three verses sent to cyberbessie
Ol' Pa he would awander,
Like some stupid homeless bum.
He never stayed in one place,
always on the run.

Ma would sit in silence,
thinking of her happy land.
"O Charles," she would exclimax,
"I sweeten with my hand."

Laura would grit her teeth,
They would not last her life,
When she herself got married,
An Oyster's sassy wife.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:59 PM

 
bear grease

"You look like a wild man, Charles," Ma said. "You're standing your hair all on end."
"It stands on end anyway, Caroline," Pa answered. "When I was courting you, it never would lie down, no matter how much I slicked it with bear grease." --Little House on the Prairie, Chapter 9, "A Fire on the Hearth"

Not only was bear fat used in cooking or as a substitute for butter, it was rendered and used as a hair dressing or leather conditioning for boots, belts, and the like. In H.W. Harper's Universal Recipe Book: Containing Recipes Valuable to Every Tradesman, Artist, Merchant, and Lady (published in 1869), there is the following recipe:

POMADE FOR BEAUTIFYING THE HAIR: GREEN BEAR'S GREASE.
Bear's grease digested with fresh walnut leaves and strained. This is repeated with more leaves till the pomade is sufficiently colored; it is then scented with oil of rosemary, thyme, and bergamot.

Commercial preparations of bear grease were sold in pots or tins. Most preparations were scented. The lids to these containers are highly collectable today; they can cost hundreds of dollars for unusual ones. The lid shown above often fetches over a hundred dollars on ebay. If you don't want to spend that kind of money and only want the name, look for Finland's Bear Brand leather dressing. It doesn't contain actual bear grease, but comes in a pretty cute tin all the same.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:56 AM

 
not one of the girls in college would have prettier underwear than mary's
New underwear is for "Little House" trips. Yes, I'm going on a LH trip in a few days, and yes, someone actually questioned the state of my underwear as I prepare for said trip. Thanks to my mother - who noticed the deplorable state of my underpinnings during my last visit home - I am all set to go to Walnut Grove wearing spanking new spanky pants.

It's obvious that even the Ingallses knew the importance of respectable (and pretty) underwear. I doubt there's time for me to run a few rows of catch-stitching in bright, red yarn around the openings of my new things, but rest assured that in case of emergency, I won't be shaming the good name of my family...
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:22 AM

 
"oh, i don't know!" laura said in despair
I can't concentrate. I feel like Laura before she found out there would be a literary that night in Little Town on the Prairie. I am so tired of everything. I want to go west -- or east! -- I want something to happen. I guess I want to just play, and I know I am too old.

"Never mind," Pa said soothingly. "You have been studying too hard, that is all."

I've been studying microfilm daily for two weeks. I guess that's it. I get up, go to the library, strain my eyes for half the day looking at negative images of poorly photographed type and end up with "scrolliosis" like you wouldn't believe. Then I come home and try to function normally the rest of the day, when all I want to do is close my eyes and recover. I can't read and relax; I can't knit and relax; I can't sit at the computer and relax. My eyes hurt and my back hurts. I just keep telling myself that interlibrary loaning microfilm is a heck of a lot cheaper than going to historical societies and looking at it on-site.

The film goes back in two days. Hopefully my grumpy mood will go with it.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:56 AM

 
i'll take the pale blue card
I guess there's no way Garth Williams could have known -- unless he had researched a bit (novel idea) -- but ever since I learned a thing or two about Jake Hopp, it's bothered me that poor Mr. Hopp will go down in history with everyone thinking he was an old man in the early 1880s and imagine him looking like the drawing of him in Little Town on the Prairie, Chapter 16, "Name Cards."

Jake Hopp was born in 1858, so he was actually a year younger than the dashing Almanzo Wilder. And instead of writing more about Jake here, I probably should just go work on the Jake Hopp webpage while he's fresh in my mind. Or, "Hopp to it," as Gina said tonight.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:21 AM

 
modern medicine?
Here is an advertised cure for la grippe (influenza) from LIW's time:

1. As soon as you discover that you have la grippe, put your feet, and up to the knees if possible, in water as hot as can be borne.

