i'll be waving as i drive away
Heading out for a little vacation. Talk to you when I get back!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:01 AM

 
when twenty-five is more than thirty
Somewhere, I saw a question as to why Laura Ingalls decided to teach the Wilkins School at $30/month minus $2/week for room and board instead of the Perry School (again) for $25/month while boarding at home for free. Anyone can see that Laura would come out three whole dollars per month ahead if she had taken the Perry School. So what was up with that?

In real life, the De Smet township school board had been having financial trouble, so they voted to change the length of the third term in 1884 from three months to two months - in order to use money normally paid out to teachers to pay to creditors who were threatening to sue. When Laura taught the Perry School in 1884, her contract (on display in Mansfield) reflected this change. She was hired to teach for a term of two months at $25/month.

By the next year, the schools were doing better, so the Wilkin School held a three month third term. In real life, Laura was paid $25/month to teach the Wilkin School; again, her contract is on display in Mansfield. And also in real life, the school board voted to close the Perry School for a year after Laura's term there as teacher, because there weren't enough students to justify keeping it open.

What Laura probably remembered was that she made more teaching the Wilkin School than the Perry School, which was correct. The mistake in the fictional math simply wasn't caught by Laura, Rose, or anyone else who might have read These Happy Golden Years prior to publication.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
in seven days i will be strong, happy, and stupid

Every now and then - usually when I'm feeling low - I'll check my biorhythms to see if maybe that explains it. The thing is, it usually does.

There are countless websites on which to check your biorhythms; I usually go to www.facade.com and click on the biorhythm link. Sometimes I check the runes or tarot cards (I'm a pretty good tarot card reader in real life). The fun thing about that biorhythm site is checking your (or someone else's) compatibility with another person, including a whole list of "famous people." Apparently, Claire Forlani and I would get along famously, as would Josh Hartnett and I.

I'm not going to try to define or explain biorhythms because there are perfectly good books out there, and besides, you can always google. I don't care whether you're a believer or not. Let's just pretend that we're talking "pure entertainment value" here.

According to the facade site, there are three cycles of highs and lows that influence a person. They are: (1) Emotional - This cycle tracks the stability and positive energy of your psyche and outlook on life, as well as your capacity to empathize with and build rapport with other people; (2)Intellectual - This cycle tracks your verbal, mathematical, symbolic, and creative abilities, as well as your capacity to apply reason and analysis to the world around you; and (3) Physical - This cycle tracks your strength, health, and raw physical vitality. When you check your compatibility with another person, it will also give you a composite percentage.

One night, a friend and I sat down and checked our compatibility with various "Little House" historical figures. Caroline Ingalls and I are very compatible (97%), while Charles Ingalls and I aren't (56%). I'm more compatible with Laura (62%) than Mary (59%).

It was a little freaky when I started checking my compatibility with other living and breathing "Little House" people that I know personally and have researched with or met at "Little House" sites in the past. There was a scarily high number of 98-100% intellectual matches! There were also a few scarily low numbers that certainly explain a thing or two about a trip or two. I'm just saying.

To check compatibility, you need to know your birth date (duh) and the birth date of the person in question. If anyone wants to see what the numbers say about you and me, I was born on April 1, 1955. If we're 100% intellectually compatible, I'll meet you at a "Little House" site and we'll do some research. Emotional compatibility is always a plus. Let's not discuss physical compatibility, shall we? (Edited to add: Okay, we can discuss it. Don't think I haven't checked that number between myself and a warm male body or two.... and it probably stands to reason that if "physical" means strength, etc., it might be worth knowing if you're going to follow me when I head out hiking across Kingsbury County or something.)

Oh yeah. I now insist on separate rooms.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:00 AM

 
there was no nancy in the books

Go. Right Now. To http://www.prairietalktv.com/video.htm. I suggest watching "#3 - books vs. tv" first.

Thanks, dakotagirl, for telling me about this site! (Yes, I ordered a set of the dvds.)
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:50 PM

 
if you're happy and you know it...
Each year, the National Endowment for the Humanities identifies a theme important to the nation's heritage and selects fifteen books that embody that theme. In addition to introducing young readers to good literature, these books promote understanding of abstract or general ideas through the power of particular stories.

This year's theme is "the pursuit of happiness." These Happy Golden Years is one of the selected titles. Previous themes have been "Courage" (Little House on the Prairie was one of the titles), "Freedom," and "Becoming American."

