you say harry potter; we say laura wilder
July 14, 2005, Dan Craft wrote an article with the above title; it appeard in the Bloomington Pantograph. Great article. Look for it (I found it on elibrary).

In part, Craft wrote:
Do you suppose if there had been mega-bookstore chains and the Internet 60-odd years ago there would also have been "Little House on the Prairie" midnight book release parties down at the local Borders and Barnes & Noble to herald each new Laura Ingalls Wilder arrival?

Or that selling a copy of, say, "Little House in the Big Woods," before the midnight release date would be considered a literary felony of the severest order? And that Wilder and her legal team would be ready to pounce on the nearest offender?

Or that kids would be surfing the Net on fact-gathering missions, trying to verify the various rumors flying through cyberspace about the fates of Laura, Ma, Pa, Mary and baby Carrie?

Or that Wilder would have been tempted to franchise her books into lucrative multimedia cash cows, from an "On the Banks of Plumb [sic] Creek" theme park to "Little House" video game series, complete with virtual-reality sod house and THX-certified sound effects for the prairie fire?

We can wonder, can't we?

Obviously, Dan Craft has never met the likes of US.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:20 AM

 
call me lordy wildwoman
A woman in Brighton, Massachusetts, had her name legally changed from "Laura Ingalls Wilder Michele" to "Anakin Steuart Michele." See the Boston Herald, August 1, 2005, HERE. I'm sure that Mr. and Mrs. Michele meant well (and hopefully they are still LIW fans), but I always wonder about parents who saddle their child with an unusual name that is meant to honor and showcase their interests (or quirks: think "Moon Unit Zappa"). Michele's parents could have honored Laura Ingalls Wilder by naming their daughter "Laura," for example.

I noticed that Ms. Michele said that "her parent's well-intended homage to the Little House on the Prairie author" didn't fit who she was. Now-Anakin hopes that her new name will get her more job interviews. Do you think she was turned away from job interviews because of her old name? I don't imagine that she went by her whole (old) name much of the time anyway, and I would guess that the name "Laura Michele" raised a few questions on its own. "Hey! You have two first names!"

I totally agree with the Star Wars bloggers who point out that Anakin Michele is a bit delusional. She also said: "In a couple of years the whole 'Star Wars' thing will blow over and I'll just go back to having a unique name." Yeah. Right. Considering the fact the whole 'Laura Ingalls Wilder' thing hasn't blown over, names and fitting and uniqueness and job interviews can only be pieces of the puzzle. After all, Anakin could have refused to have her name change mentioned in the newspaper. The article also mentions a woman who had her name (Crowe) changed back to her maiden name (McGinnis) after her divorce. But you won't be reading multiple blogs about that woman; will you?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet." (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

In Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote: "I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose would be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage." What people aren't naming their children or changing their name to is just as telling as what they ARE naming their children or changing their name to, isn't it?

As someone with often misspelled maiden name and surname - not to mention a first name that I sometimes spell differently - I can understand name woes a bit. I should just go ahead and change my name legally to Lordy Wildwoman. Surely it will help me get an interview with HarperCollins. And, after all, it's just who I am....
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:37 PM

 
how rose became a great actress

That's Rose Wilder Lane on the right and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (1883-1939) in the middle. In 1917, Rose interviewed Fairbanks. On a whim, she asked to be an extra in the movie he was currently starring in - A Modern Musketeer - and, to her amazement, was offered $5 to appear in one scene as a "rough girl." She was sent to have makeup applied and was soon being filmed under hot lights and in the middle of a supposed bar-room brawl. Rose had earlier watched the brawl itself being filmed (one man had three teeth knocked out by Fairbanks, who also knocked out a professional boxer acting in the scene). In order to have pure fright show up on her face during closeups, the director threw whiskey bottles at the table where Rose and another woman were sitting. One came very close to hitting Rose in the face. Her fright was real.

Unfortunately, you can't run out and buy a copy of A Modern Musketeer and sit and watch it from start to finish. Only three of its original five reels of film survived, but those are available as part of a video called Fairbanks Fragments. Rose's scene was part of the last two (missing) reels.... or was it?

There are brief snippets of two fight scenes from A Modern Musketeer on Fairbanks Fragments. In one, Fairbanks gets into a fight because a woman was man-handled outside of a bar. The woman (surely the one sitting with Rose in the picture above) is wearing a dark suit with a v-necked blouse; her hat is tipped low over the right side of her face. Fairbanks is wearing a light suit. At one point during the scene, Fairbanks hangs from a gas light fixture, then jumps into a small room and smashes a bottle over a man's head. Rose wrote that as part of the scene, Fairbanks came over to her table to apologize to the "ladies" that a fight is about to take place. He walks away from them, and they are left to "watch" the fight. After a while, they are to get up and flee the scene.