2. Keep the water as hot as can be borne, by putting in more boiling water.

3. Comtinue this until perspiration is started. At the same time it is helpful, though not essential, to sip hot lemonade.

4. When perspiration has been well started, take out your feet, dry them quickly, wrap them in hot flannels, and lie down with hot-water bottles, hot bricks, or something of the kind at your feet.

5. Lie there till you choose to get up; and la grippe will be killed. You will probably be too weak to do much, but as la grippe is gone, your strength will soon return.

Now do not pass this treatment by as too simple to be followed, and go taking medicines, or even a full bath. Follow these directions strictly, simple as they appear to be, and you will find la grippe effectually broken.

There is true philosophy in it. And the philosophy lies here: La grippe at its seizure, is pecularily a disease of the head. Plainly, therefore, if the blood can be drawn away from the head, so that the disease will have nothing to feed on, la grippe will have to fall.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:01 AM

 
chums

Yes, but which one is Alfred and which one is Charley?

Alfred Ely left De Smet and became a telegraph operator in Illinois, but his first love was music. Eventually, he quit work and devoted all his time to "voice culture," studing in Europe and then settling in New York. He performed on Broadway and even sang for President Theodore Roosevelt. He also cut an early Victor record in 1906, singing "The Lord is My Shepherd." No, I do not have a copy.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:43 AM

 
it's enough to keep a person from getting any sleep
I just finished reading the last "Caroline" book, A Little House of Their Own. I'm sorry, but it simply went from bad to worse the more I read. The final straw? The book takes place in 1857 and the author has Charles Ingalls talking about taking a homestead in Dakota Territory!! I'm surprised she didn't just go ahead and have the Civil War start a few years early, too. It's not like anyone would notice.

You'd think that something called the Homestead Act of 1862 would have been a clue.
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:46 AM

 
lordy wildwoman
That's my pen name if I ever publish any LH spin-off books. That way, they will show up right there on the shelf with the Wilders, Wilkinses, and Wilkeses. Of course, I won't be having any spin-off books published, because everybody and HarperCollins is looking for the next Harry Potter, rather than helping the steady old workhorse along.

I have been reading the latest (and last) Caroline book this evening. I'm sorry, but would have it hurt someone to do at least a little scholarly research for it? For pete's sake, it's incorrect about something as basic as who Charles Ingalls' siblings were! In the book, Peter and Charles are the big boys. Jamie, Hiram, and George are the middle boys. And there's a baby Lansford. Only in real life, there was no baby Lansford; there was only Lansford James: one brother. And in the book, George goes to school only in the winter, only in real life he would have turned six after the book starts.

In Farmer Boy, fictional Almanzo is "not quite nine years old," and he is just starting school.

Would it have hurt someone to have consulted land records and see that Peter didn't own any property? Or that Charles and Henry each owned eighty acres in the Big Woods; they didn't own eighty acres together.

Isn't there already enough incorrect information out there without adding to it? Some of us do care; honest.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:12 AM

 
the cooleys and the wilders weren't the only ones
"...Mansfield is a town of about 750 people. It has a very picturesque location on the wooded hills, and is on the main line of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis R.R. As this is the only road in this part of the state, an immense amount of business is transacted here. Nearly all kinds of businesses are represented here. Stock farming, and fruit culture the principle industry. There are good church and school privileges. The new school building, a fine brick structure stands on a mountain side and commands a fine view of the town and surrounding country. Three teachers are now employed and another department will be put in next year.

"The lead and zinc mines a mile from town employ about fifty men.

"Land can be bought near the railroad for from five to twenty dollars per acre, according to improvement and location. Most farms have on them living springs where water flows out of solid rock, and afford water for both stock and house use. There is one spring about six miles from here funning a good sized grist mill.

"There are people here whose "ways are not our ways," but they seem to be courteous and kind, and there are a great many northern people, among them a lot of Dakotans who have come to stay..."

This sounds like it could have been written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but it wasn't. It was written by Mary Sias, also from Kingsbury County, and also someone who settled in Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:04 AM

 
sacrificable?
The following "rather curious piece of composition" was written on the blackboard at a teachers institute, and a prize of a Webster's Dictionary offered to any person who could read it and pronounce every word correctly. No one walked away with the prize.

