happy anniversary
Laura and Almanzo's wedding story from the handwritten Pioneer Girl manuscript:

The house was nearly done and this Sunday he told me that his sister Eliza and his mother were planning a big wedding for us in the church. That he had not been able to persuade them out of the idea and unless we were married before fall, they would be out and surely have their way.

Manly didn't want that kind of a wedding He said he could not afford what it would cost him.

I knew Pa couldn't afford to give me that kind of a wedding either, so I agreed that as soon as the house could be finished, we would drive quietly to Mr Brown's and be married.

Ma and I made my wedding dress of black cashmere, a tight fitting basque, pointed at the bottom front and back, lined and boned with a high collar and plain sleeves rather full at the top, also lined, There was a shirring around the front of each armhole making a fullness over the breast that was taken up by the darts below and it was buttoned straight down the front with imitation jet buttons. The skirt was long just escaping the floor as I stood straight. It was plain at the top, but gored so it was full at the bottom. It was lined throught with cambric dress lining and interlined with crinolin from the bottom to as high as my knees.

(You know the dress. It was still my best dress when we came to Missouri)

I had besides a black and fawn color striped silk dress a present from the Chicago friends. It was made very plainly, with a gored skirt and polanaise without any trimming whatever. My brown open work silk dress and my tucked lawn were still good.

On the morning of August 25th. 1885 at half past ten oclock, Manly drove up to the house and drove away with me in the buggy, for the last time in the old way.

We were at Mr Brown's at eleven and were married at once with Ida Brown and Elmer McConnell as witnesses.

Mr Brown had promised me not to use the word "obey" in the ceremony and he kept his word.

At half past eleven we left Mr Brown's and drove home to dinner, which Ma had ready and waiting for us.

Then with good wishes from the folks and a few tears we drove over the road we had traveled so many times, across the Big Slough, around the corner by Pearson's livery barn, through De Smet and then out two miles north to the new house on the tree claim, where Manly had taken my trunk the day before

There were three rooms in the house and a leanto over the back door.

The front door opened into the main room, which was dining and sitting room. At the right hand, as one went in the front door, was the door into the bedroom and a little farther along the door into a most wonderfully shelved pantry, with many drawers of many sizes and a broad shelf across the far end under the window.

Manly's batchelor, kitchen stove was in the leanto over the back door, which was opposite the front door. The dishes Manly had used in his housekeeping were on the pantry shelves his table in the dining room and his bed in the bedroom. A neighbour woman had been in and put all in order.

There were provisions of all kinds in the pantry with bread a pie and a cake that Manly had bought from the neighbor.

When the new home had been looked over and admired inside and out, I got supper and washed up the dishes.

Afterward we sat on the doorstep in the moonlight and looked out across the prairie.

"The moon is at its full and riding high
floods the calm fields with light.
The winds that hover in the summer sky
are all asleep to-night."

The horses were comfortably resting in their stalls in the stable back of the house. We could hear them move now and again.

The cow Pa had given me was lying in the barn-yard chewing her cud and Old Shep, Manly's dog lay at our feet.

I was a little awed by my new estate, but I felt very much at home and very happy and among the other causes for happiness was the thought that I would not again have to go and live with strangers in their houses. I had a house and a home of my own.
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:18 AM

 
our mr. reed
Burr Oak, Iowa, Sept. 29, 1877
We, A.M. Perry and A.H. Starr, being duly sworn deposes and say. We are residents of Independent District No. 5 in Burr Oak Township Winnishiek County. That William Reed the teacher employed to teach in said Independent District No. 5 is incompetent and unqualified in this:

1. The said Reed is profane.
2. The said Reed is guilty of using vulgar and obscene language in public places acting in a drunken and disorderly manner, singing improper songs and disturbing the quiet of public meetings and imposing upon peaceable strangers.
3. That said Reed has manifested in a public manner and place: disturbing the peace and quiet of the community and leading him to use unjustifiable languate in the control of some of the pupils attending the school.
4. That he is guilty of indecent improper and immoral conduct toward some of the female pupils in attendance at said school. In this: That he did on divers occasions tickle and squeeze the hands and use improper signs and do other immoral acts towards said female pupils by dropping chalk down their backs and during the years 1876 and 1877 at Burr Oak school.