A Modern Musketeer was directed by Allan Dwan; the story was by Allan Dwan and F.R. Lyle, Jr.; starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Marjorie Daw, Frank Campeau, Kathleen Kirkham, Tully Marshall, Eugene Ormonde and Zasu Pitts. Due to his mother's obsession with French novelist Alexandre Dumas, a Kansas lad is possessed with the spirit of D'Artagnan; he sets out in his Model T across the West to become a modern musketeer who must protect an innocent young girl from a lecherous old millionaire. Some of the movie was filmed at the Grand Canyon. Produced by Fairbanks, Written and Edited by Allan Dwan. Based on the story "The D'Artagnan of Kansas" by F.R. Lyle.

The movie was shown in theaters beginning in December 1917 and through the spring of 1918. Don't you think that Laura and Almanzo went to see it?!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:10 AM

 
board oks rewiring liw for air conditioning units
...found on the front page of The De Smet News, 10 August 2005.

I don't know about you, but cyberbessie read this and pictured a wired corpse holding a Trane under her arm. Jake Hopp never butchered headlines when he was editor of The News. And in case you wondered, the story is about LIW Elementary School being rewired for air-conditioners!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
one hundred twenty years ago today
...Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder were married. According to historian William Anderson, Laura and Almanzo sat for a wedding photograph, which Laura sent to Harper and Brothers at some point and it was lost.

In These Happy Golden Years, Laura wrote that she and Almanzo moved their wedding date up because they didn't want his mother and sister to come to De Smet and plan/insist on a big wedding. The trouble with this is that readers usually assume the "sister in question" was Eliza Jane Wilder. According to the De Smet newspapers, Eliza Jane had returned to De Smet weeks prior to the August wedding date, so it's unlikely that this story is totally factual.

These Happy Golden Years also says that Laura and Almanzo were married on a Thursday. In 1885, however, August 25 fell on a Tuesday.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:18 AM

 
no one did the fall housecleaning while we were away

We didn't have to sell a cow to make it happen and we didn't take a shoe box of fried blackbirds to eat on the train, but we did manage to get daughter Ginny safely to the University of Montana this past weekend. Two in college?!? We may have to sell that cow after all...

After twenty-two years, John and I are officially empty-nesters! So far, the best thing is not having to stay awake until Ginny's curfew. The worst? That it looks like I'll never actually get to pick out my own shampoo with matching conditioner any time soon. Ginny left enough partial bottles behind to last me until the year 2027. And you know I'll be using it rather than tossing it.

Were Caroline and Charles Ingalls ever empty-nesters? I don't think so. Although Mary went to college and Laura married and moved away, I can't really think of a time when Carrie and/or Grace weren't living at home prior to Mary's graduation. After Pa's death, Ma and Mary continued to live together, so it seems as if Caroline Ingalls always had a child at home - from Mary's birth in 1865 until her own death in 1924.

And now, since I don't have to wait up for anybody, I'm going to bed!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
big woods observations
I am only on Chapter 6, "Two Big Bears." But I am reading carefully and noticing a few things I never had a *doink* moment over before.

(1) Both Ma and Pa help Mary and Laura pour the molasses on snow candy syrup.

(2) The stories about Pa when he was a boy and Grandpa when he was a boy all take place in the Big Woods.

(3) There are a lot of conversation that are formatted differently from conversation in the other books. LIW wrote that Laura said or Ma said or Pa said, and "said" is followed by a colon. Then what is actually said begins a new paragraph. This seems to happen mostly in the first half of the book.

(4) As a boy, Pa calls out "Sukey" when he is calling more than one cow. And the Ingallses have Sukey the cow.

(5) Prince takes a piece out of Aunt Eliza's dress, but the story is told at Christmastime and was supposed to have happened "the other day." There is snow on the ground, but Aunt Eliza doesn't seem to be wearing a coat.

(6) Would the spring Aunt Eliza is fetching water from be running freely in the winter? She goes down into a ravine (in the snow), but doesn't seem to have any difficulty doing so.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:13 AM

 
watching and reading
Lately, I've been watching the season sets of "Little House on the Prairie" on dvd. I've also been re-reading the "Little House" series. That and reading Harry Potter fanfic doesn't leave many hours in the day to do research. In case you wondered.
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:02 AM

 
blue cat fur

Kitty Ingalls was described as having baby fur as blue as tobacco smoke. That would be tobacco smoke coming from the end of Charles Ingalls' pipe, because after the smoke was inhaled and blown out, it would be white. And the reason why it turns white is gross, and yet another reason not to smoke. But I digress...