A sacrilegious son of Belial who has suffered from bronchitis, having exhausted his finances, in order to make good the deficit, resolved to ally himself to a comely, lenient and docile young lady of Malay or Caucasian race. He accordingly purchased a calliope and coral necklace of a chameleon hue and securing a suite of rooms at a principal hotel he engaged the head waiter as his coadjutor. He then dispatched a letter of the most unexceptional calligraphy extant, inviting the young lady to a matinee. She revolted at the idea, refused to consider herself sacrificable to his desires and sent a polite note of refusal, on receiving which he procured a carbine and bowie knife, said that he would not now forge fetters hymeneal with the queen and went to an isolated spot, severed his jugular vein and discharged the contents of the carbine into his abdomen. The debris was removed by the coroner.

Is sacrificable a word or a typo in the original? I'll admit that "coadjutor" was not a word in my vocabulary.

Teachers institutes? In Kingsbury County, the first was held beginning October 21, 1884, and continuing for six days. The fees paid to the county superintendent for the teachers examination were used to pay for the institute, so they were held only as often as there were funds available. They were begun simply as a means to constructively utilize the collected fees, and were designed to present advanced training for teachers so that they might become better at their profession. All teachers in the county were required to attend, but non-teachers could attend if they paid to do so. The fees were used to hire instructors and furnish supplies.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:50 PM

 
more library ranting
Today there was a pianist playing in the main reading room of the library for over two hours! And the usual loud voices and cell phones, plus more than one person sitting at a computer was playing music -- and trying to out-volume the piano player. At one point a boy walked through the library dribbling a basketball. I still don't approve of the noise.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:15 AM

 
the public lending library
I've spent a good portion of the past four days sitting in front of a microfilm reader at my local public library. I love the library; I really do, but it's been a while since I ILL-ed microfilm and spent so much time with my back to the other patrons.

When exactly did "library voices" become a thing of the past? I can't believe the LOUD talking that constantly surrounded me. And when did it become standard practice to sit down at a computer or pull up a chair at a table in the library, whip out your cell phone, and conduct business (or pleasure) while there? I kept longing for somebody, anybody in authority to come shush those people or bring over the sign that says "No Cell Phones" and shove it in a few faces.

I know that libraries are all about information, and information comes in more forms than the printed page these days, like the reels of microfilm I was looking at. But I really miss the days when people spoke softly in the library, and the main sound you heard was the turning of pages in a book.

A public lending library was started in De Smet in early 1884. The library committee consisted of V.S.L. Owen, Miriam Barrows, William H.H. Phillips, and John H. Carroll. Miss Barrows got to pick the 100 titles purchased to start the library. The library in De Smet wasn't free, though. You had to pay one dollar to be allowed the privilege of borrowing books.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:58 AM

 
what pupils should know
The following is a report telling what Kingsbury County pupils should have known by the time they left the district school during the De Smet "Little House" years.

When our boys and girls graduate from the district school, they should know how to read the English language intelligently upon the common subjects of knowledge such as history, geography, and general literature. They should be able to read from newspapers, magazines, and some of the principle literary productions of the most eminent authors.

They should have the ability to express themselves by writing the English language according to the established rules of grammar, and with special reference to the proper use of words, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, etc.

They should have a good knowledge of the Constitution and general workings of the government of the United States.

They should have a thorough knowledge of and the ability to perform operations in the fundamental principles of numbers, and understand the common method of calculating interest, the proper use of decimals, the general principles of reduction, deduced from practical applications and observations. In addition to this, they should have a clear and exact knowledge of the elements of bookkeeping as applied to the general business transactions of life, embracing the ordinary business forms and single and double entry bookkeeping.

They should understand the principles of penmanship so as to write a good legible hand.

They should have a general knowledge of the various land and water forms, the nature of the earth's surface, the variations of climate, the facts of vegetation and influences upon human life, and a knowledge of those physical laws as exemplified in common natural phenomena.

They should know something of the history of their own country with reference to the manners, customs, and doings of the people of the early history of our country, together with the most important events leading up to the present time.