The charges against said Reed... and we believe the same to be true. ... therefore move the Superintendent to revoke said Reed's certificate.

[note: The case was dismissed because no students would testify against him.]
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:48 PM

 
send money
Dear Members, Volunteers, Community members, and Friends: The storm overnight Tuesday night into Wednesday resulted in over 5 inches of rain here in Burr Oak. As a result, water reached the concrete bridge and inundated our Museum community Park (but not the building) and damaging some of the infill on the far northeast end of the new retining wall behind the Visitors Center --leaving substantial debris and detritus, and causing some landscaping damage. We anticiapte the area will be dry enough to begin, I emphasize begin, cleanup this weekend. It is important to begin asap to minimize danger and deterioration. Your help is critically needed. Please pass the word. We can use pickup trucks, wheelbarrows, rakes, shovels, saws, bags, and other such tools and supplies. We will be needing fill material also--but that doesn't need to take priority. Please wear boots and wear gloves. Basic cleanup times will be 9-5 Saturday and 12-5 Sunday.

Cleanup will continue each day and evening after that--please let us know if you can when you are coming so we can coordinate. Come with a friend if you can. Consider donating if you can't come. Pass the word. Letting me know of your response would be helpful. Thank you so much. The Museum and Vistors Center thankfully remains open and fully operational. We also ask you if you have not already to consider donating to the SE Minnesota and SW Wisconsin flood relief efforts. Our situation, though needing to be immediately attended to, is nothing compared to what our friends elsewhere are going through.

Sincerely,

Michael Blevins
Director
Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum
3603 236th Avenue
Burr Oak, IA 52101
563-735-5916
www.lauraingallswilder.us
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:18 AM

 
the dog jack
From Laura Ingalls Wilder's handwritten Pioneer Girl manuscript, upon leaving Indian Territory to return to Wisconsin:

Pa traded the horses Pet and Patty for some larger horses and because Jack wanted to stay with Pet and Patty as he always did Pa gave him to the man who had them. Then we went on our way in the covered wagon.

Later, the black and white spotted puppy named Wolf is mentioned as living with the Ingalls family (and Black Susan) in the Big Woods. There is no dog mentioned as going with the Ingalls families to Minnesota.

From the handwritten manuscript for On the Banks of Plum Creek (Chapter 7, "Company"):

When Ma sent Laura for a fresh bucket of water she stayed down by the creek as long as she dared.

Laura knew it was not polite to go away and leave company, but Ma had sent her and there was no need to hurry back.

When at last Laura was back at the door, she heard Jack's low growl from the top of the creek bank. She looked up and then she screamed. Jack and some dog were fighting at the top of the path.

Jack had hold of the strange dog's throat and the strange dog was biting into Jack's shoulder.

Neither made a sound now. And neither one would ever let go, for the strange dog was a bulldog too.

Ma came hurrying out when Laura screamed but she saw nothing wrong.

"A dog is fighting Jack," Laura shouted pointing. Then Ma looked up and saw them and she and Mrs. Nelson ran up to where they were. But they could make the dogs stop.
Mrs. Nelson was almost crying. "My dog!" she said. "He will be killed by the throat!"

Laura and Mary were there and Ma was holding Laura back from trying to help Jack. Pa was not in sight and there was no help anywhere. The dogs would surely kill each other.

"He is hurting Jack! He’s hurting Jack!" Laura kept crying as she tried to break away.

"Hold her Mary! We don't want her in the fight," Ma said. Then she turned quickly and went down the path.

"Oh! Is Ma running away, leaving Jack to be killed," Laura thought.

But Ma came hurrying back carrying the bucket full of cold water. She went close to the two tumbling, fighting dogs and poured all the cold water on their heads and faces.

It ran down all over them wetting them well and in surprise they opened their mouths, letting go and backed away from each other.

Ma grabbed Jack by the collar and led him away down the path and into the dugout. She brought Carrie and Anna out and shut Jack inside. Then she brought them both up the path.

Mrs. Nelson took Anna on her arm, called her dog and went home with him following. "I bet I tie him good next time!" she said as she went.

When Mrs. Nelson and her dog were gone Ma opened the door and Jack came out. He lay down on the path by the door. He was panting and tired.

