nellie oleson meets laura ingalls
I recently read the "Little House / Big Adventure" book titled Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls, written by Heather Williams (pseudonym for Tui T. Sutherland).

Sutherland's take on Nellie is that "she would have to have had a pretty sad life to turn into such a brat." (from Sutherland's blog dated 16 October 2006. In that entry, Sutherland also wrote that she "never really watched the television show," and that her Nellie is based on the "book character."

Quite frankly, I never read book Nellie as all that odious; I certainly saw Laura and Nellie's mutual childhood dislike for each other, and I saw it revisited in adolescence. I saw Nellie wrinkle her nose and sniff and call Laura a "country girl," something that didn't seem to bother the slightly older and more mature Mary Ingalls. "We are country girls," said Mary. As a former teacher, I saw Nellie and Laura acting exactly like some little girls still act: competitive, overly dramatic, bossy, and sensitive - or insensitive - in turn. Quick to anger, quick to blow things out of proportion; quick to move on to something else. I certainly never saw hatred in Nellie; it was more the "meanness" of poor manners and bad behavior.

In On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder doesn't dwell on the Nellie-Laura relationship. It consumed Sutherland's book. I found that I didn't really care about this "poor little rich girl Nellie" that Sutherland wanted me to find sympathy in, because I really wasn't shown another side to Nellie; when she's good, I'm still reminded that she's got reason to be bad, and that reason is Laura. Nellie's redemption is too little, too late; the "meanness" in Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls isn't just the bad manners of On the Banks of Plum Creek, it's "spiteful and malicious," definitions that weren't even part of Webster’s Dictionary during the "Little House" years.

As almost everyone knows, the Nellie Oleson of On the Banks of Plum Creek was a composite character based on the personalities of the real Genevieve Masters (who was Laura's age) and Nellie Owens (who was a year younger than they). De Smet Nellie Oleson is based, in part, on Gennie Masters, as Nellie never lived in De Smet. The Nellie who goes riding with Almanzo in These Happy Golden Years is based on Stella Gilbert, who was not in school with Laura and Gennie.

I couldn't remember how Laura Ingalls Wilder presented Gennie and Nellie in Pioneer Girl, so here is a glimpse of what went into the Nellie character:

Genevieve sneered at the other girls in school because they were westerners. She thought herself much above us because she came from New York. She was much nicer dressed than we were and lisped a little when she talked: if she could not have her way in anything she cried or rather sniveled. Everyone gave up to her and tried to please her because they liked to appear friends with the new girl. Every one that is except Nellie Owens. Nellie was still a leader among the girls when Genevieve came and did not intend to give up her leadership. She tried to hold it by being free with candy and bits of ribbon from her father's store. So my crowd divided. ...I would not be led by either Nellie or Genevieve but took sides first with one and then with the other as I had a notion, until to my surprise I found myself the leader of them all, because Genevieve and Nellie each being eager to win me to her side would play what I wanted to play and do as I said in order to please me.

In On the Banks of Plum Creek, we aren't introduced to Nellie until Chapter 20: she's pointed out to Laura, described and duly noted by Laura, and Nellie wrinkles her nose. In the next chapter, Nellie is rude in front of her father and again snippy to Laura.

The Nellie-Laura struggle is the main story in three chapters, yes, but when it's out of sight, it's also thankfully out of mind and print. It returns in Chapter 30 for Nellie to show off her fur cape, and in the next chapter for Laura to "one up" Nellie yet again by receiving not only a fur cape, but a muff as well. This is Laura's story, of course, where rich little poor girl wins every time. There is no more Nellie for two whole books, and almost half of a third.