Genetically speaking, there are only two basic colors of cats, red (sometimes called orange) and black. All the other colors are variations of these two, including the seven "solid" colors: black, chocolate, cinnamon, white, blue, lavendar, and fawn.

Blue cats are actually black cats who carry a recessive gene which "dilutes" the fur color. Both parents must carry this recessive gene in order for the cat to have blue fur. White can appear on a cat of any color. Kitty's white face, breast, paws, and tip of the tail is usually described as "a tuxedo cat."

Now you know. "Ki-yi-yi," says Ollie.
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:18 AM

 
blue tobacco smoke
A kitten.... such a very little kitten... Its baby fur is as blue as tobacco smoke. - Little Town on the Prairie, Chapter 3, "The Necessary Cat"

This post is not about blue kittens. It is about blue tobacco smoke. Laura Ingalls Wilder isn't the only writer to describe tobacco smoke as blue. It is blue, but why?

Sunlight is a mixture of light in all colors of the rainbow. When sunlight passes through tobacco smoke, the different colors are broken up and dispersed based on the size and number of smoke and dust particles in the air. When the particles are extremely small, blue rays are scattered the most and produce a haze. It has to do with the wavelength of blue light being shorter than, for example, red or yellow light.

Tobacco smoke actually contains small droplets of yellow liquid. They are small enough to scatter light and give a blue color. If you blow tobacco smoke through a handkerchief, a yellow stain is left. I'm not even going to go into stuff like "smoking is bad for you" and "think of that yellow crap in your lungs." Tobacco smoke is blue because of the thousands of chemicals it contains and how light is absorbed or scattered by these chemicals.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:49 AM

 
walter ogden
Just as the Masters family messes up the real-life hard winter story, Walter Ogden messes up the real-life surveyors' house story. If, as Charles Ingalls wrote, Walter Ogden lived with the Ingalls family in the surveyors' house during the winter of 1879-1880, you have to wonder how his presence affected the lives of the Ingallses that winter.

For example, if Mr. and Mrs. Boast stayed with Ma and the girls while Pa went to file on his claim (February 1880), was Walter Ogden there, too? Was it not okay for only Ogden to stay with them, hence Mr. and Mrs. Boast moving in? Did the fact that there was a Mrs. Boast present make it okay for Mr. Boast to be there at night? It doesn't seem as if Ogden would have accompanied Pa to the land office because he had filed on his own claim in October 1879.

And what about those cosy evenings of music and song by the stove? In reality, there was another person there, unless Ogden bowed out and spent his evenings in the room with the surveyors' tools. Is this where he usually slept, or did he sleep in the main room on the floor in front of the stove? At any rate, he was obviously there for almost everything: meals, songs, the first church service, Christmas.

Laura Ingalls Wilder included Walter Ogden in Pioneer Girl, so all is not guesswork:

We moved at once into the surveyors' house and made everything snug for the winter. Pa had laid in a supply of provisions and simple medicines to last the winter and at the last minute a man named Walter Ogden wanted to stay with us. He was taking care of several yoke of oxen for a man whose homestead was several miles to the east and had intended to stay there by himself, but didn't like the loneliness and if Pa would give him permission to keep the oxen in the old company shanty-stable and would board him, he would come and stay with us.

It seemed that it might be wise to have another man around, so Pa told him to come and he moved the cattle and hay to feed them and just got them nicely settled before the first snow.

You can read on to find that now only does Ogden board with the family, he plays checkers with Pa, he goes with Mr. Boast to get the sled out of the snow (not Pa), and he receives a tablet of shaving papers as a Christmas gift (made by Laura and Carrie). Interesting that while Mr. Boast is always referred to as Mr., Laura always refers to Walter Ogden by his first name.

Was Walter Ogden musical? Did he sing bass like Pa, or join in as tenor? Did Laura and Carrie dance in front of him? With him? He was 25 and unmarried that winter. He married in 1882. Guess what his first daughter was named? Grace.
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:59 PM

 
myth #4

I haven't done this for a while, so here goes:

You might see it all over the internet that Lydia Louisa Ingalls (Charles Ingalls' sister, so Laura Ingalls Wilder's aunt) was married twice, first to Isaiah Clough and then to Joseph Stouff. This is INCORRECT. Lydia's first husband was named Robert Fulton Clough.

From individual handwritten marriage records, Courthouse, Watertown (Jefferson County) Wisconsin, Book E, page 91 -- "Lydia L. Ingalls married 15 Jan 1856 in Concord to Robert Cluff." There are two other records of this marriage in the courthouse in the indexes to marriages, both with variations in spelling of the Clough and Ingalls names, two pages apart, but same marriage date, same location. One has Robert F. Claff marrying Lyda L. Ingath. The other has Robert F. Cluff marrying Lydia C. Engalls. The indexes were usually compiled later from the individual sheets, so it's not unusual for spellings to be incorrect. And they were not written by the bride or groom, but were usually reported by the person who married the couple, be it minister or judge or justice. Please note that there's not an Isaiah or even an Isaac (that's another one you often see) in sight.