Ma washed his wound with fresh, cold water while Laura petted and comforted him. "He didn't let the bad, old dog come down our path did he," she said as she stroked his head and rubbed his ears. And Jack, to thank her, licked her hand with his great, red tongue.

When they told Pa about the fight, Pa said, "I guess Jack is not growing old so fast as I thought. That dog of Nelson's is a great fighter, and Jack had the best of him. "But whatever made you throw water on them, Caroline? How did you ever think of that?"

"Oh! I don't know. "I just thought it might cool their tempers," Ma answered.

"And it worked!" Pa laughed. "It worked and it's worth remembering!"

If neither Jack nor Wolf lived at Plum Creek, and if there is a ring of truth to this story, what two dogs were fighting?
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:09 PM

 
why not

This is what the good folks in Burr Oak had to work with. Did they take exterior photos from all sides, and lots and lots of interior photos as well?
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:58 AM

 
dear miss webber

Portion of a 1962 letter from Rose Wilder Lane to Clara Webber, the Pomona (California) Public Library's children's librarian from 1948-1970, in reply to questions about the Frank Cooley family from On the Way Home:

...George, the younger [Cooley son], was his mother's pet, pride and joy. Paul and I found him hard to bear. Once, when the Cooleys were spending the day (Sunday) with us on the farm, I was about eleven and we had moved from the log cabin to a one-room and attic frame house (now the kitchen...); we children were playing by the cabin beyond it, as seen from the house, and for some reason which I now forget, George was unendurable. I picked up a piece of 2x4 left from the building and hit him over the head. He fell and lay motionless. So Paul and I went down by the spring and had a happy time wading in the little creek, catching crawdads deftly behind their big claws and looking closely at them before carefully letting them go again; watching snakes and frogs, etc. etc. all that morning. When we were called to dinner we went happily in, and when asked, "Where is George?" I candidly replied that I had hit him and he was lying out there behind the cabin. Paul and I were astounded by the grown-up reactions to this simple--and, to us, satisfactory--fact...
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:04 PM

 
mrs. jones takes the rest cure
The telephone rang sharply in Mrs. Jones's dining room, early one summer morning, and Billy answered it for his mother was busy.

"This is Uncle John," said the voice in the phone. "We are thinking of coming out to your place for a week; it's so awfully hot in town and the children with to play around in the country. Tell your mother."

"Wait a minute," said careful Billy and, hanging the receiver on the hook, he turned to his mother who as clearing the breakfast table and repeated the message.

Mrs. Jones was tired that morning. It was hot in the country, too, especially over the cook stove. And there was so much work ahead that she could not see her way thru it.

She threw up her hands with a gesture of dismay. "Oh! I'm just sick!" she exclaimed.
Billy turned slowly to the telephone, but there was a twinkle in his eye. Tho slow of movement, he was not slow mentally and he was his mother's right-hand man.

"Hullo," he said and then, "I'm afraid it won't do. Mother's ill," and hung up the receiver.

Mrs. Jones gasped, "Oh, Billy," she said, and then she thought: "Well, why not:?" If John and his wife and the two boys came to be fed and waited on she would get none of the week's work done and would be exhausted when the end of the week came. If she were ill (?) the work planned for the week would not be done, either, but at the end of the week she might be rested.

"Well, Billy," she said, "Mother is sick. She is sick to death of this endless work, and if you will clear away the breakfast things, I believe I'll go lie down."

This was the way Mrs. Jones came to take the rest cure for a week, lending the children a helping hand only now and then when they got into serious difficulty and consoling herself for her desertion of them by planning a vacation for them later.

Everyone seems to be so overburdened these days, let's be considerate about our visiting.

I had company myself one day last summer. Mr. and Mrs. P and their three children drove up in their car at just 11 o'clock one morning. I welcomed them as prettily as I knew how, made them comfortable in the living room and said: "If you will please excuse me now, I shall get us all some dinner."

"Oh! We can't stay for dinner," said Mrs. P: "we shall stay only a few minutes." After that I could not leave them to get dinner for The Man of The Place and his hired help, so I sat with them, trying to be entertaining, tho wondering frantically how I could hasten the dinner when I was free to get it.