Sutherland's Nellie doesn't seem to have had a sad life. She seems to have been coached and trained at every turn to be nasty, snobby, and rude. Her mother tells her "... a lady of good breeding does not hold a grudge. She holds herself above her enemies and makes them feel small just through her actions." (page 137)

It's interesting to me, that for someone who "never really watched the television show," Sutherland's Mrs. Oleson seems to be channeling Katherine MacGregor's character. I went through On the Banks of Plum Creek just now, and here's all I was told about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Mrs. Oleson:

Chapter 22, "Town Party": She invites the girls in; LIW implies that Mrs. Oleson must have talked to them a bit because Laura is too in awe to say more than "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am." (In the letters from LIW to RWL, Wilder wrote that she was in awe of the furnishings, which, not being hand-made, appeared very fine to her.) --- "Go into the bedroom and leave your bonnets," Mrs. Oleson said in a company voice. --- Mrs. Oleson's skirts went rustling among them.... Mrs. Oleson said, "Now, Nellie, bring out your playthings." --- She made Willie be quiet when he talks back to Nellie.

After Nellie won't let Laura touch her doll (we are seeing the doll for the first time, same as the rest of the girls), Mrs. Oleson approaches Laura, who is sitting by herself: Mrs. Oleson came in and asked Laura why she was not playing. Laura said, "I would rather sit here, thank you, ma'am." --- "Would you like to look at these?" Mrs. Oleson asked her, and she laid two books in Laura's lap.

Laura is absorbed in the books. Suddenly Mrs. Oleson was saying: "Come, little girl. You mustn't let the others eat all the cake, must you?"

Mrs. Oleson serves the children cake and lemonade. "Is your lemonade sweet enough?" Mrs. Oleson asked.

That's it!

Without knowledge of the playground or doll incidents, for all Mrs. Oleson knows, Laura Ingalls is simply shy and uncomfortable at Nellie's party. In my mind, Mrs. Oleson is presented as a gracious, courteous, and caring woman.

Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls is of interest because of its obvious link to the "Little House" series. The question is: could it stand alone - or stand out - if the character names and location were changed to something else?

Laura Ingalls Wilder has long been more than a fictional character to millions of readers and fans. Nellie Owens Kirry and Genevieve Masters Renwick and Stella Gilbert Drury were real women with children and grandchildren, and descendants among us.

Is this the story they deserve to read about their ancestors?
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:16 PM

 
frogs at school
Twenty froggies went to school,
Down beside a rushy pool.
Twenty little coats of green;
Twenty vests, all white and clean.
"We must be in time," said they:
"First we study, then we play;
That is how we keep the ruls,
When we froggies go to school."

Master Bullfrog, grave and stern,
Called the classes in their turn;
Taught them how to nobly strive,
Likewise how to leap and dive;
From his seat upon a log,
Showed them how to say, "Ker-chog!"
Also how to dodge a blow
From the sticks which bad boys throw.

Twenty froggies grew up fast;
Bullfrogs they became at last;
Not one dunce among the lot,
Not one lesson they forgot;
Polished in a high degree,
As each froggie ought to be:
Now they sit on other logs,
Teaching other little frogs.

In Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote that while living near Walnut Grove, they used to borrow books from the Sunday School library. They read them many times, until she and Mary knew them nearly by heart. Laura included some partial verses in her manuscript, part of the "Frogs at School" poem above.

"Frogs at School" was written by George Cooper, and it appeared as a new poem in an 1874 issue of The Nursery, a magazine for young readers. Published from 1867-1880, The Nursery contained page after page of stories, poems, and illustrations (the issue containing "Frogs at School" was over 200 pages). It also appeared in Webster's Little Folks' Speaker in 1875, a book of pieces for memorization and recitation. If Laura actually learned the poem in Walnut Grove, she most likely read it in one of these publications.

George Cooper (1840-1927) was an American poet and writer. He studied law at the office of Chester A. Arthur (U.S. President, 1881-1885), although he didn't continue to practice law long after being admitted to the bar. He was quite successful as a writer of poems for children, and his works appeared in many school textbooks and magazines during the "Little House" years.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:15 AM

 
"you're crazy!" pa said...

"Out with that baby when it is fifteen below." And so it was by the thermometer. "She might have smothered," Ma added. -The First Four Years, "The Second Year"

There was good reason for Ma and Pa to have worried when Laura and Almanzo took baby Rose for a January visit to the Ingallses across town. George and Julia Ingalls were married in 1876; George was Charles Ingalls' brother and Laura's "Uncle George" of Little House in the Big Woods. George and Julia had several children, all of whom died shortly after birth. Their next child lived for a year, but when they took him to visit relatives, he was wrapped so tightly that he smothered. Julia Ingalls lost her mind, and for the rest of her life, she was in and out of the insane asylum, finally dying there in 1910.