With regard to their physical training, they should know the structure, functions, and how to take care of the human body and they should receive such training as will tend to preserve health.

These are all essential in the education of the youth of our country in preparing them for citizenship.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:16 AM

 
things found
I found two missing things today. One was the name of Mary Power's skating partner (see March 6 blog). His name was Dey LeSuer; he lived in Lake Preston and came from Minnesota.

The other missing thing I found was one of the two broken fingers to my Wendy Lawton Ashton Drake doll. She fell off a shelf a year or more ago and two fingers broke off. I might add that the broken fingers left her making a rather obscene gesture.

I thought I put the broken fingers in the little basket of apples the doll carries. But when I was packing to move, they weren't there. Today, when I was looking for a pencil, I found one of the fingers at the bottom of my pencil cup. The doll is packed, so the goal will be to not lose said finger until I can re-attach it. There is still a missing finger out there somewhere...

That reminds me! When packing my Laura dolls last month to move, I found my missing Cheryl Harness china shepherdess. Seems that I wrapped it in tissue paper and packed it in the box with one of my dolls two houses ago (that's how long it's been missing!). I obviously unpacked the doll twice and overlooked the shepherdess in the box both times.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:54 AM

 
laura's silver

I polished some of the silver today and came across the sugar spoon and salt spoon I have in Laura Ingalls Wilder's pattern. The silver isn't mentioned in These Happy Golden Years, but in The First Four Years, when Laura is describing the pantry in the house on the tree claim and the contents of the drawers, she wrote: "And one [drawer] for Manly's wedding present of silver knives and forks and spoons. Laura was so proud of them."

Laura's silver (it's not sterling; it's actually silverplate) is Rogers' Crown, patented in 1885, the year Laura and Almanzo were married. You can find it today with different markings on the back - Rogers & Brothers, 1847 Rogers Brothers, Wm. Rogers Manufacturing Company, or Rogers Smith & Company. It sometimes has A1 on the back of each piece.

I've heard that there were no knives made in this pattern, but I've seen butter knives and serving knives in Crown, so I wonder if the place-knife handles were hollow (they usually are) and most simply didn't survive wear and tear of 100-plus years of use? I haven't researched this, so I don't know for sure.

I only have the sugar spoon and salt spoon in Laura's pattern. I also have a really nice bracelet made from the handles of two forks, which I love. Yes, I go through periods where I watch for it on ebay and think about collecting a few place settings. It's not that I wouldn't like to have some; it's just that I already have silver flatware (Gorham's Buttercup), and I recently learned that my mother was giving me a set of silverplate (Wm Rogers & Sons Mayfair) that belonged to my grandmother. So I'll leave the Crown collecting to others, and hope that if I ever visit one of you, you'll get it out and use it. Dainty lunch, anyone?
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:49 AM

 
spin-offs and other books i've never read
How I spent way too much time this weekend is the fault of My Little Primer. That's a young-child curriculum which uses the "My First Little House" Books." I bought the curriculum earlier this year even though my young child is a senior in high school. Back in the annual-Rocky-Ridge-Day years, I collected a bunch of "My First Little House" books, even though I don't think most of them have ever been read. They do have beautiful pictures, if you can overlook the fact that Laura has bangs and Jack is the wrong kind of dog.

Someone posted a list of "all" the titles in the "My First" series and made the comment that the books were hard to find these days, which made me decide that I had to get out all my books and see if I had them all. I must have it all.

This involved two trips to storage to retrieve boxes of books. Then it involved TWO DAYS where I made piles of books and lists of books and visited amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com and ebay and harpercollins.com (you get the idea) to make sure I knew what books were "My First" books and if I had them all. I'm still not sure I have a complete list, but I'm sure that I'm missing at least four or five titles. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to rest until I've tracked them down, even though they too will probably never be read.

While I was knee-deep in books, I figured I'd go ahead and make a webpage about the spin-offs and adaptations. I swore when I started working on pioneergirl.com that I'd only write about the original series published by Laura Ingalls Wilder, meaning from Little House in the Big Wood through These Happy Golden Years. Then On the Way Home crept in -- because I couldn't very well neglect a book when I spent years researching the Cooley family, could I?