They stayed on and on. At half past 11, I again urged them to stay and tried to excuse myself from the room. They only refused again, saying they must go. But they didn't. At a quarter to 12 I felt some way that if I should ask them again they would stay to dinner and let me get it, but I had become angry and resolved that if they should stay all day I would not again ask them to eat with us. They left at a few minutes past 12, just as the men appeared in the barn door coming to dinner.

We do enjoy company, all of us, but we are all tired. We have been working unusually hard for two years and have been under a nervous strain besides. We have each adjusted our burden so that we are more or less able to carry it, but a little addition to it makes it, in some cases, unbearable. It was the last feather in the camel's load that broke his back, you know.

Company we must have! Visiting should be more frequent that we may exchange ideas and learn to know and love one another, and there are ways that this may be made easy for us all instead of burdening one another by being inconsiderate.
One of the pleasantest times I remember last summer was a surprise visit from a family of five persons. In the middle of the morning a team drove up and the five were unloaded at my door.

"Daddy was coming on business," cried one of the grown daughters "and we desired to visit with you so we just came along."

"Don't be scared," said the soft-voiced mother. "We took you by surprise so we brought a picnic dinner and we won't let you even build a fire. Just bring out what you have cooked and let's all picnic together."

They proposed eating out under the trees, but we decided it would be pleasanter to spread the dinner on the long table on the screened north porch. How simple and easy, with nobody overworked or tired, and we did have such a good visit.

---Mrs. A.J. Wilder, Missouri Ruralist, February 5, 1919
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:59 AM

 
obit
Letter to Laura from Carrie, October 1928:

Keystone, S.D. Saturday morning- Dear Laura, Laura I am so sorry to write this and yet of course we were expecting it. Mary had another stroke Saturday and then it seemed as thought she would rally but this morning is hardly able to move. She has lost her speech and Laura I doubt if she rallies. The trained nurse was up from Rabid City on a baby case and came to see her. She said nothing could be done and the doctor came and said so too. It's hard but Laura I hope, just hope, she goes in comfort. She is not suffering just sleeping real quiet. And she may rally out, it would be only to have it over again. I will telegraph you if it courses. She was speaking of you that morning. In haste, love Carrie.

Mary's obituary:

Mary Ingalls passed away at the home of her sister, Mrs. D.N. Swanzey, at Keystone, is learned by wire Wednesday. The body arrived in De Smet Thursday morning with Mrs. Swanzey accompanying it. Miss Ingalls suffered another stroke a few days before her death, after a year of ill health following former strokes. Funeral services will be held at the Congregational church Friday at two o'clock, with the Rev. J.T. O'Neill officiating. -De Smet News, October 28, 1928
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:49 PM

 
whine, whine, stephenwhines

So there's going to be a "new" book of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Missouri Ruralist articles edited by the same literary prospector who brought us Little House in the Ozarks, I Remember Laura, Saving Graces, and three volumes of Laura's Ingalls Wilder's Writings to Young Women on various topics - although I never got the impression that the Ruralist articles were TO young womem, did you? Oh yeah, and Fairy Poems and probably a book or two which I can't remember.

I can't believe that the Laura Ingalls Wilder / Rose Wilder Lane Home & Museum in Mansfield, Missouri, hasn't published their own collection of Missouri Ruralist articles. Or better yet, a volume of copies of actual pages from the Ruralist. After all, the surrounding articles and advertisements are just as entertaining as the Wilder bits. They don't sell the Hines culls, but surely they ought to be making money on these for themselves? Keeping it close to home and all that?

The originals at the University of Missouri are crumbling to dust, and apparently they are the only researchable collection of originals out there. I spent a fair bit of time copying what I could, only I couldn't copy all of them because there are more than a fair handful of them blatantly missing from the collection. I'd like to tell whoever took a mat knife neatly to some of the articles - or ripped out actual pages - that you are lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut and I hope you die a miserable death.

Why the University of Missouri hasn't microfilmed this collection is beyond me. (I asked, and was told it was a matter of $$$, of course. History be damned.)

Why one of the non-profit LIW sites hasn't jumped on the Missouri Ruralist bandwagon is, again, beyond me.

Why stephenwhines edits the Ruralist articles and changes their titles for "his" books is waaaay beyond me. What do you think the chances are that he did the honorable thing by his new book? Yeah, me neither.