Surely Ma and Pa were thinking of their nephew when Laura and Almanzo threw caution to the wind and took Rose to visit their own relatives that winter. Or perhaps the trip in The First Four Years didn't actually take place, but was written as a warning to us all.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:54 AM

 
fact or fiction?
Lots of chatter today about the recent vandalism of Robert Frost's Vermont farmhouse as reported in The New York Times: a group of teens broke into the home for a night of drink and destruction.

The news made me especially sad, since I've always had a bit of a thing for Robert Frost, who, for many years, was a regular annual winter visitor to my alma mater, Agnes Scott College. Although Frost had died a decade before I began at Agnes Scott, his memory was kept alive by those who had known him, and the Frost room in the library was one of my favorite haunts for four years.

What I am curious about, though, is the comment made by a blogger that she has a friend who worked at one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder homesites, and that they regularly found "panties and beer bottles" (or something of the sort) inside on Monday mornings. While I am no stranger to fantasies of breaking in and spending a night at Rocky Ridge in Almanzo's bed - and I once participated in a bit of a secret seance (I guess it was a secret until now) in which Rose Wilder Lane's ghost in the Little House was contacted - the idea that there might have been "goings-on" at one of the LH sites is something I find hard to believe...

I mentioned Mansfield, but I don't know if the person was talking about one of the replica cabins or the Third Street House; it doesn't matter! The Ingalls or Wilder possessions defaced or destroyed? That's something I find too upsetting to think about for long.

People are people, some people are pigs, and some pigs have no morals. And I hope that what happened in Robert Frost's home is making the powers that be at every one of the LIW museums look at their own security measures to make sure they are protected by the best the market affords.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:40 AM

 
too good to be true

Not naming any names here, but someone named one of the words in the title of this blog (but not any of the words in the name of the author of the "Little House" books) paid more than the debt on Laura and Almanzo's house in The First Four Years for a set of Easton "Little House" books over on one of those auction sites that rhymes with the kind of horse in the song that somebody bet on and wasn't the bobtailed mare.... and she didn't receive them.

The seller - who was listing "buy it now" sets of Easton books more often than Nellie was uttering "utterly too too's" on that buggy ride - promised shipment within ten days of receipt of payment, which must be via paypal and immediate, mind you. And it turns out that more than ten days goes by and said seller didn't actually have any such sets of books, because, well, gee, there was this story about a supplier in Canada or California or somewhere and waiting to hear from him, blah blah blah.

I did get a refund, but I'm warning you, as Lena told Laura while they were milking those cows, "Beware! Oh beware!"
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:44 AM

 
welcome to vinton

And welcome to the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School, AmeriCorps. Last month, President Bush signed a bill that included an amendment to allocate $5 million to the National Civilian Community Corps program of AmeriCorps to establish two Midwest training centers, one of which will be located at the Iowa Braille and Sight Savings School in Vinton. This was formerly the Iowa College for the Blind, which was, of course, where Laura Ingalls Wilder's sister Mary was educated.

Apparently the Blind School was in danger of being shut down by the Iowa legislature, due to the rising cost of operation of the facility. (I bet they could generate some income if they conducted "Mary Ingalls" historical tours of the place, especially if they published a factual booklet to educate people about Mary's time spent there. Pretty much anything would be a cut above the recently published Mary Ingalls fanfiction...)

According to the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School, they hope to have 160 volunteers (ages 18-24) living at the School. They will be trained by 30 staff members. About a third of the volunteers will have college degrees, another third will have some college background, and the rest will be fresh out of high school. Volunteers will be trained to help communities recover after major disasters, such as hurricanes or fire.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 10:30 PM

 
i want one

Not an ice cream churn: THIS.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 11:21 PM

 
have you seen this woman?

Throughout the "Little House"® books, Ma's precious "little china woman" represents the civilized home that Caroline Ingalls strives to create in each of her little prairie houses. It is never displayed while in temporary quarters (such as the railroad camp in By the Shores of Silver Lake or the dugout on On the Banks of Plum Creek); there is typically a ceremony involved in unpacking, admiring, and displaying of the china shepherdess prominently only after the family is settled.

