lib bouchie, r.i.p.

Mrs. Brewster screamed again, a wild sound without words that made Laura's scalp crinkle.

The scariest part of any "Little House" book has got to be Laura waking up to hear the Bouchies arguing, and seeing Mrs. Bouchie standing in the moonlight in her nightgown, black hair trailing, her upraised hand holding a butcher knife pointed at her husband. Suppose Laura woke to see Mrs. Brewster standing over her with that knife?

Maybe this really happened; maybe it didn't. There was obviously more going on in the Bouchie household than Mr. Bouchie kicking Mrs. Bouchie while Johnny slept between them.

Although this story always scared me, I never gave much thought to Mrs. Bouchie and her knife until I was researching the death of Isaac Bouchie, Louis Bouchie's brother. Another Mrs. Bouchie (Elizabeth, wife of Joseph and step-mother of Louis) was implicated in the death along with Clarence Bouchie, who threw the felonious bone that did the deed itself. Okay, so tetanus actually did the dirty work, and if the doctor who examined Isaac had been an actual doctor and not a quack who didn't want to "hurt" Isaac by examining and cleaning the wound on his cheek, Isaac might not have died in the first place... But I digress.

If you haven't heard by now, let me assure you that Laura's "Clarence, Tommy, and Ruby" students in the Brewster School were actually Isaac, Clarence, and Fannie Ruth. Meaning that one of her students was convicted of killing another - his half brother, not too many months after she was their teacher.

In court, Louis Bouchie told of a time when the two Mrs. Bouchies got "into a clinch," but right before Mrs. Joseph Bouchie came to the door in a huff, the hired girl wiped and put the Louis Bouchie butcher knife into a trunk when she saw who it was. WHY would this be important in the case? Or even mentioned? Just who had Lib Bouchie been threatening with that butcher knife other than her husband? And how often did this happen?
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:01 AM

 
la grippe, 1918
The 1918 influenza pandemic affected 28% of American citizens, killing an estimated 675,000 Americans. While most cities in the United States didn't publish names of victims of the flu, there were usually mandatory bans on public gatherings where the flu was most likely to spread. De Smet, South Dakota, was one town which forbade public gatherings once the flu had been reported nearby.

October 11, 1918, the Kingsbury County Board of Public Health closed all schools and public meeting places, including churches and assembly halls. "The influenza has become epidemic in this city and vicinity, and it is deemed necessary for the protection of our people to prohibit assemblages until danger is passed. The doctor reports about one hundred cases in this vicinity, most of them mild, but a few are serious. The history of the disease it that as it progresses those stricken have it harder, and the community that gets by without deaths is indeed fortunate. Hence it is urged that people do not travel except when absolutely necessary, and that they stay at home unless obliged to go about. Children should be kept off the street and as far as possible in their own yards. While a general quarantine has not been ordered, the effect of the closing order is lost if there is not effort to keep away from possible exposure. Let us keep the order in good spirit and assist in stamping out this disease that is proving so fatal in the east, especially at the training camps."

Young Aubrey Sherwood, for many years editor of the De Smet News, was one of the De Smet men who was a victim of the flu. Maud Loftus, daughter of De Smet store owner Dan Loftus, died from the disease. Ella Boast died of pneumonia following a ten-day illness during the epidemic, but her death was not attributed to the flu.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:30 PM

 
ouch!

In Little House in the Big Woods, the reader never finds out exactly how many yellow jacket stings cover Cousin Charley; Wilder merely writes that "hundreds and hundreds of bees were stinging him." By the way, yellow jackets (Vespula spp.) aren't bees.

In By the Shores of Silver Lake (Chapter 7, "The West Begins"), Cousin Charley is reintroduced as "the big boy who had bothered Uncle Henry and Pa in the oat field, and been stung by thousands of yellow jackets."

So. Which is closest to the truth? Had Charley been stung by hundreds or thousands of yellow jackets? While even one sting can be fatal to a person who is severely allergic, the average adult can safely tolerate 10 stings per pound of body weight. 500 stings can supposedly kill a child. Charley Quiner was born in 1862, so if the "cry wolf" story really happened while the Ingallses and Quiners were living in the Big Woods, he was at most twelve years old when the story took place (since the Charles Ingalls family left Wisconsin in 1874). If you go by what Wilder wrote, the story happened when Laura was about five years old, so Charley would have been about ten years old.