So now the board books and craft books and spin-offs and rip-offs have taken two days of my time and taken over a page on pioneergirl.com. The really sad thing is that now it looks like I'll not only be tracking down a few easy reader books, but the Laura "Chapter" books with "new covers" (oh dear, mine are old covers from way back in the 1990s...) and even the Rose Chapter books.

From what I understand, it's not the popular stuff that's worth something down the road; it's the crap that didn't sell (meaning there was less of it out there) that increases in value. I'll be sitting on a mint condition gold mine some day.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:34 PM

 
www.ingallshomestead.com
Check it out. Great new 360 degree virtual tours... it's the next best thing to being there, or being on the way there!
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:03 AM

 
twenty members, no dues
"The Athenians" was a women's club organized in Hartville, Missouri around 1915, for the purpose of study and self-improvement. Laura wrote that she felt that the Athenians were unique because they allowed both town and country members, while itself being a town club. Membership was limited to twenty; there were no dues; and two negative ballots would exclude anyone from membership.

Mansfield is 12 miles from Hartville. I always wondered how Mrs. Wilder became associated with Hartville women enough to be invited to join a town club there. Her Ruralist articles? The fact that she was Rose's mother? Friends from church, Eastern Star, when the Wilders lived in Mansfield, or wives of men Almanzo knew?

Was the Athenians associated with the General Federation of Women's Clubs? (Maybe that was the Justamere Club or another one Laura belonged to. I know at least one of her clubs was associated with them.) From the Reader's Companion to American History: "The General Federation of Women's Clubs was founded in Chicago in 1890. Starting with a few thousand members, the organization grew rapidly, reaching a membership of over a million in 1910. The clubs began, like most similar organizations of the day, by offering self-improvement and recreation to middle-class women- for whom, according to contemporary custom, paid work was both unnecessary and inappropriate. Gradually, however, the GFWC was caught up in the enthusiasm for reform that was sweeping the country at the end of the nineteenth century. Turning to social betterment, the clubs within the GFWC started nursery schools and children's clinics, supported health and welfare programs, and lobbied for conservation, pure food and drugs, the abolition of child labor, and other progressive programs, especially those related to maternal and child welfare.

"After World War I, the members' enthusiasm for social change slackened, and by the early 1920s they had retreated to the less controversial grounds of fighting pornography and promoting home economics. Even in its activist days, the GFWC had never ventured beyond the mainstream of progressivism; it made no effort to join hands with black women's clubs or with working-class women's organizations. It did not endorse woman suffrage until 1914. But it had provided formidable support for a broad range of social reforms in the years before the First World War."

The mission statement of the GFWC today states: "Working locally through thousands of clubs in the United States and globally in more than 20 countries, GFWC members support the arts, preserve natural resources, promote education, encourage healthy lifestyles, stress civic involvement, and work toward world peace and understanding." The Athenians had been organized "for the purpose of study and self-improvement.... to cultivate their minds and increase their knowledge." That goes along with the "self-improvement" original mission statement of the GFWC, but it doesn't seem to me that The Athenians ever got beyond that stage into trying to affect change in others.

Most of the reports about Laura's club meetings seem to involve titles of papers presented, flowers used for decorations, and dainty lunches served afterwards.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:10 PM

 
the sacrifice set

Today, for the third time, I glued the cover back on my sacrifice copy of The Long Winter. That's what I call the set of checkered "Little House" paperbacks I keep by the computer and USE: the sacrifice set. They're starting to show their age (and abuse); most of them have been rubbed clear through at all edges and have tons of separate pages. I should have covered them with clear Con-Tact paper years ago, and I may end up doing it anyway simply in an effort to keep the things together.

HarperCollins has changed the LH trade dress and has different colors associated with each book since this set came out in 1994, and I couldn't tell you a thing about how the new books look. It's gotten to the point that I reach for a LH book from this set by color, not title. The Long Winter? Purple. On the Banks of Plum Creek? Blue. I always wondered just who picked the color for each gingham cover and why they chose the ones they did. Seems to me they leaned heavily towards certain colors (blue and purple) and away from others (yellow and orange).