There is no mention of a china woman / shepherdess in the handwritten Pioneer Girl manuscript or the three versions edited by Rose Wilder Lane. In the existing handwritten manuscript for Little House in the Big Woods, the "Christmas" chapter is heavily edited, with several typed insertions. Here, as in the published version, the figurine is described only as a "little china woman," not a shepherdess. There was no description of the china woman in the manuscript; she merely existed.

While working on the manuscript for On the Banks of Plum Creek, Rose Wilder Lane must have asked her mother how the figurine had been described in earlier books. Laura wrote to Rose in July 1936 and included a transcription of the description from Little House in the Big Woods, Chapter 4: "The little china woman had a china bonnet on her head and china curls hung against her china neck. Her china dress was laced across in front and she wore a pale pink china apron and little gilt china shoes."

Since so much of the original text about the china shepherdess in the "Little House" books seems to be Rose's additions to the manuscripts, it is possible that a shepherdess was a memory of Rose's, not Laura's, and that it was added to the series for interest. There are far fewer mentions of the shepherdess in manuscripts than in the published "Little House" series.

In a letter to fans, Laura Ingalls Wilder once wrote that her sister Carrie "had the shepherdess." A small figurine was found among Carrie Ingalls Swanzey's possessions in Keystone, South Dakota, and is currently on display at the Keystone Historical Museum. Many believe that this figurine is "the prototype for the cherished china figurine" (see William T. Anderson's Laura Ingalls Wilder Country. New York: HarperPerennial, 1990). The museum piece is shown in the photograph at left, yet it appears to be of a shepherd, not a shepherdess, although it could have been part of a pair of figurines. Although similar in looks to Staffordshire figures of the nineteenth century, the origin and composition of this museum piece remains unknown, nor if the piece has any markings which might help to identify it.

The shepherd and shepherdess have been immortalized in painting and sculpture for hundreds of years. The china shepherdess figurine is also prominent in literature of the nineteenth century, often found on fictional mantels and compared in looks to the beauty of a female character. Such a china shepherdess was said to be too fine and delicate for the outside world and properly enjoyed only in the parlor, snug and cosy and preferably with the door shut.

While fine porcelain mantel figurines were once owned only by the wealthy, there were many factories employing hundreds of craftsmen to produce both fine and cheaper imitations following the Revolutionary War, when goods began to be exported freely to America. Mantel-piece pairs of shepherd and shepherdess (or other small figures) were wildly popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and enjoyed by all classes. They were a portable touch of refinement, yet by their very nature as being breakable, the special care and placement given to such items further elevated their status. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote that no one but Ma was allowed to touch her china shepherdess, and, in the manuscript for On the Banks of Plum Creek, that "the shepherdess had traveled too far to be broken now."

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 1:46 AM

 
beaded watch fob

The January "artifact of the month" in the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society (De Smet, South Dakota) e-club newsletter is a beaded watch fob made by Mary Ingalls. You can see that watch fob HERE.

Although I know that Mary made a beaded watch case for Rev. Brown in the summer of 1883, this is the first I'd heard of a watch fob. I can't imagine that I'm the only person who saw the watch fob photo and immediately wondered she stashed the seed beads, and if there are enough blue, yellow, and silver ones to make this tonight, or am I going to have to go to the craft store in the morning?

Anyway, it took about 15 minutes to chart the pattern above, so happy-beading-to-me. The piece is 17 beads wide; each heart motif is based on 12 rows. The main rectangle is 40 rows, so 744 beads (69 gold? I'm not counting them again...), not counting the fringe. My best guess for the fringe on the original (not shown in the chart above) is 6 blue, 4 silver, 10 blue, 4 silver, then blue and silver in proportion to finish the loop in back. If you don't know how to do beading, you can check out this site.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 12:45 AM

 
carrie drank, and grace

She turned the handle just a little, and water came out of the spout. She turned the handle back, and the water stopped. Under the cup there was a little hole, put there to carry away any water that spilled. Laura had never seen anything so fascinating. It was all so neat, and so marvelous, that she wanted to fill the cup again and again. But that would waste the water. So after she drank, she only filled the cup part way, in order not to spill it, and she carried it very carefully to Ma. - By the Shores of Silver Lake, Chapter 3, "Riding in the Cars"