Ask people where they got the information that Lydia married Isaiah Clough and see if they cite a primary source. I found these at the courthouse where the marriage was recorded, in the original records.

Furthermore, the scan above supports that Lydia and Robert Clough were husband and wife. It was taken from the marriage record (Jefferson County, Wisconsin) of Lydia and Robert's son Isaac Lafayette Clough in 1876. The marriage records at that time included the names of the parents of both bride and groom. And if you didn't realize that Isaac Lafayette was the name of Lydia's first child, it's also recorded as that (by her) when she applied for a widow's pension after Joseph Stouff died.

There's still lots of research to be done on Robert Clough. because it looks like this same Robert Clough was married twice after he married Lydia.... and to the same woman both times!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
all things considered
On NPR (National Public Radio) today, Andrea Seabrook mentioned Laura Ingalls Wilder in her "The Federal Touch in South Dakota" piece for All Things Considered. The story mentioned government laws and young drivers, cattle and feed lots, and homesteading and the Ingalls homestead in De Smet. The five standing cottonwood trees were mentioned as being planted while the Ingallses were there.

A snippet:
...even for pioneer Charles Ingalls, Laura's dad, government was part of life. Though he took his family west, looking for an independent, rural life, he had to follow certain rules. The Ingalls had to live on this land for five years, till and sow at least ten acres every season, and plant the required number of trees for that windbreak. Only then, was this 160 acre homestead in Dakota Territory, awarded to them by the government.

no! No! NO!

There was NO tree-planting requirement for a homestead, period. No windbreak requirement, period. Charles Ingalls didn't have to plant any trees on his homestead if he didn't want to.

As for having to "live there for five years," that's incorrect as well. It was six months' continuous residency for five consecutive years, and it was perfectly legal for your spouse or children to live there while you were living and working elsewhere. Otherwise, Charles Ingalls and family couldn't have moved to town for those winters, and Laura wouldn't have been writing about her friends living on claims while the father was clearly still in town working - Tom Power, for example.

I don't think that Charles Ingalls was necessarily looking for an independent, rural life. He - and others - took advantage of the Homestead Act because it was a way to obtain "free land" from the government. Which wasn't exactly "free" after all.

Every time I see a misinterpretation of the Homestead Act of 1862, the Timber Culture Act of 1873, and/or the Preemption Act of 1841 today, I try to think of something in today's society to compare this kind of disregard for the facts to -- some way I can help people see that in the 1880s, most of society would know about homestead laws just the same way that you and I know about _____ today.

In "The Federal Touch in South Dakota," learning to drive was mentioned (in the context that a father wondered how urban children learned to drive when his son had 40 acres to learn on). Maybe that's it? The driver's license system? That in this day and age, people know or can easily find out what the laws are when their own children are learning to drive. These laws affect a lot of people, and there is a lot of interest in making sure they are interpreted and followed correctly.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:11 AM

 
all the rage
In Laura Ingalls' Kingsbury County, that is. Read on, from a period advertisement:

"Fashionable suspenders are all the rage, especially if embroidered by your best girl.

"Formerly the average man was content with almost any kind of shoulder brace which would hold up his trousers securely and comfortably. That time is no more. Your trousers may not have creases in them like a cheese knife or may not have been constructed by a past master in sartorial aestheticism, but if they are not sustained at the proper poise by one of the multifarious revelations which the chappies pronounce worshipful your claim to be called a man of fashion will rest upon a foundation of sand.

"One of the very newest agonies in braces is the style known as the crochet weave. It is of pure silk and the fabric is woven to resemble the hand-crocheted pattern which every beau a few years ago received from his best girl as a New Year's gift. The woven article is stouter and more compact than the hand-made affair...

"The crochet weave suspender, as indeed do all of the reigning favorites, comes in solid colors. Heliotrope is the favored hue, but others are of Nile green, sage, Quaker blue, tobacco brown, old rose, baby blue, or navy blue. Black is not fashionable because it has ceased to be novel...

"The embroidered suspender has not grown passe, but has been transformed and idealized. The heavy splashes of red flowers on blue are only worn by rural swains. The exquisite effects now in vogue represent sprays of hyacinths, lilies of the valley, violets, chrysanthemums and other fashionable flowers....

"Embroidery should be done by hand, and for that reason braces are suitable gifts for a young lady to make to her betrothed or to her male relatives...."

Poor Pa, to be a considered a rural swain.
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:19 AM

 
morning, glory
My sister emailed me with a "Little House" question this morning, but I don't think she realized it was one.