Even though they're in sad shape, I definitely intend to use this set for reading and reference until they just can't take it any more. I've been collecting newer copies and more recent editions, but I've hardly cracked them open. I just don't think they'd read the same, somehow.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:34 AM

 
cowgirl hall of fame
Caroline Ingalls, her daughters, and granddaughter were all inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1984. The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Ft. Worth, Texas, "honors and documents the lives of women who have distinguished themselves while exemplifying the pioneer spirit of the American West."

I don't have a problem with the honor, but on their website - www.cowgirl.net - there is a list of states associated with each inductee. These include:
Caroline - WS KS MI
Mary - KS MO MN SD
Laura - KS MO MN SD
Carrie - SD
Grace - SD
Rose - MO CA CT

Isn't the two-letter abbreviation for Wisconsin, "WI"? Why is Michigan listed for Caroline, and not Minnesota (probably a typo) or South Dakota? Weren't Carrie and Grace in Minnesota? What about Carrie and Mary in Wisconsin? What about IOWA for all but Rose? Why is Mary associated with Missouri (Chariton County, maybe )?

And guess what? Their gift shop doesn't sell "Little House" books.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:40 AM

 
the masters families
Today I made piles of research for the various branches of the Masters family tree, and I figured that I had enough bare bones information to start writing something about them, so I did. Too bad Laura Ingalls Wilder never mentioned them in the "Little House" books. She mentioned them enough in Pioneer Girl to make up for it, though. To tell the truth, I read that Burr Oak spin-off book only once, and I can't remember if the Masters family is mentioned in there. Not that it matters.

I always wondered why there hadn't been more information about the Masters family crop up in newsletter articles over the years, especially in the Lore. Aubrey Sherwood's mother was a Masters. Why haven't photos of Genevieve Masters surfaced, especially since her daughter lived with Aubrey's family for a while? I'm hoping this is one of those cases where WTA is rationing the information and a lovely lispy-lipped looking photo of Gennie will eventually be published for our viewing pleasure.

I had an "a-ha!" moment today when I finally realized that Silas Masters was Samuel and William's brother, and Charles was his son. Their presence in Burr Oak has bothered me for years now.

Some comments as I scroll through Pioneer Girl, since I probably won't mention too much of the contents on the web page: (1) Why was Willie Masters shooting at Nannie? Demon liquor? (2) Uncle Sam Masters sounds icky, like it wouldn't have been safe to let your daughters around him too often. (3) Will's sister Matie was actually Mary Masters. Just how did she get Dr. Hoyt to marry her? (as if that one isn't obvious...) And what was the operation he performed on her that killed her? And was his mind on his wife's illness so much that he wasn't doing his best by Mary Ingalls when she was going blind? (4) Just realized I haven't a clue who "Cousin Lotie" was, except she was probably related to the Holts. (5) Willie Masters has that same icky streak Uncle Sam Masters had. (6) Hmm, Laura wrote that George Masters was just like his father. Seems like the lot of them were icky. Probably reason enough right there to leave them out of the "Little House" books. (7) In Pioneer Girl, Mary Power and Genevieve Masters are seat-mates.

Note to self: not a sign of Minnie Johnson anywhere, except as one of the younger girls. Does that mean that "Mary Power and Minnie" was really "Mary Power and Gennie"?
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:34 AM

 
what the hard winter did or didn't do
Every now and then someone on one of those gingham garbage boards tries to blame the Hard Winter on everything from rotten teeth to dying young to lack of children. The discussion has reared its head again and it boggles the mind how someone can point out that three or four people who lived during the Hard Winter had zero or few children, so it must have been the winter that did it. Yep, cold and "near starvation" and you don't have children.

Gather thousands of statistics - not only from De Smet residents - and get back to me. Then I might listen.