Where Laura got the drink of water on the train was called the water alcove. It was a built-in recess in the side of a partition of a passenger car through which passed the faucet of a water cooler, a waste water pipe, and to which a drinking cup holder was attached directly beneath the faucet. The alcove was usually made of metal and had an ornamental guard across the bottom, which mainly served to help keep the cup from falling out of the cup holder when the train was moving. On many trains, the water tank was filled with ice water and insulated with wood. The waste pipe typically carried water onto the tracks below, through a hole in the floor.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 1:15 AM

 
what book are you?

I'm A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

"After years of listening to other peoples' lies, you decided you've had enough. Now you're out to tell it like it is, with all the gory details and nothing left out. Instead of respecting leaders, you want to know what the common people have to offer. But this revolution still has a long way to go, and you're not against making a little profit while you wait. Honesty is your best policy."

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 1:09 AM

 
got twinkle?

The strips of copper across the toes were so glittering that Laura wished she wrer a boy. Little girls didn't wear copper-toes. -Little House in the Big Woods, Chapter 10, "Summertime"

Except of course, little girls did wear copper-toes. There were quite the lawsuits going on in the late 1850s, before events in Little House in the Big Woods took place, between rival "inventors" of metal toe protectors for shoes: the National Shoe Protector Company and the American Shoe Tip Company.

Patent documents state: "In providing the upper on the toes of boots and shoes with fenders of copper, brass, India-rubber, gutta-percha, or any other substance, for the purpose of protecting against grasses, etc., cutting or wearing out the uppers on the toes of boots and shoes, which fencer is required to be made so as to fit upon the toe, previous to putting on the outsole, and to extend beneath the outsole far enough to receive the pegs, which are to fasten it on, etc."

In addition to Clarence Huleatt's copper toe protector, his shoes probably had wire-quilted soles.

In September, 1863, the American Shoe Tip Company reported the following "Improvements in the manufacture of boot and shoe toe pieces or tips and in the machinery or apparatus employed therein." The framework consists of a platform and two uprights thereon united near or at their tops by a cross-piece. A block secured to the uprights supports a die holder, which is a quadrangular cast-iron casing open at top and having through each side an adjusting screw. A plunger slides freely up and down on ways along the uprights, and to it is adjusted by means of a dovetail joint and ledge a follower, whose lower end is shaped in accordance with the interior of the tip to be made. The die is a solid metal casting; its cavity is shaped to conform with the outside of the tip and is so disposed that both sides correspond to the underside thereof. The top of the die should be bevelled forming an angle with the plane of motion of the follower of about 40 degrees. Upon the face of the die is fixed by screws a gauge to hold the metal blank in position. The gauge is "a plate having a slot cut through it of such a shape as to fit nicely the convex side of the tip blank; it is so adjusted that the part which is to form the portion of the tip that extends over the toe of the show oer boot shall lap over and extend beyond the cavity in the die. if the machine is worked by hand, a handle is connected to the plunger. When the plunger is raised to a convenient height, the handle is held wedged in a tapering slot while the blank is being fitted into the gauge.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 2:24 PM

 
interlibrary loan is my friend
There are a lot of information tracking sites out there. Some cost money; some are available through public libraries (for free) or through school libraries (with connections). An easy way to keep informed of basic mentions of Laura Ingalls Wilder or "Little House" in the news, on blogs, or on the web, is to sign up for google alerts.

It also pays to have friends and family members who work in libraries.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
a great improvement
Young Albert Quinn, an orderly boy,
Once had, to his very great pleasure and joy,
An autograph album presented to him.
Its pages were neat and its covers were trim.
Within its gay bindings of superfine leather
He promptly endeavored to gather together
The names of his every relation and friend,
Till the book should be filled from beginning to end.