Btw, God bless Barnes & Noble and their Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Family Collection. At least they published Laura's words and Laura's titles. If you can't find a yellow hardback, you can download it here: http://www.ebookmall.com/ebooks/laura-ingalls-wilder-a-family-collection-wilder-beardslee-ebooks.htm .
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:58 AM

 
liw & wwjd

An unemployed tramp seeks help at a well-to-do church, but is rebuffed by the minister. He walks away, only to return the following Sunday morning during services. He asks to be heard, challenging the congregants about their beliefs. "So you believe what you sing? Do you mean what you say? How can you enjoy your lives of plenty when so many are without? Is this what Jesus would do?" The tramp collapses, and later dies. The parishioners and their pastor are shaken by the words of the poor man, and many of them pledge for one year to ask themselves at every turn, "What would Jesus do?"

The story was written by Rev. Charles Sheldon and published as In His Steps in 1897. Rev. Sheldon had delivered the book as sermon-stories to his congregation in Topeka, Kansas; it had been published as a serial in The Advance, the same religious weekly read by Caroline Ingalls and family. (See The Long Winter and Little Town on the Prairie.)

A copyright error put In His Steps into the public domain very soon after publication; it is one of the most published books in history. It made Charles Sheldon and his Topeka church famous. Most notably, the core question of the story: "What Would Jesus Do? (WWJD), is one of the most widely recognized acronymns in Christian history.

Rev. Charles Sheldon was the son of the Reverend Stewart Sheldon, first superintendent of Home Missions in Dakota Territory. In Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder writes:

And so the winter was passing quickly and merrily when along in February on another cold, snowy night we heard a shout outside the door and Pa opened the door to let in Rev. Alden, our own Rev. Alden who had started the church in Walnut Grove; whom we had not seen for years, who was still a Home Missionary and had been sent out into the west to plant churches along the line of the new railroad. We were mutually surprised and pleased to meet again.

With him was another missionary, a small, quick, red-headed Scotsman, with a slight burr to his tongue. But how he could sing!

They stayed the night, held church services the next day with a congregation of nine counting Grace and went on west. They returned after a week, stayed over night again and went on east, with the promise to return later and organize a church.

Church records tell us that Reverend Alden delivered that first sermon on February 29, 1880. Records list the names of Rev. Alden, T.H. Ruth, A.W. Ogden, Mr. and Mrs. Boast, Mr. O'Connell and William O'Connell, but no names for the other of the 25 present (many more than the nine Wilder said were there) were recorded. Wouldn't the church record have recorded that the Superintendent of Home Missions was in attendance?

In By the Shores of Silver Lake, Wilder writes: ..."Oh, I wasn't the one who joined in," said Reverend Alden. "That was Scotty here. I was too cold, but his red hair keeps him warm. Reverend Stuart, these are old, good friends of mine, and their friends, so we are all friends together."

Reverend Stuart was so young that he was not much more than a big boy. His hair was flaming red, his face was red with cold, and his eyes were a sparkling cold gray.

It has long been believed that "Scotty" was Rev. Stewart Sheldon. In 1880, Rev. Stewart Sheldon was 56 years old, too old to be considered "so young as to be not much more than a big boy," although he was living in Yankton that winter and did start 100 churches in Dakota Territory. His son, Charles, was just the right age, and he had recently graduated from college.

Just who did accompany Rev. Alden to the Surveyors' House?
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:17 PM

 
goat rug
The following is a partial list of items downstairs remaining at Rocky Ridge farmhouse and "formerly belonging to Laura Wilder" - dated August 1958:

KITCHEN: 1 electric stove, vase on shelf, 4 canisters and bread box, breakfast table, 4 chairs, brown pitcher, ashtray, teakettle, salt and pepper, nut bowl and 4 picks and cracker, 1 wood stove, candy thermometer, hot lifter and pad, toaster, some odd dishes, cup and 2 covered dishes, 1 wood box, 2 pans and sieve, washpan and odd pan, pitcher, basket vase, 2 candy jars, set of 2 dish drains, juicer, egg beater, big spoon