I would like to point out that while the Ingalls girls lived through the Hard Winter and only Laura had children (two of them), George and Maggie Masters lived with the Ingalls family during Said Winter and they had NINE CHILDREN. George and Maggie lived with the Ingalls family a good long while prior to the Hard Winter, in fact. They were already boarding with the family during the summer of 1880. One would assume that they ate pretty much the same things the Ingalls family did, and they were just as cold and miserable. Besides, Maggie had a baby prior to the winter, and Laura wrote in Pioneer Girl that Maggie was nursing the baby, so her body was working overtime on the same food the rest of the family ate, although Laura did write that Maggie was given milk to drink when milk was scare, because of nursing.

Grace was given extra milk too, because she was little, but remember that she had no children.

I'd also like to point out that during this latest round - thanks to Penny's and my research about Ida Wright - it's been pointed out that, well, Ida wasn't there during the Hard Winter and she had five children, so there you are. It had to be all That Winter's fault. The truth is, Ida and the Browns were in De Smet during the Hard Winter. Laura Ingalls Wilder simply didn't introduce the family until the next book, Little Town on the Prairie.

If you read the local newspaper accounts and the "looking back" stories about that winter, you'll learn that there was no sickness in De Smet during the winter, and residents joked about the foodstuffs that were in short supply. There were a number of reports about the Kingsbury County winter in newspapers shortly after the first passenger train made it through (Visscher Barnes' brother was on that train and wrote a long letter to the editor of his newspaper back home), pretty much saying that people missed things like sugar, but that you still had people like Delos Perry delivering hams to the town, and Amos Whiting had brought in a whole carload of wheat, which hadn't yet run out. Hungry for the good things but not starving for want of any thing to eat.

Although the Ingallses had spent the winter of 1879 in Kingsbury County, they were at a disadvantage as far as being as prepared for winter as other settlers who had just brought in provisions or who had worked and earned money to buy them at elevated prices. Think about the Wilder brothers, enjoying ham and syrup and pancakes and plenty of them. Laura wrote that Pa joined them often at table when his own family was living off ground wheat.

Did you ever stop to think what delicacies Ma could have whipped up with even the grease from the Wilder boys' frying pan?
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:40 PM

 
fever 'n' ague
Yesterday, I learned that my mother had malaria ("fever 'n' ague") as a child. She's been my mother for fifty years and I never knew that. She remembers the chills and fever and feeling awful, and she remembers taking bitter quinine as treatment for it.

Malaria is transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. Only female mosquitoes can transmit the disease, and they must have been infected through a blood meal taken from an infected person. Malaria is caused by a parasite; four kinds of malaria parasites can infect humans: Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P. malariae.

Once transmitted to a person, the parasites travel to the liver, where they grow and multiply. During this "incubation period," the infected person has no symptoms. After as few as eight days or as long as several months, the parasites leave the liver cells and enter red blood cells. Once in the cells, they continue to grow and multiply. After they mature, the infected red blood cells rupture, freeing the parasites to attack and enter other red blood cells. Toxins released when the red cells burst are what cause the typical fever, chills, and flu-like malaria symptoms.

For most people, symptoms begin ten days to four weeks after infection, although a person may feel ill as early as seven days or as late as an entire year later. Two kinds of malaria, P. vivax and P. ovale, can relapse. In P. vivax and P. ovale infections, some parasites can remain dormant in the liver for several months up to about four years after a person is bitten by an infected mosquito. When these parasites come out of hibernation and begin invading red blood cells, the person will become sick.

The Ingallses (and my mother) took quinine to treat malaria. Quinine destroys the Plasmodium parasite when taken internally. Quinine is a drug made from the dried bark of the Cinchona tree, specifically Cinchona officinalis and several other species in the genus Cinchona.

The potent ingredient in the bark is the alkaloid quinine. It wasn't until 1820 that quinine was isolated from the bark of the Cinchona tree, although it had been used to treat malaria for hundreds of years prior to that time. Aside from the treatment of malaria, quinine has also been used to treat leg cramps, as a flavoring, and it provides the bitter taste in tonic water. In fact, "gin and tonic" was originally (and successfully!) consumed in the past to prevent attacks of malaria.

Quinine is rarely prescribed for the treatment of malaria today, as it has been replaced by synthetic drugs. But when studying Little House on the Prairie in the classroom, make sure you have a bottle of tonic water so that children can taste the bitterness of quinine. Save the gin for after school.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:15 AM