She said she had planted morning glories. The vines were taking over, but there had been only a blossom or two; what was the problem?

From On the Banks of Plum Creek, Chapter 2, "The House in the Ground" -- All around that door green vines were growing out of the grassy bank, and they were full of flowers. Red and blue and purple and rosy-pink and white and striped flowers all had their throats wide open as if they were singing glory to the morning. They were morning glory flowers.

For the record, morning glories typically take about 120 days to bloom. And they like poorer soil and water only when beginning to wilt. Skip massive doses of fertilizer, too; they seem to flower better when stressed. Seeds have to be planted after the soil warms up because they won't germinate in cool soil.

It's the days to blossom that got me to thinking. According to Charles Ingalls' preemption papers, the family settled on the claim on May 29, 1874. And there were supposed to be riotious blossoms of morning glories, which germinated, say, on February first? I'm sure there are varieties of morning glory that bloom in fewer than 120 days, but there would have had to have been an awfully early spring in 1874 for them to be blooming in May.

It's not like Mr. Hanson started the seeds inside and planted them at the door to "dress the place up" in order to sell (er, trade) it. There was no Mr. Hanson. There was no trade. This was a preemption claim, remember, and according to the land records, it had been relinquished two years before Charles Ingalls filed on it. But it makes a lovely story, and Laura paints a lovely picture of morning glories just the same.

And if anyone ever greets you with, "Morning, glory!" the required answer is, "Evening, star."
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:19 AM

 
genealogically speaking
I've had people email and ask when I was going to put a Laura Ingalls Wilder genealogy online. Huh? I can't even get the easy pages done, like one person at a time, and you're wondering why I don't hurry up and get all the details out there about all the Ingalls/Wilder family members?

My fault, I'll admit, since there has been a non-working link to a genealogy page since day one.

To tell the truth, I'm not quite sure how to format and present the branches on the "Little House" family tree (which I'm convinced must be a cottonwood, btw). There are some pretty detailed LH genealogies online already, and some of them are mind-boggling to navigate. Do I want a pretty chart? An outline with links? Genealogies linked to "Little House" book titles? Do I want to start at the beginning or start at the end? Still deciding. I'm almost certain, though, that I'll stick to only presenting information about characters and immediate family members who are mentioned, immediately related to, or important to the "Little House" series.

Why? Because I've had descendants of several "Little House" character family members tell me that they didn't want their family histories out there for the world to see. They want to be left alone. And I can respect that. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a letter to daughter Rose about the skeletons in their family closet, which was why she fictionalized some of her own character histories. Then along we come with our shovels, ready to dig up all the dirt we can find.

There's also the little fact that some of what's out there is just plain wrong. The more names and dates and places you include, the greater the chances for mistakes. I had one person (who has an Ingalls genealogy online) tell me that they really didn't care if all their facts were correct or not. They looked upon their genealogy as bait, and living family members as the big fish who would get in touch and provide them with the correct data. Trouble is, while your mis-information is out there, unsuspecting readers are passing it along as fact.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:07 AM

 
why i am getting nothing done
I couldn't stand it any longer. I've spent the better part of the last hour trying to find the floor in here. Which of course means that things are both piled on the futon and stuffed willy-nilly (or is that "willie-nellie"?) in the closet. The closet, mind you, goes from one end of the room to the other, so there is plenty of stuffing space.

I am assuming that once I tidy up and get things organized, I will be ready to buckle down to something constructive. Like filing papers and then opening perfectly ordered file folders to began research afresh. We'll see. Because I think I've finally put my finger on the REAL reason I'm not getting anything done.

It's hot in here.

We don't have air conditioning. We didn't include air conditioning in the last two houses we built, so there's no reason to think that just because we're renting temporarily, lack of articifially generated cold air is a concession we made. After all, this is August in Montana. The electric blanket is still on the bed, and it gets so chilly at night here that open windows make it too cold.

But. The bedroom that I took over as my computer slash little house slash knitting slash reading room faces west. It also has an exterior door that faces south. So this room gets full sunlight from noon-ish until sunset. And it gets HOT in here.

All that sun makes it bright as blazes in here, and because it shines in full force on the computer screen, I can't even sit at the computer unless the room-darkening shades are down. Which seriously affects air-flow, which affects the temperature. See?

I compensated a bit by turning nocturnal once spring changed to summer. But when it's dark and oh-so-cool in here, I find myself wanting to read, or knit, or sit outside and look at the stars.

Nevertheless, the 4th of July is past, so winter will be here soon. This is, after all, Montana.

