by the dust bowl years and all. Since the drainage failure is so obvious today, why not admit it?

I wonder if Silver Lake would have been looked upon as such a waste of good farmland if the town had been built on its shore, as originally planned. Pioneers waxed poetic at length about the beautiful lake; even Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned its loveliness a time or two. It's still a pretty spot. Why not acknowledge its existence, or at the very least, its evolution?
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:26 PM

 
meatless, wheatless, sweetless rules
During World War I, citizens did their part to help the war effort by following certain rules. The following was posted in De Smet, March 1, 1918. The idea was that you did without so that meat and wheat products would be available for the soldiers. Btw, Charles Dawley was head of the draft board in De Smet. His wife was early De Smet teacher, Florence Garland.

Meatless, Wheatless, Sweetless Rules: Sugar and fats to be saved at all times. Potatoes and other vegetables to be used freely.

Sunday - Evening meal wheatless, one meal meatless.
Monday - Wheatless day. All three meals to be wheatless, one meal meatless.
Tuesday - Meatless day. No beef, pork, mutton, veal or lamb to be served, evening meal to be wheatless.
Wednesday - Wheatless day. Wheat products barred at all meals, one meal meatless.
Thursday - Evening meal wheatless, one meal meatless.
Friday - Evening meal wheatless, one meal meatless.
Saturday - Porkless day. No pork products served during the day, evening meal wheatless.
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:40 PM

 
eighteen-eighty was a leap year
On February 29, 1880, Reverend Edwin H. Alden preached at the Surveyors' House. According to the church records, the following were present: Mr. and Mrs. Ingalls and daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Boast, T.H. Ruth, A.W. Ogden, Mr. O'Connell and William O'Connell (Catholics). The record lists these names, but states that a total of 25 were present.

Reverend Alden was to have charge of the field for six months. He was appointed by Superintendent Stewart Sheldon, Missionary of Congregational Work in Dakota Territory. Reverend Alden relinquished the field to Edward Brown in May 1880. June 20, 1880, Rev. Brown organized the church; the meeting was held in the depot.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:13 AM