frank l.
Frank, George's second son, was born on September 26, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. His earliest memories are of Middlehope, New York, where the parsonage was next door to the Methodist Church. An important memory was learning to fly fish for trout while in the eighth grade. After high school graduation, Frank attended Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts, majoring in Physical Education. As a result of participating in the college Student Christian Association, Frank felt led to go on to theological studies after college.

From 1942-1945, Frank attended Yale Divinity School majoring in the field of Religion in Higher Education. In 1945, the International Committee of the YMCA invited him to accept an appointment to the Student Division of the YMCA in China. That required an additional year of study of the Chinese language, history, and culture at Yale.

Frank was engaged in student ministry in China until December 1951: two years in Beijing in the government universities there and three years in National Chungking University. The Chinese communist takeover in 1949 and the Korean War, which China entered in 1951, made Frank an enemy alien and effectively ended his student ministry in China. The photo above shows Frank in 1951, the day after he was pushed over the border between China and Hong Kong. He is wearing his "letter" sweater from Springfield College (for soccer).

The China experience led him back to graduate study at Yale. Following his marriage, Frank and his wife accepted a call from the Presbyterian Church to prepare for work in higher education in Indonesia. After teaching in the Indonesian Christian University in Jakarta, Frank did field work in Eastern Indonesia before spending a year in New Haven Connecticut, writing his dissertation. In 1962, Frank and his family returned to Indonesia, where Frank taught in Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, Central Java, primarily in the fields of sociology and anthropology.

After a furlough - lengthened by the coup attempt and attendant massacres in Indonesia in late 1965 and early 1966 - Frank was called back to work with the Indonesian Council of Churches to help establish a Research Institute. The first task was to assist the regional Protestant denominations in carrying out a comprehensive study of the Christian Church in Indonesia, which occupied him until 1980. He then spent two years teaching graduate theological students at Satya Wacana in sociology of religion and missiology.

In 1982, the Presbyterian headquarters called Frank to Atlanta, Georgia, to lead a team in designing and implementing a study of the World of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations by the Presbyterian Church (USA) and so serve as Staff Associate for Southern Asia and the Islamic World.

In 1988, Frank Cooley was "honorably retired" from the Presbytery and spent the next two decades preaching, speaking, and fly fishing. In the 1990s, he and his wife Carolyn began researching the Cooley family's "Little House" connection. In 1998, they drove from Georgia to De Smet, South Dakota, and - in their camper - followed the 1894 route of the Cooleys and Wilders from De Smet to Mansfield, Missouri.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:00 PM

 
george

Whom Did Lucile Marry?
(The end of the story.)

Eight o'clock the night before the ball! For almost an hour Lucile had been sitting before the library table dreamily pondering the momentous question, but when the clock struck she said aloud, "Here! This will never do. Poor Edward has 'phoned seven times, and the others -- if I keep them on nettles much longer, they'll wish they'd never seen me! I'll give myself one more hour, and then if I haven't decided, I'll draw cuts.

First to her mother-instinct came the appeal for help, of Traymore Lee. It affected her strongly; three times she had weitten his address on a telegraph blank, and then torn the paper to bits in uncertainty; she dreaded to tell him no, but -- Did he really mean what he wrote, that she was essential to his future? Then why did he try such frequent experiments with other girls? And if he did mean it, was not that a confession of weakness that approached the un-manly? Could she affort to entrust her life to a man who had said, in substance, that he would consider refusal an excuse to let down the bars? She re-read his letter, and after a moment's thought tenderly but finally laid it aside.

Eight-fifteen! She must hurry. As she thought of the other five, her childhood lover came to the foreground of her consciousness. How natural and proper it would seem to go down the years with Crandall Sprague! How pleased her father and mother would be to see her so settled! But that last thought played with mischief, and she shrugged her scholders faintly and placed the bundle of old letters with Tray's epistle, murmuring, "I'll marry for myself, not for my parents; and I choose my wedded life to be not a habit, but a love!"