LIVING ROOM: divan and chairs to match, 1 overstuffed chair, 1 fireplace bench, 2 end tables, 1 high backed rocker, 1 high backed straight chair, 1 barrel rocker, 1 occ. straight chair, 1 stand table, 1 dining room chair, 2 metal lamps, 1 vase lamp, red bowl lamp, floor lamp, cypress table loaned by Mr. and Mrs. Seal), 4 ashtrays, mirror over fireplace, candle holders, rug on floor

DINING ROOM: dining table and Laura's lamp on table, boy and girl statue, National Geographic 4 books and Laura's Bible and glasses on table, 2 kitchen chairs, Laura's rocker, 2 pillows and shawl, small buffet, mirror over table, Albanian coffee set, 2 trays and cake cover, tray with candy dish and 6 glasses, 5 plates, 4 small plates... alarm clock, hostess chair, 1 arm chair, clock, stove, circulating heater

BEDROOM: Mr. Wilder's table and lamp, oak stand table, 1 lamp, vanity dresser and stool, comb brush mirror clothes brush, dressing table and lamp, 1 arm chair loaned by Mr. and Mrs. Seal

BATHROOM: 3 mirrors, powder box, comb and brush, figurine, tray with hairpins and combs, eye cup

MRS. WILDER'S DEN: writing desk, chair and pillow, homemade table made from a tree branch, 2 pictures, mirror on wall, Mrs. W'S old fashioned couch

MUSIC ROOM: pictures, 5 dining chairs, 2 lamps, hat vase, small copper barrel, chinese vases, rose colored bowl, small dish with handle, glass compote with copper vase, 7 pieces of fruit, large round tray, buffet cover, pitcher, mirror, stand table and vase, ship lamp

Edited from the list are the goat rugs on the floor in various rooms. One wonders what happened to the goat rugs? Or the refrigerator and victrola, for that matter.
- posted by pioneergirl at 6:17 AM

 
after incorporation
More snippets. Letter from Rose Wilder Lane, early 1958:

...I am hoping that the Committee can make an arrangement to combine the library now in town with the Memorial. I thought that perhaps the Librarian, with a friend if she liked, would live there, and that the books could be combined. There is as much room in the downstairs befroom and the office, for books, as there is in that little rented room in town, and my mother's books could go back on the shelves where she kept them; and when I lived there I had another book case built against that half-wall in the livingroom, just inside the diningroom door on the right as you go into the livingroom. There are two bedrooms upstairs, and the attic could be a nice little private sittingroom. The place could be offered rent free, for the place in town, and save the librarian whatever she pays for rent; her salary could go on as it is now. She would keep the place open only the same hours that she keeps the library open now, and the rest of the time she would have the use of the whole house- the kitchen, b ath, and livingroom in the evenings. If this could be done, it would solve the problem of a caretaker and keeping the house open during the summers, for tourists happening by. Those who have library cards would be admitted free; others would be charged admission.... I see no reason why the library should stay where it is. In these days of cars the little run out to the house doesn't matter to anybody, and actually by measurement the house is no farther from the schoolhouse than the library is now...
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:59 AM

 
memorial library beginnings
Bits of a letter from Rose Wilder Lane to Neta Seal, dated April 30, 1967:

...Irene Lichty has written to me about the proposed museum-library memorial, and this morning I have a letter from Ruth Freeman telling me about the Open House plan. I suppose some arrangement has been made with you about the furniture, rugs, curtains, etc. I have just written Ruth mentioning that all of the contents of the house belong to you and saying that I suppose an arrangement has been made with you.

I wish you would write me what you think of the plans for the memorial. My mother often said that she wished the house could be kept as a memorial; somebody had suggested it and she wished it could be done but it did not seem probable. It seemed to me that the house was rather far from town, but I guess that does not matter in these days of cars, and really it is no farther from the school than the present library is. There seems to be an idea there now, of making a memorial-museum of the house. Ruth wrote that it seems to be the logical place, and that there will be Open House ther on May 19th, and they will try to have the furnishings arranged as nearly as possible as my mother had them.

Now all the furnishings belong to you, my mother told me to give them to you and I did. So if they are to be used, either temporarily or permanently, to furnish a museum library memorial, either they still belong to you or you must be paid for them; I mean, you must either rent or sell them to the memorial association.