A collection of the fifteen 2007 titles will be awarded to 2,000 libraries across the United States through a competitive grant application. Here are the 2007 titles a library can win copies of:

Grades K-3 - Aesop's Fables (Aesop), Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (Virginia Lee Burton) - (uh, do kids even know what a steam shovel or steam heat IS these days?), Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (poem by Robert Frost); Grades 4-6 - Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbitt), The Great Migration (Jacob Lawrence), These Happy Golden Years (Laura Ingalls Wilder), Journal of Wong Ming-Chung (Laurence Yep); Grades 7-8 - Carry On, Mr. Bowditch (Jean Lee Latham), A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle), Esperanza Rising (Pam Munoz Ryan); Grades 9-12 - Kindred (Octavia Butler), O Pioneers! (Willa Cather), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Common Sense (Thomas Paine). As a bonus, winners will also receive a copy of the "Happy Land" CD of "Little House" music (which, btw, contains one song from the book, These Happy Golden Years).

What? No Happy Feet or Happy Meals?

My first thought was this: "Is These Happy Golden Years a book about the pursuit of happiness?" To me, it's more about a book in which Laura must endure something that gives her no happiness whatsoever (teaching school), so that she can return home, which has always been a happy place for her. Then she leaves her happy home to marry Almanzo Wilder, but her rationalization there is that she "would need never be homesick for the old home. It was so hear that she could go to it whenever she wished." (See Chapter 33, "Little Gray Home in the West")

The song from which the title is taken ("Golden Years are Passing By") isn't even a song about the pursuit of happiness. It's a reminder that the happy years of the past are something to be remembered.

Laura Ingalls Wilder doesn't mention happiness all that much in These Happy Golden Years. The first (Chapter 3) is when Laura dreams she is at home and Mary makes a happy comment. Alas, it is only a dream and Laura wakes up as miserable as ever. In other chapters, Laura is happy simply to be visiting at her home weekends - a home that is always a much happier place than at the Brewsters' shanty.

Laura is happy to be home for a visit to hear Pa's fiddle music (Chapter 4), but again, she must leave that happiness to continue teaching. She is also happy to be home (Chapter 4), simply to do ordinary chores, such as ironing. Later (Chapter 8), she is happy to be at home for the weekend, in the happy kitchen. Finally, when her term at the Brewster School is finished (Chapter 11), it is "happier than Christmas" because she is home. Being home makes her so happy, she has to sing. "Laura thought how happy and how fortunate she was. Nothing anywhere could be better than being at home with the home folks, she was sure." (Chapter 12)

No pursuit. Just returning to.

Laura's time at the Perry School is a happy one (Chapter 18) simply because she is at home in the evenings. Neither love nor happiness is ever mentioned in connection with Laura's engagement to Almanzo Wilder.

Don't get me wrong; I'm thrilled that yet another "Little House" book is selected for this honor. Just maybe not in a contest for "pursuit of happiness" books. To me, that would be any book in which the Ingalls family is traveling west!

As for "happiness" books I'm familiar with, I could think of the "Happy Hollisters" books , and maybe Happiness is a Warm Puppy, which at least offers suggestions for ways to find happiness. I used to be able to recite The Happy Man and his Dump Truck from memory, but seems to me that he's happy already. There's Poems for a Good and Happy Life (Myrna Grant). I'm still trying to figure out how Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is about the pursuit happiness at all! I obviously have miles to go before I figure that one out...

Yes, I spent some time trying to figure out some "pursuit of happiness" books. I want to look up a copy of the following: Happy as a Clam, and 9,999 other Similes (Larry Wright) and C'mon, Get Happy: Fear and Loating on the Partridge Family Bus (David Cassidy), the former because I like that sort of thing and the later because I used to love "The Partridge Family." I do have a copy of Happy Trails: Our Life Story (Roy Rogers and Dale Evans), and I think maybe I am in need of a copy of W.F. Fing's (Fuck, Yes! A Guide to the Happy Acceptance of Everything.