Love! That was it exactly. The flash of that magic word across her mind suddenly revealed the cause of her perplexity; she was burdening her brain with a task that belonged to her heart. She liked all six of these fellows -- was very fond of them, in fact; was confident that all of them would make good husbands, and was simply trying to decide which would make the best one for her; but did she love any of them? She had loved Stephen Grier's wife, but not request of a dying friend, though cou0led with any amount of admiration and confidence, could take the place of love -- and she did not love Stephen Grier. Arthur Grenville with his wealth and his mastery, Frances Ney with his daring fastidiousness and his literary genious, Edward Steele with his profound knowledge of human nature and his gift of leadership, -- each destined, she felt sure, to a position among the world's great ones, -- these all appealed to her ambition, but not to her love. Then suppose she could somehow be able to determine her preference among these six whom she admired, and at some later day meet Number Seven, whom she should love?

The clock chimed the third quarter. Mentally she framed a message which she would have her father's secretary write to all six -- the same to each -- saying that she did not love him, but neither did she love another, and that she would reserve her decision until some man awakened her dormant affection. It was easier for her to write than to dictate, soshe reached for pad and pencil, and brushed aside the different objects that lay on the table; as she did so, the title-page of Francis Ney's novel fell to the floor dave downward. Her heart seemed to fall with it as she remembered that never since she had received that page with the accompanying proposal in verse, had she thought of anything else byt that her name should be on it. It was the first of his productions to which he had signed his real name, and in her heart she knew that he would not have done so had he not counted on placing her name above his own.

What a terrible disappointment! She tried to write -- started her message once and again only to cross it out and begin over, until she noticed that the words were blurred and there were wet spots on the page. She buried her face in her hands, but wuickly looked up again, first in bewilderment, then in wonder; then with a new light in her soft blue eyes, she whispered, "I love you, Francis, or I wouldn't feel this way!" Trembling, she rang for the messenger, picked up the title-page, and with effort of will steadied her hand to write "Lucile" in the blank space above the name of Francis Ney.

And the clock struck nine.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I had planned to scan a couple of pictures of George Cooley, and perhaps include a bit of the "Easter Cantata" he wrote in 1935 - maybe mention that one of the things his sons remembered was that their father always read out loud to their mother while she was ironing. But I started going through a box labeled The Literary Effects of George H. Cooley, and here I've been sitting for two hours.

George kept stories he'd written; he kept school papers from The Academy at Drury College (he earned an A on one about Shakespeare's Hamlet); he kept poems (including a copy of "An Ode to My Brother on his Twenty-First Birthday"); he kept handwritten sermons from his days at Seminary, and one from his last church.

"Whom Did Lucile Marry?" was written by George Cooley during his college years.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:49 PM

 
paul
According to Paul Cooely, his family took three wagons "On the Way Home" to Missouri, with six horses and their little shepherd dog. Mr. and Mrs. Cooley both drove wagons; Paul and George drove the third wagon in turn. Paul remembered: "Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Wilder and their daughter Rose (just younger than George) travelled with us. They had one rather light wagon, covered, in which they cooked and slept."

Because Paul quit school in the fall of 1900 and left Mansfield for good in November the following year, it's hard for me to imagine a serious romance of any sorts between him and Rose Wilder, who would have been 14 at the time, and Paul, two years older.

In his diary, Paul does mention that his salary was paid by George Burney and that he learned telegraphy from Mr. Burney's daughter Ethel, and that they spent a lot of time together. When reading Rose's Diverging Roads - later reworked as Rose Wilder Lane: Her Story by Roger Lea MacBride - one can easily picture Paul and Ethel as characters in the story rather than Paul and Rose, as their lives and interests ran almost parallel.

Like Paul, Ethel became a station agent herself and was paid $50 per month. Mr. Burney wouldn't let Ethel spend her earnings so she bought bonds, which she didn't cash in until after she married Paul in 1957.