But soon he perceived, with surprise and dismay
And disapprobation, the very strange way
In which people wrote in his elegant book--
He found it distressing to give it a look.
Some autographs proved such a tangle and scrawl
You scarce could determine their letters at all:
While others were crooked, and some seemed to stray
To the edge of the page, as if running away.
Some looked as if caught in a terrible gale;
His grandfather's trembled; his grandmother's was pale;
His father's was blotty and straggled awry;
His mother wrote nicely -- he begged her to try.

He pondered the matter, then purchased another
Fine album, as bright and complete as the other,
And carefully copied the names, every one,
As neatly and fairly as it could be done.
With every angle and every line
Drawn out like a copy, correctly and fine.
With every i and with every t
Neatly dotted and crossed as they needed to be.
His letters were regular, even, and nice,
His capitals stately, exact, and precise.

Then Albert Quinn, in viewing the whole,
Breathed a sigh of relief from his orderly soul,
And exclaimed to himself: "It is better by half,
Than letting each one write his own autographI"

-Sydney Dayre, in St. Nicholas , Feb. 1886

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
but not on one of these

79 words

I wonder how fast Rose could type on her Underwood?

I cheated on the typing test. I took it three times, until I didn't miss any words. The first time, I miss-typed three words; the second time, one. I never took typing in school; I taught myself to type while transcribing the handwritten Pioneer Girl manuscript about ten years ago. Since then, I've transcribed all the "Little House" books (some more than once), all the manuscripts, most of the Ruralist articles, all of the Bouchie trial documents, and all of the early records of the superintendents of schools in Kingsbury County.

Rose told Laura that to get the feel of a piece, you should transcribe it.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 10:11 PM

 
clarence wore them

The patent for copper toed shoes is 150 this month. And, while Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote that little girls didn't wear them, they did.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 12:52 AM

 
"no, miss"

Shouldn't it be a requirement for anybody writing a "Little House" spinoff book to have actually studied the series?

Today, I received and read Mary Ingalls on Her Own. And I was left with nothing positive to say. Instead of concentrating on a nasty fellow student who ends up leaving, why not have written something memorable and positive about a student you close the book and want to know more about? Why not conform to series history rather than try to impress with one or two "real life" discrepencies and a whole lot of memories from the television show?

There is a statement in the afterword that says, "I (the author) don't know for sure if the real Miss Mattice was blind or sighted, but our fictional Miss Mattice can see." Lorana Mattice was indeed blind. Why not research that fact and write appropriately, use the name of an actual sighted teacher if you want a sighted teacher, instead of the name of an actual blind teacher but make her sighted? It was confusing enough to have two characters named "Mattie" and "Mattice" anyway. And why the "Yes, Miss" and "No, Miss"? Do they not say "ma'am" in Iowa?

Random bits:

Back home, she could make her way around town almost as well as anyone. - When? That first year when there was no town? During the Hard Winter?

Ma would place her china shepherdess on the mantel when everything else had been unpacked. And that was how the Ingalls family knew they were home again. - Except that there hadn't been a mantle since Indian Territory, had there?

[I went back and deleted a few here. You're welcome.]

When they moved from Minnesota to Dakota Territory, Laura had faithfully narrated the world to Mary.... it seemed that Mary's sightless eyes had actually seen every inch of their journey from Minnesota to Silver Lake, and then on to De Smet.

I rest my case.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 1:33 AM

 
preorder now

In honor of my birthday in April, HarperCollins is re-releasing the "Little House" books WITH THE GARTH WILLIAMS ILLUSTRATIONS.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 9:48 PM

 
fichu. (bless you)

Today, I was going through notes from a trip to Rocky Ridge made a dozen years ago, and one of the things I did was to make a quick sketch of the Ida's-gift-to-Laura lace. I counted forty scallops on each side, and I reasoned that it was probably 24 or so inches in length, based on the size of a scallop. At the time, it was folded multiple times in the display case, and I remember spending more time counting scallops than sketching.