Am I missing something? In your opinion, IS These Happy Golden Years a "pursuit of happiness" book?
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:13 PM

 
common tater
Rev. E. Brown perpetrated a "rebusical joke" in our sanctum during our absence on Monday. He placed one of Simcox's large potatoes on the legal volumes of Swan and Critchfield, and labeled it, "A Common Tater on the Laws of Ohio." -Medina County, Ohio, newspaper, 1875

Yes, it was the "Little House" Reverend Brown.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:46 PM

 
a big bit of photo fun

Last month, I read about this image mosaic generator on Wil Wheaton's blog. Basically, it harvests images from Flickr and uses them to recreate a big picture using lots of little ones. There are some sample composites on the site, and you can upload your own photo to be turned into a mosaic. No telling how long I sat here and uploaded "Little House" photos, playing around.

The image above is a greatly reduced mosaic of a Laura postcard. Yeah, it looks pretty much like a bad scan of the original photo. If you want to see the huge mosaic (9.4 MB) of Laura it created for me, click HERE. It could take a minute or more to download. I probably won't leave it online long, since it's such a band-width sucking monster, so it's fine with me if you save it or whatever.

There are apparently mosaic generators out there that allow you to use your own images as the base tiles for composite images. How cool would it be to have nothing but LIW photos and LH site photos to do this with??
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:25 AM

 
on a january day back in 1923
...Rose Wilder Lane wrote the following to her grandmother, Caroline Ingalls:

Mother writes that you were worried about my being in Constantinople when the Near East situation blew up, so I hasten to assure you myself that I am not to be worried about. Little things like wars and revolutions are commonplace to me now, and anyway, they are never as exciting when you are in them as they are when you read about them. I have been under fire so many times in Europe that I miss it when I don't hear rifle-fire or machine guns for a long time.

I was really very sorry not to have been in Constantinople when the excitement started, for I would have gone at once to Smyra or Thrace, where most of my lucky friends rushed to be. Instead I was marooned up here in the Causausas, with the Black Sea closed, and no way to get back except through Persia and Mesopotamia, and that is such a long and difficult way that I knew everything would be ended before I could get there. So I stayed looking at scenery, until I came down into Armenia, which is even more peaceful.

The sulphur baths were fun; they are about twelve hundred years old, or so. Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, was named for them in the sixth century. They are natural sulphur springs, volcanically heated, and the water is piped into large buildings all blue mosaic outside and steam inside. You go down stone stairs into underground rooms walled with tile and vaulted like cathedrals and while you sit in the steam an attendant scrapes off most of your skin with a bath-mitten, and then fills a soaped cotton sack with her breath, and squeezes it over you, and lo! you are simply buried in soap bubbles. There are showers both hot and cold, and huge pools of the hot sulphur water, in which you soak and play around. You have all this to yourself, a private room. All Tiflis goes to the sulphur baths and there are 47 different nationalities in Tiflis, so you can imagine what fun it is to watch them while you wait your turn for a room. There are Tartars and Georgians and Armenians and Russians and people from Daghestan and Ajerbaijan and Adcasia and all kinds of places whose very names I never heard before.

Armenia is a beautiful country, and in normal times it would be very rich agriculturally. Lots of beautiful valleys between mountains. Just now I am at Ervain, the capital, which is just under Ararat, where Noah's Ark is supposed to have rested after the flood. I doubt it, myself, for goodness knows he would have had a frightful time herding all the animals down about 15,000 feet of damp cliffs!

I am a guest of the Near East Relief which has certainly pulled Armenia through a hard time. Things are much better now; practically all the refugees have disappeared, absorbed into the country, and things are rapidly getting back to normal. The Near East Relief has 23,000 orphans in one station alone, Alexandropol. It is an astounding sight-they simply cover the ground for miles. They live in the old barracks of the Russian Czarist army, which were badly broken up during the wars, but which the Near East repaired. They have schools, hospitals, carpenter shops, blacksmith shops, several thousand acres of land which they cultivate and acres of dormitories and dining rooms; it is the largest orphanage in the world. There are several thousands more in other stations, about six thousand here in Erivan. The whole country was in such a wrecked condition that when the Near East Relief came that it had practically to build towns; it distributed food and clothes to the refugees and have them work for it, and thus it built roads and cleaned and paved streets and repaired buildings and sanitary systems and it is now helping the government build three irrigation systems by the same method. It is a very sensible way of distributing relief, I think, because it not only relieves an immediate condition, but leaves something of permanent value. Armenia is getting along very well, considering everything. The harvest is about 60 per cent of enough to feed the population until another harvest, because there was not enough seed to plant. The government distributed all the seed there was, and the Near East Relief distributed grits for the people to eat so that they would not have to eat the seed. That way, they got through last year. This year Russia is sending 200,000 pood (pood is about 36 pounds) of seed to help through this year, and I think that by next year there will be no need for adult relief. The Near East will then have only the orphans on its hands. In another four or five years I believe Armenia will be on its feet and well started as a rich agricultural country able to take care of itself.