One of the most interesting things I learned about Paul was his interest in oil painting. He had learned to paint as a child in Mansfield, but gave it up while working and didn't return to painting until his retirement. Paul took lessons and painted many landscapes, but he often said that he wished he had captured some of his memories of the scenes from the trip his family and the Wilders made from De Smet to Mansfield. While the trip was said to be about 650 miles according to On the Way Home, Paul remembered it was measured at about 900 miles at the time, and that it seemed like 9000 miles by the time it was over!

The Laura Ingalls Wilder - Rose Wilder Lane Home and Museum has a couple of paintings by Paul. The one pictured here was given to curator Irene Lichty in 1962; it is of the Old Rock Bridge Mill in southern Missouri. I was recently given a painting of El Capitan mountain peak in Arizona, painted by Paul only a few years prior to his death.
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:57 PM

 
emma
Emma Newell - just three days younger than Mary Ingalls - was born on a large and prosperous farm in Durham, New York. Her grandfather was an elder in the Presbyterian church, and the Newell families long kept Saturday night as holy, just as described by Laura Ingalls Wilder in reference to her grandfather's family in Little House in the Big Woods. Emma's father, in addition to farming, was also a career teacher who eventually moved his family to Wisconsin and Nebraska, not for the farming, but to advance his teaching career.

It was to Nebraska that Frank Cooley traveled to marry Emma after he sold a preemption claim in Clark County, Dakota Territory (just north of Kingsbury County). They settled on his homestead claim northeast of De Smet, and in addition to raising their two sons, Emma was active in the Congregational Church, serving as church secretary. In Mansfield, Emma and Frank joined the Methodist Church and she remained very active in church work her whole life.

Many of the questions I had after the Lore article was about "how tiny" Mrs. Cooley must have been. The photo at left shows Emma Cooley Burney late in life; she stands between George and his wife Frances. Although bent in old age, one can tell that Emma was always quite small in size. It would be interesting to know how tall Emma was in comparison to Laura Ingalls Wilder.

When I first interviewed George's son Frank, he told me that when he was a young man in the 1940s, he was driving Grandma Burney somewhere in his car and was forced to brake suddenly. In those days before seatbelts, Emma slid off the seat and onto the floor beneath the dashboard. She was so tiny that she ended up crouched there completely under the dash, and because her coat was the same color as the seats and floorboard, Frank thought she had been thrown from the car because she was "totally lost" in the small space and he didn't see her there! He said it wasn't until he stopped the car and ran to open the door on the passenger side that he realized his grandmother was still in the car and - luckily - she was also unhurt.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:59 PM

 
frank
Frank Cooley and his widowed mother were persuaded to move to Dakota Territory in 1882 by De Smet land agent, Alfred Waters; the two families had known each other for many years in New York. Both Frank and his mother held claims near De Smet.

It was Frank Cooley who went into partnership with Cap Garland hauling goods in De Smet. It was Frank Cooley who, along with liveryman John Pierson, purchased the sheep owned by Laura Ingalls Wilder and her cousin Peter Ingalls and mentioned in The First Four Years.

Emma and Frank Cooley visited the Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair) in 1893, where they learned about "the land of the big red apple" and decided to check it out.

It was Frank Cooley who traveled to Missouri by train in 1893 and purchased two farms near Mansfield, one of them intended for Almanzo Wilder (as there was a problem with earlier deeds on these farms, neither the Cooleys nor the Wilders took possession of these farms). It was Laura and Almanzo Wilder who followed the Cooley family to Missouri.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:27 PM

 
serving theater since laura and almanzo got engaged

With so many misuses of the word homestead out there in the world of Laura Ingalls Wilder, it made me laugh to read in Playbill how The Guthrie describes the Little House on the Prairie musical, premiering today:

The Guthrie describes Little House as such: "Though their DeSmet, South Dakota, farmstead comes with many new challenges, the Ingalls family perseveres through the hardships of pioneer life to find hope, love and the promise of a new beginning in a land of endless sky and open prairie. As Laura struggles to overcome a lifelong loathing of school and frequent battles with a town rival, her older sister's sudden blindness and a harsh winter blizzard test the independent spirit of this young pioneer. Forced to grow up quickly, she follows an unexpected calling, becoming a teacher and finding love on the prairie."