Later, I had a chance to see the lace with only one fold in it, but I didn't sketch it. It seems that I tend to draw a total blank about what it is I'm supposed to remember to do when I finally have a chance to do it. So this year, I started keeping a list by "Little House" site. Uh, actually I started the list in 2000, but (so far) I've never actually managed to have it with me when I'm at a site. I also need to remember why I was curious about some of the things I listed, such as (1) When did Alice Keith first pay school township 9 taxes? (2) second deed, Jasper Ingalls and others, Kane County? and (3) order 1885 Fillmore Minnesota census again. Uh, why? [Note to self: more detailed notes would be a good idea.]

Back to the fichu. Or jabot. Or scarf. Or frill. Or whatever. If a fichu is typically triangular, this piece of lace isn't. If it's worn about the shoulders and neck, how could this piece be, it's so short and skinny? Who said it's the wedding lace, and when? And why? Why isn't there any family history of Ida doing this sort of work at any point in her lifetime? Why is the lace only fringed and decorated on one end? If this is an actual wedding present, was it in the house fire and survived?

Maybe it's actually the frill that Mary wore at the throat of her best dress at college.

On another note, tonight I saw National Treasure: The Book of Secrets . How cool was it that Mt. Rushmore was part of the movie?

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 9:53 PM

 
interrogative eyebrows
Rose Wilder Lane worte on the same subject again, five years later.

"Why on earth," cried the woman with the interrogative eyebrows, in exasperation, "why on earth do men act as they do and then speak of women's vanity in that superior tone?

"Why does a man enter the best cafe in town with an air of having offered to buy the place that morning, and call the waiter by his first name whether he knows it or not?

"Why does a man prefer to let his best girl think him stingy and selfish rather than confess to her that his shanty isn't as big as he wishes it was?

"Why does the man from the country suffer in agony rather than admit he is not entirely familiar with rushing taxicabs and skyscrapers?

"Why will a man plume himself on asking a woman's love and adoration and reputation and then turn brick-red at the thought of letting her pay a luncheon check?

"Why will a man mortgage the next fifteen hundred weeks of his life to get a diamond solitaire for the girl, and then smile at her 'pretty vanity' as she turns it on her finger?

"Why will a man insist on discussing the tariff at his wife, provided she is a nice little home body who doesn't vote?

"Why will he absolutely refuse to mention the tariff to his wife, provided she specialized in political economies at the university?

"Why will a man spend half an hour daily in the barber's chair, while his manly countenance is being steamed, massaged, shaved, witch-hazeled and softly dusted with powder, and then exclaim aloud when his wife keeps him waiting six seconds while she runs a powder puff over her nose?

"Why will a man spend hours of anxious thought and silent profanity, plus half his weekly pay check, in a shoe shop, and emerge with knobby-toed, brilliant yellow shoes, whose shrieks can be distinctly heard for many blocks, and then tell how his wife is vain of her feet?

"Why will he do all these things and still call woman the vain sex?

"You're looking awfully well in that new hat," said the sweet, agreeable little girl.

"Really?" cried the woman with the interrogative eyebrows. And for three blocks she watched her reflection in the shop windows.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 8:20 PM

 
why are men?

Rose Wilder Lane wrote this in January 1915...

"Why," said the woman with the interrogative eyebrows. "Why will men, who love a smoke more than mother, home or heaven: who are gloomy, morose, unhappy and ill if they haven't a small bonfire going in the corner of their mouth, why will they NEVER have a match on their persons?

"Why will men whose feet are the largest and unlovliest parts of their anatomy, plainly suited for use and not for ornament, fidget and frown and fuss until they get those feet on the desk before them, screening the whole of a new fifty-dollar tailored suit?

"Why will men, seized with a sudden panic of neatness on beholding a house shining with cleanliness, carefully put all the cigar ashes under the pillow when they lie smoking in bed, and conceal the burnt matches inside the pillow cover?

"Why will they furtively slip Nick Carter novels under the bathtub, from whence they can be coaxed only with grappling hooks and lyings on one's tummy?

"Why will men go in to a cigar shop to buy cigars and remain there to shake dice for boxes of candy that they do not want and cannot give away, and then smile superiorly at women's shopping?

"Why will men marry the women they do and then wish they were the women they aren't?

"Why will men boast that their wives have an equal checking power against the bank account and add triumphantly that the said wives haven't the faintest idea how to draw a check, and then pat themselves on the back for being model husbands?