I do not yet know exactly where I shall go from here. I want to go down through Persia to Bagdad and across to Palestine, if it is possible. On account of the recent war in Turkey, and the winter coming on, when the mountain passes are filled with snow, and camels cannot get through, this may be impossible. If it is, I shall have to go back through Georgia and across the Black Sea to Constantinople. And if I do that, I may take a side trip up to Moscow for a week or so. It seems a pity to miss anything, and yet this is a very large world to get around, and I do want to get home sometime! I had expected to be in San Francisco before this; just think, it is a year since I left Paris and I have only got so far as the Caucausas with the whole of Asia practically untouched yet.

Except for the malaria which I got in Albania, and a fearful cold that I got coming out of the sulphur baths on a cold day in Tiflis, I'm well and flourishing. However, my hair is quite gray, surely as gray as mother's. I don't know how you women of the last generations kept color in your hair for so long. Mine simply gave one look at Europe and turned white at the sight.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
"they'd pull a barn, if hitched to it"

In Farmer Boy (Chapter 21, "County Fair"), Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote:

Beyond them were three large, speckled gray horses. Their haunches were round and hard, their necks were thick and their legs were heavy. Long, bushy hair hid their big feet. Their heads were massive, their eyes quiet and kind. Almanzo had never seen anything like them.

Father said they were Belgians. They came from a country called Belgium, in Europe. Belgium was next to France, and the French had brought such horses in ships to Canada. Now Belgian horses were coming from Canada into the United States. Father admired them very much. He said:

"Look at that muscle! They’d pull a barn, if hitched to it."

Almanzo asked him:

"What's the good of a horse that can pull a barn? We don't want to pull a barn. A Morgan has muscle enough to pull a wagon, and he's fast enough to pull a buggy, too."

"You're right, son!" Father said. He looked regretfully at the big horses, and shook his head. "It would be a waste to feed all that muscle, and we’ve got no use for it. You’re right."

Almanzo felt important and grown-up, talking horses with Father.

The trouble is, this isn't exactly how Belgian draft horses came to America.

Belgian horses are direct descendants of the "Black Horse of Flanders," which existed prior to 200 B.C. and the time of Julius Caesar. The first Belgians were brought to the United States in 1866 by Abram Van Hoorebeke, a Belgian doctor living in Monmouth (Warren Co.) Illinois. Since Almanzo has his ninth birthday before the county fair mentioned in Farmer Boy, the year in question would have indeed been 1866. While it's possible that these first horses appeared at the Franklin County Fair when Almanzo Wilder was a young boy, I'm not sure it's all that probable. About all I have been able to figure out so far is that Dr. Van Hoorbeke arrived with his horses at a port in New York, but he apparently headed west with them immediately.

Belgian draft horses didn't catch on in a hurry. The Belgian Draft Horse Corporation of America wasn't formed until February 1887, and all Belgians in the United States prior to this time were registered in Europe. It was slow going until the 1903 World's Fair in St. Louis, where an exhibit of Belgian horses attracted lots of attention.

It wasn't until after World War I that the breed became popular, as American farmers wanted a compact and economical draft horse (the typical Belgian sold for around $200 at the time). The typical Belgian stood 16 to 17 hands tall, with some up to 18 hands. The average weight was from 1,700 to 2,000 pounds. The Belgian was called "cold blooded" - meaning that it was even-tempered - and also an "easy keeper," because of the lack of feathering - or long hair - on their lower limbs. But note that Wilder wrote that the horses Almanzo saw had long, bushy hair that hid their feet!

In the existing manuscript for Farmer Boy, Wilder wrote:

Next there were some large, gray horses with thick, strong legs and large feet hidden in long, bushy hair, their heads looked heavy and their eyes were quiet and kind. Father said they were ----- some had been brought in from Canada. Father admired them, but Almanzo did not like them nearly so well as the Morgans.

There is no breed of horse given; Wilder simply left a blank space. Most likely, the breed Laura Ingalls Wilder meant was the Clydesdale, first brought to North America by Scottish immigrants to Canada around 1850. There was a major importation of Clydesdales to the United States after the Civil War, and some of the breed had undoubtedly crossed the northern border into America even earlier.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:00 AM

 
two weeks
That's how long it takes tetanus antibodies to form after receiving a tetanus shot.