Did you get the joke? Or jokes, since we all know when South Dakota became a state... and since when did Laura Ingalls loathe school?
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:16 AM

 
the cooleys and the wilders

The following article was written by me (copyright 1999 Nancy Cleaveland, all rights reserved, etc.), and printed in the Summer 1999 Rocky Ridge Review, a member newsletter published by the Laura Ingalls Wilder - Rose Wilder Lane Home Association in Mansfield, Missouri. A companion article - covering the early years of the Cooley family - appeared in the Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore (Volume 25, Number 1, Summer 1999), a member newsletter published by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, Inc., in De Smet, South Dakota. That article was reprinted by the Society in The Best of the Lore in 2007. Because that booklet it available for purchase from the Society, I will not transcribe it here. See www.discoverlaura.org for information on purchasing The Best of the Lore.

After the Wilders and the Cooleys arrived in Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, the Cooleys moved into a small farmhouse a few miles north of Mansfield. Before school began they moved to town to run a small two-story white frame hotel and lunchroom on the northeast corner of the square. An 1894 printed advertisement read: "F.M. COOLEY - Restaurant and Lunch Room - Table Supplied with the Best The Market Affords - Also a fine line of Confectionery, Fruits, Cigars & Tobacco."

By January 1896, the Cooleys had given up the hotel business and purchased a house on Commercial Street. Mr. Cooley became a partner with John Rogers in the dray and water business. They hauled goods to and from the depot and peddled water to homes and stores that had no well or pump, using a tank wagon filled with water from the spring south of town. Frank Cooley was also agent for the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, selling mostly kerosene.

The first years in Mansfield were busy ones for both the Cooleys and the Wilders, but there was still time for visiting. In later years, Rose and Paul both wrote of Sunday afternoon visits the Cooleys made to the Wilder farm. Paul and George liked playing in the ravines at Rocky Ridge Farm most of all.

Since there was no Congregational Church in Mansfield, the Cooleys joined the Methodist Church. Until the Methodists built their own building in 1899, services were held at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, west of the George Burney property. The Burneys were well-known and respected in Mansfield; land owned by Mr. Burney and sold as town lots added considerably to the original size of Mansfield. Mr. Burney was agent for the Frisco Railroad, so he and Frank Cooley saw a lot of each other, and their two families became good friends.

In December 1897, Frank Cooley came down with pneumonia. He was only 37 years old, but despite treatment by Dr. F.B. Fuson, he died on December 29th, leaving Emma a widow at age 32. Frank was buried in the Mansfield Cemetery.

The next year, Laura and Almanzo Wilder moved into town, renting the house two doors east of the Cooley home, where Emma, Paul, and George continued to live. Almanzo took over Frank Cooley's jobs, both in the draying business and as agent to the Waters-Pierce Oil Company. With the Wilders living in town, Paul and George were able to spend even more time with Rose after school hours.

Mr. Cooley had been a member of the national fraternal society, the Ancient Order of United Workmen. The A.O.U.W. provided what was known as "fraternal life insurance," a death benefit paid to a member's family. Emma Cooley received at least $1000 from this fund, money that enabled the family to keep their home. For a while, Emma again ran a small confectionery, this time out of the home. She also kept boarders. Paul had a paper route and both he and George worked at odd jobs. Mr. Burney soon asked Paul to work at the depot after school - as a "flunkey" - for a salary of six dollars per month.

Following her husband's death, Emma Cooley showed her talents as a shrewd businesswoman. Calling herself a capitalist, she made loans with the cash she had, and she easily made more money by holding mortgages at 8% per year. When a borrower failed to repay a loan on time, Mrs. Cooley had their property seized by the sheriff. She then typically purchased it at public auction for less than market value and resold it at a profit. Only one person was found to have borrowed money from Emma Cooley, not repaid their loan on time, and not be foreclosed upon. That person was Almanzo Wilder, who didn't repay his loan from Mrs. Cooley until three years after the note was due.