In detail, what my mother told me was this: I was to give her books to the Mansfield library (NOT to the Wright County LIbrary Association); all the household furnishings to you; and I was to keep any "keepsakes" that I wanted. I told her that I wanted the clock, the writing desk and sewing cabinet... and maybe a few other things, and that I thought the organ... should go to some museum. So when the committee called on me and proposed a memorial museum in Mansfield I left in their care all those things that should be in such a museum...

...You said that you wanted some things and would probably sell the rest... Would you let me send you a check for whatever they might bring you at a sale, and would you then make an arrangement with Ruth about the committee's using them in the Open House, and just sort of keep informed about what becomes of them and let me know if you think I should do something about them? If people there do organize a non-profit Foundation for a permanent museum-library memorial in the house, then the things might stay there permanently. But if the talk comes to nothing, I don't want them just to be scattered around, without my knowing about it and doing something...

...With love to you both, Rose
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:36 PM

 
my day

The above scanned page was sent to me by a fellow researcher. It is from the RWL papers at HH; it probably dates from about 1938 or so.

Rose wrote: "I have never been so busy without getting anything done in all my life."
- posted by pioneergirl at 4:52 PM

 
uncle peter

Received this photo in an email this morning from John Bass. The poor forlorn grave sported a pot of something dead, so I added the flowers. Someone really needs to take a scrub brush to that lichen.

Peter Riley Ingalls was born October 28, 1834 in Cuba Township (Allegheny County) New York, the eldest of ten children of Lansford Whiting Ingalls and Laura Louise Colby. When Peter was a young teenager, the Ingalls family moved to Kane County, Illinois, just west of Chicago. In the early 1850s, they moved to Concord Township (Jefferson County) Wisconsin; Lansford bought eighty acres there in 1854. To the south lived the Holbrooks: Frederick, his wife Charlotte (widow of Henry N. Quiner), and five of her six children.

There were three marriages between the Ingalls and Quiner families. Peter Ingalls married Eliza Ann Quiner on June 5, 1861.

After the loss of his farm in Jefferson County, Lansford Ingalls moved to Waterloo, Wisconsin, and Peter and Eliza also moved and lived with the Ingalls family. When Lansford moved to Pepin and Pierce Counties in Wisconsin in the mid-1860s, Peter and Eliza followed. Four children (Ella, Peter, Lansford, and Edith) were born in Wisconsin.

In 1874, Peter and Eliza and family moved to Zumbro Falls (Wabasha County) Minnesota, where son Edmund was born. Following a flood in 1888 which wiped out most of the town, Peter, Eliza, and Edmund (the other children were already married) moved north to Milaca (Mille Lacs County) Minnesota. Here, Peter Riley Ingalls died in March 1900.

After her husband's death, Eliza Ingalls went to live with daughter Edith in North Dakota. She then moved to Stevens County, Washington, and lived with son Edmund. When he decided to move south, Eliza moved to California and alternated living with daughters Alice and Ella in their homes. Eliza Ingalls died June 6, 1931, in Eagle Rock, California; she was buried in Hernet, California.
- posted by pioneergirl at 7:49 AM

 
brain fever
...Mary had the measles in Burr Oak and the illness, they called it brain fever, that caused her blindness was the effect of the measels [sic]. She had the brain fever in Walnut Grove. - Laura Ingalls Wilder to Rose Wilder Lane, December 1937.