Tomorrow I will be going to get a tetanus shot. Yesterday, I cut my hand and arm on ancient and muck-coated rusty fence wire. This morning, as I looked at a cut on my hand and noticed that it was all puffed up and hurt like hell, I suddenly realized that it's probably been more than ten years since I had a tetanus shot. And a tetanus shot received after a wound isn't guaranteed protection against fatal tetanus.

"Not good," thinks I. "Isaac Bouchie," thinks I. Except that poor Isaac contracted and died from tetanus (called trismus by his doctors) in the days before tetanus shots. Amazing how many things we can treat now that would simply kill you "back then." Of course, things like tetanus shots only work if you're smart enough to keep up with having them when you're supposed to. And I, obviously, am dumber than dirt.

The incubation period for tetanus (actually tetanospasmin, a neurotoxin produced by the Gram-positive, obligate anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani) is 3 to 21 days. Isaac was dead in eleven days.

I should be watching for a persistent contraction of muscles in the same area as the injury (right hand and arm). Or I should watch for lockjaw, followed by stiffness of the neck, difficulty swallowing, and rigidity of abdominal muscles. Plus elevated temperature, sweating, elevated blood pressure, and rapid heart rate. And spasms.

There's no way to end this post on a humorous note. So I won't.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:33 PM

 
the congregational church, burr oak

The photo above is of Rev. Sterling. Here are a few meeting minutes of interest.

January 14th/77
Meeting of the Church this day. Rev. Bro. Sterling and Sister Sterling (his wife), William Steadman and Mary Steadman (his wife), Charles Ingalls and Caroline Ingalls (his wife) were received into the Church by letter. Had communion services.

March 10th/77
Meeting of the Church this day. Report of committee on house for Minister report that the House of Dea. Alpha Manning is the only one available at present - report accepted, committee discharged. The following persons were elected officers of the church:
Deacons - A. Manning, H. Manning
Clerk - H.C. Manning
Treasurer - Bro. W. Steadman
Trustee - Bro. E. Mumm
On motion, the Clerk at the next church meeting was directed to bring the church Book and read the Constitution, By Laws, and the minutes of previous meeting. On motion, a letter of dismissal was granted to Sister Martha Manning. On motion, the Clerk was directed to write to absent members and inquire if they wish to continue members of this Church, asking them to take letters if they wish. On motion Bro. Hobart and Bro. Manning were a committee to see D. Anderson and buy premises for a Parsonage at a price not to exceed $700 paying not over ten per cent per annum on the purchase money.

Sunday March 11th/77
Had communion to day.

June 30/77
At a Church meeting held at the Cong'l Church Burr Oak, Brother H.C. Manning was chosen Treasurer and Collector. It was voted to grant a letter to Rev. C.A. Marshall, the Pastor of the Church was appointed a committee to visit and converse with Sister Georgiana Simms in relation to the violation of her church vows.

Sept 22nd/1877
At a church meeting held in the Cong'l church after the preparatory services the church took in consideration the matter of employing Bro. Sterling another year or not on motion of Dea. A. Manning, Bro. Hobart was appointed moderator after prayer by Dea. Manning for guidance in the matter and considerable discussion by nearly all the members present on motion of Dea. Manning supported by Sister Hobart that we do not hire Brother Sterling for another year carried unanimously. On motion adjourned.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:00 AM

 
research measured in inches

Today, I lined up over 200 inches of file folders, gloated over them a bit, then spent hours putting them in some semblance of order. When I packed them for storage a lifetime ago, I grabbed handfuls and shoved them in boxes. When I finally unpacked them in October, I grabbed handfuls and transferred them willie-nellie to filing crates; mostly I was just happy to have them out of storage. Today, I grabbed handfuls and lined them up in the hallway. Then I went down the line, folder by folder, and put them Where They Belonged.

Now, all the school research is together, all the character files are in alphabetical order, all the song folders are in one place, and all the "Little House" site research is together by location. The tract book pages are from east to west, and homestead files are, well, those are in alphabetical order too.

I didn't look through many folders, but I made fun discoveries every time I did. I did not find Edwin Sanford's missing death certificate. But I did find Mrs. Boast's hens!
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:07 AM

 
watch me
CLICK ME

Try to ignore the fact that they use the television show music, say Al-MON-zo, and suggest that a photo of Grace and Nate Dow is actually Laura and Almanzo.