UPDATE: It is now 10:30 p.m. The sun has set and it is blissfully cool. I have just finished filing a stack of papers 14 inches tall (I measured it). I have organized 5 inches of articles about LIW and they are ready to insert into their proper notebooks (I keep articles in 3-ring binders). I do have a pile of things I simply couldn't deal with tonight, but it's only 2 inches tall.

At one point today, I did stop and knit a sock for my mason jar of ice water, which was sweating profusely. It's been a productive day. Star gazing anyone? Mark your calendars; only 5 days left until the Perseid Meteor Shower.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:28 AM

 
twisting hay, twisting yarn

First he twisted the long strand as far as his two hands could do it. Then he put the right-hand end of it under his left elbow and held it there, tight against his side, so that it could not untwist. Then his right hand took the other end from his left hand. His left hand slid down as near as it could get to the end under his left elbow and took hold of it. Pa twisted the strand again. This time he put its other end under his left elbow. He repeated these motions, again and again and again, till the whole strand of hay was twisted tight and kinking in the middle. Each time he twisted and tucked the end under his arm, the right twist coiled around itself.

When the whole length of the twist had wound itself tight, Pa bent the ends of hay together and tucked them into the last kink. He dropped the hard stick of hay on the floor... --The Long Winter, Chapter 19, "Where There's a Will"

As I was twisting reclaimed yarn (from an old wool sweater I unraveled) into a skein today, I was reminded again of how twisting hay is done in exactly the same way as twisting a skein of yarn. Yarn is wrapped either on a warping board or between two stationery pegs or nails, usually about three feet apart. Grab each end and twist in opposite directions. The yarn will kink in the middle and twist around itself. When it is completely twisted, you pull apart one of the sections and push the other end through it.

While it's obvious that Charles Ingalls didn't invent the hay twist, it's just as certain that Laura Ingalls must have seen skeins of yarn and have noticed the similarities in hay and yarn twists. And I bet she used reclaimed yarn a time or two as well.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:41 AM

 
i think george ingalls wrote it
The frontiersman diary in the possession of a descendent of James Ingalls on the Burnett County, Wisconsin, rootsweb site, I mean. A lot of other people think George Ingalls wrote it, too; we were studying it again just today. And if you haven't seen the diary in question, I'll wait while you go find and read it. It will give you practice googling.

First of all, you've got George Ingalls, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Uncle George from Little House in the Big Woods, who did not serve in the Civil War, btw. Period. But that's another story. George lived on a very confining piece of property wedged between the lakes in southern Oakland Township near Bitter Creek. Hiram Ingalls, his brother, lived about a mile from him. Other men mentioned in the diary lived near George and Hiram, such as William Penney, Abner Davis, Chester Keezer, L.H. Spafford, and Alden Sawyer.

There's a definite familiarity between the writer and Hiram and Lib (Ingalls?), also with Ellen (Hiram's daughter) and Marion (Marion Keezer, husband of Ellen). The writer eats a good many meals at Hiram's and carries on a good many private conversations with Lib. At one point, the writer mentions dreaming about "Lafayette and the girls." George Ingalls and his cousin Lafayette Clough married sisters Julia and Hattie Bard. Julia and George were separated (divorced?) and George went back to being known as single. Maybe he was. At any rate, Julia Ingalls didn't die until after George, so he wasn't a widower.

The name "George Ingalls" is mentioned in one entry. The writer makes a comment about what someone else said about "Old Sutton and George Ingalls" - then, "ain't that grand? I will get my name up yet if I keep on smiling."

The writer seems to have been suffering from an illness during much of the writing (three months, January-March 1897). He writes: "I have coughed about 500 miles and still keep it up. I think that I will cough my liver out and get a wooden one." Btw, George Ingalls died February 15, 1901, at age 49. Julia Ingalls died nine years later.

Since the owner has a copy of the handwritten diary, it would be interesting to compare George Ingalls' signature to the writing of the name "George Ingalls" in the diary. George had a claim in Wisconsin, meaning there is a file containing his signature (and most likely other examples of his penmanship) at the National Archives.

I used to question why the Ingallses and Quiners signed the letters I've seen with their full name, also including their relationship to the person they were writing, such as "your affectionate sister," or "your loving brother." Now I know. Anonymous diaries are interesting, but I'd rather everyone else be as convinced as I am that George Ingalls wrote this one.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:05 AM

 
the march of progress

Since so many people have discovered my blog, it seemed sort of silly to have the link to it hidden behind a picture on the MY CARD page, which was already a link from the main page (got that?). Over 3000 separate warm bodies peeked at this blog at some point last month! Wow. You can't all be friends of my sister, can you?

With ease of navigation in mind (never mind the confusion that all this causes), I changed the MY CARD link on the main page to a MY BLOG link to this page. And if you look in the yellow box to the right, you'll see a new link to: "All the news that's fit to print, and some that isn't." That's where you'll find the page that (hopefully) changes weekly, and includes things like pictures for my mother to look at and things I wasn't sure belonged where, like the long-legged snipe logo and the picture of Mrs. Cooley of which I'm rather fond.