"Why will men say proudly that in thirteen years of married life they have had occasion only twice to assert their authority and really reprove their wives, and believe it a signal proof of model husband-ness, instead of a well-nigh superhuman self-control on the part of the wives?

"Why will men laugh at women's styles and at the same time wear green hats with crushed silk bands and peacock feathers in back? In short, why ARE men, anyhow?

Appreciating the value of a climax, or being short of breath, the woman of the interrogative eyebrows stopped.

"The woman with the ever-ready answer took up the conversation. "Because," she said.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 9:36 PM

 
welcome to 1922, all over again
While yesterday should have been a joyous day with Little House in the Big Woods entering the public domain; or, indeed, any of Laura Ingalls Wilder's remaining unpublished works (are there any?) entering the public domain for countries honoring the "life plus fifty years" minimum standard of the Berne Convention, here we are once again stuck in a time warp, celebrating Public Domain Day in the same way we've celebrated it since, well, 1922, thanks (in part) to the Sonny Bono Act which added another twenty years to the already extended copyright term of many published works. One can only wonder when/if the United States will follow Mexico's "life plus 100 years" rule.

So yesterday, I wondered about the unpublished Pioneer Girl manuscript, which Roger MacBride registered the copyright for in 1982, 203 sheets, created in 1933, which - interestingly enough - declares that it was written after Little House in the Big Woods was published. Since Pioneer Girl was registered but has not been published that I know of, it doesn't enter the public domain until 2048, if I'm understanding all this correctly.

Then there's the 2001 copyright registration (transfer?) by "Little House Heritage, LLC," "Little House Heritage Florida Intangible Tax Trust," and "Little House Heritage Trust" of 34+ titles, including but not limited to: By the Shores of Silver Lake, Farmer Boy, The First Four Years, Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, The Long Winter, On the Banks of Plum Creek, On the Way Home, These Happy Golden Years, West From Home, The Discovery of Freedom, Diverging Roads, Dorothy Thompson and Rose Wilder Lane: Forty Years of Freedom, Free Land, Give Me Liberty, He Was a Man, The Lady and the Tycoon, Let the Hurricane Roar, The Making of Herbert Hoover, Old Home Town, The Peaks of Shala, Rose Wilder Lane: Her Story (by RWL with RLM), Travels with Zenobia, Young Pioneers, A New Dawn for American: The Libertarian Challenge (MacBride), Bachelor Girl, In the Land of the Big Red Apple, Little Farm in the Ozarks, New Dawn on Rocky Ridge, On the Banks of the Bayou, On the Other Side of the Hill, and Rose Wilder Lane: Her Story (this time by RLM with RWL).

What the heck does this do to the copyright terms of these books, if anything? Do the "Little House" book copyrights still (at the moment, that is) start to expire in 2027? One directs questions pertaining to use of the copyrighted LH book texts to Noel Silverman (www.nls-law.com), in case you're curious.

All I know is that I will be decades older that Laura Ingalls Wilder was when she published her first book, when her first book enters the public domain. I will be lucky to live to see that day... and then I really will celebrate, if I still remember who I am at the time, and I'm not in some home somewhere wondering what would have happened if only Freddy had lived or why nobody plays mad dog anymore.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 12:36 PM

 
meet iris

This is Iris (short for "I read it somewhere"), my new research mascot. The reason I have a rhesus sock monkey as a mascot is one of those things that can't quite be explained; it just sort of happened.

Here are some of the things Iris has suggested that I do this year: put pioneergirl webpages back online - both the old and the unseen, finish putting my LH stuff on librarything.com, order the rest of the LIW juvenile biographies I don't own, get rid of the red on my bibliography (with help!), write up at least one LH bit per day (it means something to me, if not to you), and start re-reading all the articles in my article notebooks. For the past few years, I've tried to learn something new pertaining to Laura Ingalls Wilder and "Little House" each day. This year, I think I'll take Sundays off. I was going to start allowing comments again, but I've forgotten how, so if anybody has anything else to suggest that I ought to do, just email me.

Labels: laura ingalls wilder

- posted by pioneergirl at 9:58 PM