I can't even begin to imagine how much that must have hurt!
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:23 PM

 
yes, but did she have yellow hair?
In By the Shores of Silver Lake, Laura describes the girl who waited on the table at the hotel in Tracy, Minnesota, as "a big, good-natured girl with a broad face and yellow hair."

The week before the Ingallses were in Tracy, an article in the newspaper told about the Exchange Hotel in Tracy, owned by Myron Finch. The dining room was presided over by Lew Pendergast and Miss Annie McArthur. The hotel was located on Front Street, not far from the depot. At the time, a second depot had either just opened or was about to open -- this one only for passengers, not freight. The depots were located between the tracks of the Winona & St. Peter and the Chicago & Dakota Railways. M.E. Trumer was the station agent.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:29 PM

 
a beautiful little girl named dolly varden

In By the Shores of Silver Lake, Aunt Docia brings the news to the Ingalls family that Aunt Ruby has married and has "two boys and a beautiful little girl named Dolly Varden." This isn't the first time Laura Ingalls Wilder mentions the name Dolly Varden in the "Little House" books. In Little House in the Big Woods, Uncle Peter and Aunt Eliza are said to have a daughter by this name as well. (Did Wilder simply forget that she had already used it?) Although their son Lansford was closer to Carrie Ingalls' age and most likely the baby at the time of the Christmas story, Uncle Peter and Aunt Eliza also had daughter Edith Florence Ingalls (29 June 1872 - 13 July 1951). In Pioneer Girl, Wilder wrote: "Baby Edith was too small to know us but she laughed at me and held out her little hands. They all called her Dolly Varden because she had a pretty dress of calico that was called that."

Little is known about Ruby's little daughter. Ruby and Joseph Card did have at least two children, though, one son (George) and one daughter. Daughter Alma was born shortly after the family was enumerated on the 1880 census in McLeod County, Minnesota; she died as a young child.

Dolly Varden was a character in Charles Dickens' novel Barnaby Rudge, published first as a serial from February through November 1841 in the magazine Master Humphrey's Clock. The serial was revised into book form in the late 1860s, and Barnaby Rudge was very popular during the 1870s.

In Barnaby Rudge, Dolly Varden is one of few female characters. Very little space is devoted to her except to describe her pretty looks; Dolly does little except drive male characters to distraction. Many female characters in Dickens' novels were based on the love of his life, Ellen Teman. This fact was widely known at the time of publication, so the feelings towards positive female characters led to them being very admired and emulated.

Dolly Varden is described as "...the very pink and pattern of good looks, in a smart little cherry-coloured mantle, with a hood of the same drawn over her head, and upon the top of that head, a little straw hat trimmed with cherry-colored ribbons... These cherry-colored decorations brightened her eyes... vied with her lips [and]... shed a new bloom upon her face..."

The description was complete enough - and Dolly likable enough - to inspire a type of women's costume consisting of a polonaise gown in green or white with cherry-colored spots and a flowered quilted underskirt, worn with a wide straw hat trimmed with flowers and ribbons tied under the chin. Pink became a most fashionable color. A bright cherry pink calico was given the name "Dolly Varden" in the early 1870s and assured that women living outside cultured society could afford fabric with which to make a dress in the Dolly Varden style.

Quite taken with the character he created, Dickens commissioned artist William Powell Frith (1818-1909) to paint a portrait of her. Auctioned following Dickens' death in 1871, the painting helped create furor over the style, inspiring not only fashions named after the character, but songs and dances, a variety of horse, a species of trout, and the buffer on a railroad tender.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:10 PM

 
home again, home again

My mother doesn't seem to like the fact that I wear overalls. On my recent visit to Atlanta, I was looking through the old photo album and I came across the above photo.

That's my mother, circa 1925, wearing (you guessed it) overalls.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:03 PM

 
away from home
I'm spending time with my mother in Atlanta, and I won't be home for another few weeks!
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:31 PM