I'm so fond of that Mrs. Cooley photo, I've added it to this entry in living color. I have a larger copy framed and hanging over my desk. Emma Cooley, as you should know, was the mother of Paul and George Cooley, and the wife of Frank M. Cooley. The Cooley family is mentioned in On the Way Home.

Emma Cooley had a sister, Clara Newell, who lived in Kingsbury County, and remained there long after the Cooleys moved to Missouri. Clara taught in the De Smet school in 1900. Frank Cooley's mother homesteaded in Kingsbury County (down near the Bouchie School), and Frank's sister Mary was also a teacher in Kingsbury County.

George Cooley's son once told me a story about his grandmother. She was living with his family and he was driving her somewhere. He put on brakes suddenly and Mrs. Cooley was so tiny (and this was in the days before seat belts) that she slid off the front seat and her whole body ended up fitting on the floorboard on the passenger side. When he looked over, he didn't even see her because she was out of sight in the space beneath the glove compartment!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
clap your hands and bang your spoon

Today is Carrie Ingalls' birthday. She was born August 3, 1870. She spends a good bit of time in the "Little House" books either clapping her hands or banging her spoon. In case you hadn't noticed.

The photo above is of me, standing on Carrie's preemption claim north of Phillip, South Dakota, holding a copy of Carrie's patent for her claim. It only took three wrong turns down dirt roads - that suddenly weren't roads at all - to find it, and there is no trace that it was once the site of anyone's home. You might have read references to Carrie's claim being at "Top Bar." That was the name of the nearest post office at the time. It later merged with the Elbon post office, and now there's not even an "Elbon." There's a field where Elbon used to be, although it still shows up on topo maps. What you see behind me in the picture is exactly what you see when you look in any direction.

Carrie's claim was the W-NW and W-SW Section 9, Township 4 North, Range 20 East. It wasn't square in shape; it was 1/4 mile from east to west, and 1 mile from north to south. It's located about 16 miles north of Phillip and 2.5 miles west of State Road 73. The site is private property. If you can read a section map and know where you are on the planet, you can find it. Trust me. It's as easy as knowing the difference between a homestead claim and a preemption claim.

Carrie didn't just head out west to the Great Unknown to file a claim. She first traveled there with Chloe Dow to look things over. She filed near Edward Morrison, George and Samantha Burd, Floyd Cooledge, Eva Cooledge, and Freda Morrison from De Smet. They were all within a mile or so of each other.

In my never-ending quest to educate the world about preemption claims and homestead claims, I'd like to again stress that Carrie's claim was a preemption. She only had one six-month residency requirement, and then she was allowed to purchase the 160 acres she filed on. Although Carrie returned to live on her claim a number of times after after final proof, she was not required to do so.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:28 AM

 
not wasted on any pig
The latest issue of Countryside (the magazine of modern homesteading) contains recipes for watermelon ball pickles, pickled melon, and watermelon rind pickles. They got me to thinking about Farmer Boy.

In Farmer Boy (Chapter 18, "Keeping House"), Almanzo and Alice pick six of the largest watermelons they could find and put them in the icehouse to get cold. Six watermelons? For four children? That's what Laura tells us. And when the melons are cold, Royal used the butcher knife to apparently cut up all six melons (they were "so ripe that the rinds split open"). Most likely, the Wilders only ate the "heart" of the melon. Almanzo wanted to give the rinds to Lucy - his pig - but Eliza Jane said she was going to make watermelon preserves.

Well, when I discovered the recipes in Countryside, I thought I had remembered that Eliza Jane made watermelon pickles, but obviously I was wrong. I had a beautiful watermelon today and I wanted to make rind pickles or at least the pickled watermelon balls:

10 cups watermelon balls (3 pounds pink meat)
1/2 cup salt
2 quarts cold water
3 lemons sliced
4-1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons crystallized ginger

Cut balls from pink watermelon with scoop. Soak overnight in mixed salt and water. Drain and rinse in cold water. Add lemons, sugar and ginger. Add enough water to cover the fruit. Cook slowly until clear, about 20 minutes. Place fruit in hot, sterilized jars. Boil syrup until it threads. Pour over fruit and seal jars.

Well, since the watermelon has to soak overnight, tomorrow will be watermelon pickle day. But I found a recipe for watermelon preserves, and it has a shorter soaking time, so that's what I did this evening:

1-1/2 quarts prepared watermelon rind
4 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
4 cups sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup thinly sliced lemon
water

Trim the green skin and pink meat from watermelon rind and cut into one-inch cubes. Dissolve the salt in 8 cups of water and pour over the rind. Let stand for 5-6 hours. Drain, rinse, and drain again. Cover rind with cold water and let stand for 30 minutes. Sprinkle ginger over the rind, cover with water, and cook until fork tender. Drain.