As neighbors in town, the Cooleys and Wilders saw each other often. Emma Cooley and Laura Wilder were members of the Methodist Ladies Aid Society. They were both mentioned in a long poem published about the history of the Methodist Church in Mansfield. It said, in part, that they were two of the original six members of the Ladies Aid and were "very good workers, honest and truly."

Only one social club in Mansfield seems to have had both Emma and Laura as members - the Interesting Hour Club. This group met at a member's home each month, where papers were presented and discussed, followed by refreshments and a social hour. Although they were friends, Emma and Laura did seem to be part of different "social circles." At one point late in life, Laura wrote that the only women left in Mansfield were part of what she called "the old group" and were not much fun to be with.

As part of his job, Paul learned to operate the telegraph key at the Depot. During that time, Mr. Burney's daughter Ethel was also learning telegraphy. A wire ran from the Depot straight to the Burney kitchen several blocks away, and when Paul wasn't busy with other obligations, he and Ethel practiced sending and receiving messages to each other. Mr. Burney served as their tutor. Returning to Mansfield after graduating from high school in Louisiana, Rose Wilder learned the basics of telegraphy from Ethel and Mr. Burney as well. Rose was so enamoured with it that she ordered a telegraph sounder and key from the Montgomery Ward catalog and began her career as a telegraph operator.

In 1900, the entire Mansfield High School consisted of 29 students, including Paul and George Cooley. A ninth grade had been added, but in 1901 it became apparent that Paul and George Cooley, much like Rose Wilder, were capable of going beyond what Mansfield had to offer. All three left the Mansfield school. In September, 1901, after being urged by Mr. Burney to quit school at work for the Railroad full time, Paul Cooley quit school and moved to a rented room at the home of banker Noah J. Craig. Although he was academically gifted and longed to finish high school, discontent over a teacher's departure and the removal of Latin from the curriculum helped Paul to make his decision. Paul must have also felt the need to help his family financially.

George Cooley had decided that he wanted to become a preacher, and discontent over a favorite teacher's departure and the removal of Latin from the curriculum prompted Mrs. Cooley to rent the house in Mansfield, moving with George to Springfield, Missouri, where George entered Drury Academy to prepare for college and continue his Latin. For the next three years, Emma ran a boys' boarding club called Woodland Cottage.

With his mother and brother no longer in Mansfield, Paul decided to leave as well, accepting a job as Railroad Agent in Osceola, Arkansas. After a short time, he moved on to a better-paying position as Agent in Blytheville, Arkansas. He wasn't yet 18 years old so he had to get written permission from his mother in order to draw his monthly salary of $50 in his own name. When George started college, Emma moved to Blytheville to live with Paul, and George joined them during his summer vacations.

George graduated from Drury College in 1907 and began his studies to become a minister at Chicago Theological Seminary the same year. After graduation from Seminary, George entered the Newark Methodist Conference and was assigned to a church in Hope, New Jersey. Emma left Arkansas and moved to New Jersey to keep house for George.

Shortly after Paul had moved to Blytheville, he met Odessa Hollipeter, daughter of the owner of the sawmill and electric company. Paul left the Railroad to become bookkeeper for Mr. Hollipeter, and then he started keeping company with Mr. Hollipeter's daughter. Paul and Odessa were married on Thanksgiving Day, 1909, a marriage that lasted forty-five years and blessed them with two children. Their son William became a Methodist minister; sadly, he lost his life at a young age in an automobile accident. Paul and Odessa's daughter Marian graduated from the University of Tennessee and became a teacher and a librarian. She settled in northeast Arkansas, where she is still living.