This disease is one of the most alarming and fatal affections that physicians have to deal with. It usually comes on with headache, intense and deep-seated, which somtimes seems to occupy the whole head: sometimes some particular part of it, as the forehead, side, or base, and occasionally shoots from one point to another. It is usually constant, but many times paroxysymal, coming and going, and being more severe at one moment than another. There is usually a chill, more or less marked. The back aches, the feet are cold, the bowels constipated, but not always; the skin is hot, and not much sidposed to moisture; the pulse is rapid and hard, and sometimes irregular; and the pupils of the eyes contracted, no infrequently to the size of a pin's head. There is an intolerance of light and noise, loss of appetite and vomiting; the eyes are suffused, and have an excited look, and often there is squinting; the face is either flushed or pale; the temporal arteries throb; there is wakefulness, restlessness, uneven respiration and sighing; a tottering gait, if the patient attemts to walk; ringing in the ears, and sometimes convulsions. After a certain length of time, delirium sets in, usually coming on at night, or it may be present, to a greater or less extent, from the beginning. There is incoherency, uneasiness, and slight shudderings. The patient wants to get up, and must be held in bed, or he will do so. He now tugs patiently away, endeavoring to arise, never getting weary or angry, for hours at a time, and finally, if he should be allowed to do so, he gets up on the floor, totters feebly around, gazes indifferently about him, and seems to have no object in the world for wanting to get out of bed. Light is not painful to him now, and his headache is usually gone; the pupils no longer remain contracted, but become much larger in size than is natural; the sight and hearing become impaired; liquids like in the mouth without being swallowed, or are allowed to run out of it; the delirium yields gradually into drowsiness, attended often with twitching of the tendons and picking at the bed-clothes; and the pulse, instead of being frequent, as at first, is slow and measured, and the repiration uneven, and interrupted with deep sighs. Convulsions are not infrequent, and the urine sometimes dribbles away without the consciousness of the patient. As the disease progresses in its course, the drowsiness grows deeper and deeper, until a complete state of insensibility ensues. The patient lies upon his back, lifeless and immovable. The pulse becomes very fast and weak; the repiration grows more irregular and sobbing; the skin becomes cold, and covered with a clammy perspiration; the features grow sunken and haggard, the spinchter muscles of the body relax, and the patient dies in a state of profound insensibility.

This is the usual more of attack and course of the disease, but it does not always follow these rules. Sometimes it is ushered in with convulsions, which leaves the patient in a stupor, from which he only arouses when pinched or sharply spoken to, and immediately falls back again. In other cases, this drowsiness or stupor is the prominent symptoms from the comencement; and still at other times delirium is the first symptom, which gradually increases as the disease advances, or is furious from the onset. In some rare instances the disease has been known to commence with a sudden loss of speech, but his form is not at all common.

The course of the disease is very uncertain. When it comes on with violoent delirium or stupor, it may terminate fatally within the first twenty-four hours. It more usually lasts, however, from one to three weeks, if treatment is not successful in relieving it.

The causes are blows of falls upon the head; exposure of the head, unprotected, to the rays of the sun, or to artificial heat; violent mental excitement, hard study, etc. It always is more common in men than in women, but women are not by any means exempt from it. It occasionally supervenes upon scarlet fever or small pox, and sometimes from disease or trouble of any kind in the ear.

The treatment is what physicians term "strictly antiphogistic" -- that is, opposing inflammation, for the disease in itself is an inflammation of the membranes which cover the brain, and protect if from the skull. No individual, without the experience or practice of a physician, should undertake to treat the case without the aid of one. It is a dangeroud disease, and what is to be done for the good of the patient, must be done in the beginning, before the inflammation gets too much under headway. When the symptoms begin to make their appearance, give an active cathartic, make cold applications to the head, soak the feet in warm water, and apply mustard poultices, and send for a physician. This is the best thing that can be done, and the quicker it is done, the better.

So says Dr. Charles P. Uhle, January 1872.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:30 AM

 
librarything.com
My library listings-in-progress is HERE. I seem to tangent there every six months or so, and today was one of those days.

I can't get all of my book covers to show up when I do the "random books from my library" option for the blog, so I'll just leave the librarything link in the sidebar for now.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:59 AM

 
daily statistics
Number of RWL stories copied: 20
Number of RWL stories waiting to be copied: 22
Number of articles about LIW to be copied: 2
Number of trips to bank for more money for copies: 1
Number of yearbook photos of LH character descendants: 4
Number of years of Godey's read: 6
Number of times Godey's made me LOL: 1
Number of times the Bouchies were mentioned: 1
Number of border crossings: 2
Number of trips by Sanford home on Chestnut: 2
Number of trips to purchase bubble tea with double boba: not nearly enough
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:59 AM

 
find it
The latest mission is to build my very own "find it" game (like these, but with a total "Little House" theme, of course. The ends will be rounds of cottonwood and the little recycled plastic pellets inside will be... grains of wheat? tiny beads?

INside will be a garnet/pearl ring, thimble, tiny farm animals, tiny plastic vegetables, farm tools, slate, etc. etc. etc.

The fun never ends.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:07 AM