To make the preserves, combine the sugar, lemon juice and 6 cups water in a large pot. Boil 5 minutes. Add the rind and boil gently for 30 minutes or until syrup thickens. Add sliced lemon and cook until lemon rind is transparent. Pack hot into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch space. Tap jars to remove air bubbles. Adjust caps. Process 20 minutes in boiling water bath. Makes about 6 half pints.

Let's hope these preserves turn out better than the violet jelly I once made.

When we lived in Georgia, our back yard was covered with violets in the spring. They were beautiful, sweet-smelling violets that always made me think of the "fairy ring" in By the Shores of Silver Lake. I followed the recipe exactly, gathering blossoms gently in the morning, rinsing, then cooking them with sugar and lemon juice, straining the pretty purple jelly into cut-glass jars.

The trouble was that my violet jelly tasted like something you scraped off the lawn mower blade.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:55 AM

 
oh talk about your....
I apologize in advance for the content of this blog, but I just had to. It's just to show that everything is because of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Or something like that.

I had my first Dairy Queen MooLatte while in South Dakota. We're talking six hundred calories of deliciousness. And even though I walked all the way to Dairy Queen to get one while in De Smet, I doubt that I walked off six hundred calories' worth.

So when I got back to this town I live in, of course I wanted a MooLatte. And I thought it was nuts to pay four dollars for one, so I googled to find the recipe online. Duh. It's ice, ice cream, and flavoring, topped with whipped cream. Not exactly rocket science. And yes, you can make them just as yummy and calorie-laden at home.

While googling, though, I found this from the August 14, 2004 Houston Times. I'm cutting and pasting the whole article, since I don't know how long it will be there, but here's the link -- http://houstonpress.com/issues/2004-08-12/hairballs.html

Moovin' On Up
Does DQ's new drink ring some racist bells?
As told to Richard Connelly

Dairy Queens are so ubiquitous in the Lone Star State that the familiar red logo is sometimes referred to as a Texas stop sign. So naturally we were interested when the company sent out a release saying customers would get a free sample of their new frozen drink if they brought an actual, live cow to a Dairy Queen on August 24.
Initially we had two thoughts: 1) Who brings a cow to a place that sells hamburgers? Is this some kind of "Scared Straight" program for bovine juvenile delinquents? And 2) Isn't it kind of unhealthy having an animal dropping cow patties all over a place that serves food?

The city's department of health confirmed that it would indeed probably violate a passel of laws; a DQ spokesman said farmers use the drive-thrus every day with livestock in trailers.

So instead we focused on the new drink -- the MooLatte. Which to our ears sounded a lot like "mulatto," which is a tired racial epithet we really hadn't heard since the last time we watched the movie Mandingo. Or, to be classy, Roots.

We're not the only ones. "Doesn't Dairy Queen have any black employees?" asked Timothy Noah of the online magazine Slate. "Or at least someone who's seen Show Boat?" (Show Boat was the Mandingo of its time.)

We figured there was a vast, untapped treasure chest of archaic racial names that DQ was missing out on, so we contacted the spokesman listed on the bring-a-cow press release. Chad Durasa was most helpful:

Q. This drink, it's not the "Mulatto"?
A. No. No. No. "Moo," meaning cow, and then "latte," meaning --

Q. OK. We were thinking of some other possible items, and I just wanted to run them by you. How about the High Yellow Butterscotch Sundae?
A. I'm not sure if I understand what that is.

Q. Just like a sundae with butterscotch topping, but this would be High Yellow butterscotch.
A. You mean like a higher quality?

Q. Yeah. That's just something to consider. We were also thinking -- the MooLatte has three separate flavors, but if you took eight flavors and combined them, you could call it the Octoroonie.
A. Octoroonie?

Q. Yeah.
A. Actually -- wow, that's actually a pretty good idea.

Q. And then one more here...Sambo's Extra Dark Triple Chocolate Shake. How's that grab you?
A. Actually, Dairy Queen doesn't make shakes. They make Blizzards.

Q. OK -- Sambo's Extra Dark Triple Chocolate Blizzard.
A. [Writing it down] What would that be?

Q. I would say you would find the blackest cone you could find and fill it with chocolate ice cream. And go from there.
A. All right. Interesting.

Q. Well, it's just something to think about.

We can't wait for DQ to introduce these. And hey -- everyone who drives up in blackface gets one free!!

And if you're singing "Mulligan Guards" at the time, I think you ought to get free sprinkles.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:57 AM