Among other things.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:45 PM

 
never mind... i can see
I have never been an optimist. I have always been more of a "the glass is half empty, cracked, and with a slow leak" sort of person. I take after my mother. Say you were vacuuming when she stopped by, and you left the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the room so you could go answer the door. The first thing she would do is tell you a dozen ways a person could hurt themselves because you left that vacuum cleaner in the middle of the room. And three of them would result in death.

But recently, when I found myself in times of trouble and didn't think I could take another minute of the stress, I literally stopped and thought, "Never mind.... I can see" (See Little Town on the Prairie, Chapter 4, "Happy Days"), even though sight had nothing to do with the situation itself. You know what I mean. It was a bit of a shock to come to the realization that it was one of the few times I have ever done that - looked at my life and saw that I had so much to be thankful for.

Which makes me very thankful indeed for Laura having provided the words I needed to express that very thought.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
r.i.p louis bouchie
Louis Bouchie died on this date in 1894. Laura was living in De Smet at the time; do you think she went to his funeral? Mr. Bouchie is buried in the De Smet cemetery next to his brother, Isaac.

For your reading enjoyment, here is what Louis Bouchie had to say about the death of his brother, Isaac. You know the story, right?

"I do not think that Mrs. Bouchie liked the deceased for several years. Have not heard her make any threats against him myself. She would stand up for Clarence whether he was right or wrong. I do not know whether she realized whether he was right or wrong. I had trouble with her when I was living at home. Her disposition was naturally cross and when things went wrong she made it disagreeable. If there was any dispute she stood up invariably for her own children. She did not govern her own children as she ought, if she had there would have been less trouble. She had some ill will towards the deceased but I do not know what it was. There has been trouble in the family between the husband and wife but I cannot tell what it was. I have not lived at home much for six years. I met the deceased July 2nd on the road and he brought me a book he had of mine. I asked him what was the matter with his face he says 'Oh nothing!' and kind of laughed. I says to him I guess you have been having a fuss up there. Then he said he had. I think I said who with. He said Clarence hit me with a bone. Then I insisted in his telling me how it happened and all about it. He did not want to tell me. He said they both pitched on him. He had been speaking of Clarance and Lib (Mrs. Bouchie) I mean them. I asked him how he commenced. I told him he was not to go back there if they could not treat him decent. I took him home. I quizzed him to tell me all about it. He said he came up with his horses to the stable from breaking and Clarence's pony was tied in the stable door in some way so he could not get in with his horses. He waited and said to Clarence, 'why don't you take your horse out of the way or take him in and feed him?' Clarance told him he was going after the cattle, he said you ought to have had him in and fed him instead of being tied to the post. Clarance gave some saucy reply and spoke of his sticking up for Lew and Lib, myself and wife. Then Clarence made some words and Isaac mocked him and turned it off that way when Clarance struck at him with a whip or strap he had in his hand. He hit him the first time. Then the deceased caught him as he struck at him again and pushed him against the manger. He said he did not hit Clarance, I asked him this in particular. Isaac said Clarence hollered and the first I knew mother was on top of me. I rose up and she grabbed the pitchfork to hit me. I took the fork away from her and stuck it in front of the manger. She then turned around and catched another one that was in the stable. When I saw it I jumped for and caught hold of it. I took that fork away and pushed her back against the manger and held her there. He said will you behave yourself or go away and let me alone. I asked him if he struck her. He said not then. Clarence struck me with the bone and she came at me again and then I struck right and left and got out of it... Clarence came here the evening before. I was outside and Clarence came in. I heard talk inside. My wife called me to come in and make Clarence behave himself. I told him if he could not behave to come out there. He was talking sassy. He called her a liar and she slapped him. I saw it and stepped up to them and stopped it and I told them to behave both of you. He went out and talked thro the window. Asked him to come in and sit down and urged him in. He was sassy but I did not care for it. He would not come in. Went out twice or three times to get him and come in and sit still and be quiet. He was sassing me and I told him to be still or I would spank him and send him home. I did not strike him. He staid outside growling, swearing and threatening as to what he would do. He went home. The next morning I was up by stable and saw a woman coming. It was Mrs. Bouchie. I was doing chores. Mrs. Bouchie and my wife were quarreling or jawing. I said what is the matter with you folks and talked to them and told them to set down and talk over any matters between them and not quarrel. Then I went out. I went in soon after and just then they both came out clinched. I sent my wife into the house and told Mrs. Bouchie to go home. They did so. They, the deceased and Mrs. Bouchie always had trouble. That is after - a sort of a fuss. I did not think he was in any danger by living there tho I had heard she had made threats against his life. About a week before she threw coffee in his face. He told me about it but not as bad as others who saw it told it. Some boys around the neighborhood told me that she said she would give him a dose that would put him out of the way. Isaac never said anything about it... Signed L.H. Bouchie" and edited by cyberbessie.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:30 PM

 
constantly catching the light

For our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary on December 19, The Man of the Place gave me a Laura-inspired eternity ring: a complete circle of garnets set in a yellow gold band. The stones had to be set, so I didn't actually get the ring until today.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
fork on the left, knife on the right?

In a letter to daughter Rose written in 1952, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote: "We were proud of my Havalind [sic] china but loved best the English made blue willow ware."

In Farmer Boy (Chapter 2, "Winter Evening"), Almanzo thinks that "the most beautiful sight was his mother, bring in the big willow-ware platter full of sizzling ham."

I always wondered if the Wilders actually owned willow-ware, or if Laura "loaned" her favorite blue willow to the story. Laura's blue willow was made by Allertons (not Allerton). I've never researched this pattern simply because I don't like blue willow.

In The Laura Ingalls Wilder Country Cookbook, there is a Les Kelly photograph of the Wilder's dining room table set with Laura's blue willow. Why, I always wondered, is the fork on the right and the knife on the left? For that matter, why is the goblet on the left? The photo isn't a mirror image, because you can clearly see the door to the kitchen on the left, and a bit of the underside of Rose's loft staircase at the left of the pass-through behind the table.

In the museum at Rocky Ridge, there is a photograph of a table of Rose's, and in that photo, the fork is on the right, as in the Les Kelly photo. That photo IS a reversal of the photo that accompanied the 1960 article by Rose titled, "Come Into My Kitchen." I could only guess that perhaps there was nobody around to tell Les Kelly the proper way to set a table, so he ran to the museum and copied that one.

I guess that explains the blue willow display in the museum at Walnut Grove. In their table setting, they also placed the fork on the left, etc.

Hey, people. Just because somebody does something incorrectly three times, that doesn't make it right, you know.

We don't know how Laura set her own table. She did write in By the Shores of Silver Lake (Chapter 21, "Merry Christmas") that the breakfast table was set with the "plate turned bottom up over the knife and fork, as usual."

Now, that's an strange way to set a table to me, no matter which side the fork is on beneath that plate!
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:24 PM

 
draw a tree with whiffle characteristics

In Margie Gray's The Prairie Primer, literature based unit studies utilizing the "Little House" series (that's what the cover says), the Art/Vocabulary activity for Chapters 9 and 10 of The Long Winter is to: "Look up 'whiffle' in the dictionary. Draw a picture of a tree with whiffle characteristics."

The word "whiffle" isn't even in Chapters 9 or 10 of The Long Winter. It's sort of in Chapters 1, 16, and 27, though, as the word "whiffle-tree" or "whiffletree" (remember that Laura Ingalls Wilder is bad about doing this to words). Chapters 9 - in case you didn't rush right over to your copy to check it out - tells about the blizzard that caught the children in school, and they have to walk home in it. Chapter 10 is the rest of the story about that three days' blizzard. While "whiffle" does mean a gust or puff of wind, the wind in these two chapters is more of the horizontal, blizzardy kind.

An alteration of the word whippletree, the whiffletree is a pivoted crossbar attached to the traces of draft horse or team, and also attached to a vehicle or farm implement. This allowed the pulling to be equalized so that the load wouldn't tip or be pulled off course.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
i can't wait to hear "the red heifer"
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The way Laura Ingalls Wilder used music to help weave her stories of life on the American frontier struck a chord with Dale Cockrell as he and his son read the "Little House" series nearly a decade ago.

Now, the Vanderbilt University professor has his own record label, Pa's Fiddle Recordings, and is in the midst of recording a 10-CD set that brings to life all 126 songs mentioned in Wilder's books.

With the 140th anniversary of Wilder's birth and the 50th anniversary of her death approaching in February, Cockrell was recently awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to help with part of the project.

"In looking back on it; I don't think there are any books that better capture the way music worked in the 19th-century family," said Cockrell, a professor of musicology, essentially a music historian. "" came to the conclusion not only are the books rich in music-making, but it's virtually a playlist of first- century American music."

Wilder biographer William Anderson said the fiddle music of Wilder's "Pa," Charles Ingalls, served as a rosy symbol in the midst of the family's struggles on the frontier.

"The fiddle music was always the highlight of the day after all the work had been done," said Anderson, who lives in Lapeer, Mich. "Pa's fiddle really helped them keep going through tough times."

Pa's music covered a range of genres — patriotic music, folk music, spirituals and hymns, even minstrel songs. Other songs were featured during Wilder's time at singing school and social gatherings.

Cockrell said the recordings of the music could have made it sound as historically accurate as possible or given it a more modern feel. He opted for the latter but didn't completely ignore the original feel of the music.

He found the recordings of Jep Bisbee, a fiddler who was born eight years after Pa was born and in the same Pennsylvania county. Bisbee moved west around the same time as the Ingalls did and was often accompanied on piano by his daughter, much as Pa was accompanied by a young Laura.

Bisbee's "The Girl I Left Behind Me," recorded by Thomas Edison, serves as a segue into the first album of the series, "Happy Land: Musical Tributes to Laura Ingalls Wilder," and is immediately followed by a modern version of the song.

Cockrell and Baldassari received the help of a number of musicians. The best-known among them is the Grammy-winning quartet Riders in the Sky, the Grand Ole Opry members famed for their cowboy-style western music.

Happy Land, released in June 2005, serves as a sort of anthology for the whole series, featuring a sampling of what Cockrell saw as the best songs. The album contains some songs still well known today, including Sweet By and By, and Oh! Susanna. It has sold more than 5,000 copies.

It was followed by the November release of The Arkansas Traveler CD.

Happy Land will be the first CD to be featured on the National Endowment for the Humanities' We the People Bookshelf, a program that provides classic books related to a particular theme -- next year's is the pursuit of happiness -- to 2,000 libraries across the country.

Happy Land will be featured alongside well-known selections such as The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Aesop's Fables and Wilder's These Happy Golden Years.

"I was convinced that this was a wonderful thing to be able to hear these songs," said Elizabeth Arndt, an NEH senior program officer who suggested the album for We the People. "When I was a kid, I wanted to know what some of these songs sounded like."

The NEH fellowship was awarded to Cockrell for work on the scholarly portion of his Little House project -- a publication he's called The Ingalls Wilder Family Songbook, which will include scholarly essays on the music.

Cockrell hopes the albums appeal not only to fans of the Little House series but also to a broader audience that latched onto the 2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou? movie soundtrack of bluegrass and country music.

"The O Brother phenomenon kind of opened up the possibility of this,'' he said. 'Of course, I'd love it if people were to get on to it and just go `What a great CD, what great music and great performances."


You read it here, folks.

And here:
http://www.vindy.com/content/entertainment/319288872871826.php
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/16318732.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_living
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/4421178.html
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20061226-0036-music-littlehouse.html
http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061229/Ent05/612290449
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/music/16318732.htm
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WI_MUSIC_LITTLE_HOUSE_WIOL-?SITE=WIFON&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=545589
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=547399&category=ARTS&BCCode=&newsdate=12/26/2006
http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/story.html?id=473d0823-7e3d-4983-80a3-b3338b09b20a&k=3254
etc.
etc.
etc.
And, yes, I emailed Beth Rucker and pointed out the error of her ways.
etc.
etc.
etc.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:56 PM

 
resolutions are funny
I had already spent eighteen hours living in 2007 before I gave a second thought to it actually being a new year. I didn't celebrate the New Year last night, and I only made one resolution, one that still makes me laugh when I think about it.

I decided just now to peek at Rose Wilder Lane's five year diary (1921-1935) to see if she had any words of wisdom at the beginning of each year.

1931: This year begins with a very strong bright expectation that it will be a good year.

1932: Last year was catastrophic.

Rose's resolutions for 1932: Two stories a month. Save $100 a month. Earn year's expenses and pay bank before spending except for minimum necessities. Go to England in June if possible.

I assume that "going to England in June" was a minimum necessity for Rose. Even though the day is almost over and I don't have too much time to devote to thinking about it tonight, I already know what my "minimum necessities" are. They involve spending, but not money. Priceless.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:49 PM