George Cooley continued his education, enrolling in Drew University Theological college; he was ordained Deacon in the Methodist Church in 1910, serving at a number of Methodist churches in New Jersey over the next several years. In 1913, he married Ella Reed. In 1917, Ella gave birth to a son, Harold, but not long after his birth, she died in the flu epidemic. Emma Cooley had returned to Arkansas to help Paul and Odessa with their children; now she moved back to New Jersey to live with George and look after baby Harold.

Soon George was assigned to churches in New York; there he met Frances Carr and they were married in 1919. Once again Emma changed households, returning to live with Paul. Emma became active in the Red Cross, serving as the first Red Cross secretary in Blytheville.

George Cooley had five sons: Harold, Frank, Arthur, Ralph, and adopted a nephew, Charles. The boys all grew up in the southern Catskills region where their grandparents had both been born and raised. Three sons followed their father into the Christian ministry, three joined the U.S. Air Force. Only two sons are still living, Frank and Charles.

George always served at least two - and once five - small Methodist congregations at a time. George was also avidly interested in music; as a young boy he had studied the violin. He occasionally composed songs for youth groups, and as a minister, he often led the singing in this congregations with a strong tenor voice. Singing around the piano at home was a frequent evening pastime for the family, with Frances Cooley at the piano.

The Cooelys always kept in touch with friends they had known in Mansfield: the Wilders, the Burneys, neighbor Carrie Rogers (whose house was between the Cooleys and Wilders).Paul and Rose continued to correspond. Ethel Burney became a telegrapher, married a railroad engineer, and moved to Springfield; and Paul and Odessa often visited them there. Paul and Odessa also visited with the Wilders at Rocky Ridge Farm. Emma returned to Mansfield whenever she could, sometimes with Paul and Odessa, sometimes alone.

The Cooley and Burney families especially kept in touch. After the Cooleys had moved away, George Burney - Ethel's father and Paul's mentor - had been elected Mayor of Mansfield, serving from 1911 to 1915. He also continued to serve as Agent for the Frisco Railroad, a position he held for over thirty-five years.

On Valentine's Day in 1924, George Burney and Emma Cooley were married in Paul's home in Blytheville; Mr. Burney had been a widower for several years. George and Emma returned to Mansfield to live in the Burney home, and Emma continued her work with the Red Cross. She also served as the County Probation Officer for Wright County in 1924. Emma was again active in the Methodist Church in Mansfield. She again attended Ladies Aid Society meetings and presented papers at club meetings. One paper Emma presented was on education, and it asked the question: "If a young person could read just one book a month for the next year, what books would you advise him to read?"

Emma's marriage to George Burney was a happy one, but all too brief. Less than three years after they were married, George Burney suffered a stroke as he was walking back to the Depot after mailing a letter. Two friends helped him into a car and rushed toward the Burney home, but George died before they arrived at his home.

Emma Burney lived in Mansfield off and on for the next fifteen years. She sometimes spent the winter with Paul and Odessa, or granddaughter Marian would spend extended periods with her in Mansfield. Sometimes Emma lived in Wisconsin with relatives. In 1943 she moved to an apartment in half of Paul's freestanding garage. Emma always put the needs of her sons and their families before her own and didn't seem to mind playing "musical families" as she moved from family to family over the years. She always said that she wanted to be where she was needed most.

In the early 1950s, George Cooley retired from the ministry and settled near Stevensville, Virginia. Emma died there in 1956 while living with George and Frances; she is buried in the Methodist Church circuit cemetery there.

After the death of his mother, George decided to drive to South Dakota to see where he had been born almost seventy years before. He asked Paul to go with him and Frances, and Paul was happy to do so. Paul wanted Ethel Burney Morris, now a widow, to join them. A widower himself, Paul had asked Ethel to marry him and she was "taking it under advisement." The trip would give them a chance to see if they still got along as well as they had in the old "Mansfield Depot" days.

In De Smet, Paul and George tried to locate the old Cooley farm and the schoolhouse they had attended, but they didn't have any luck finding either (the schoolhouse had been moved and was a private residence). On the ten-day trip in Paul's Studebaker, the two couples logged 3357 miles through nine states. How different this journey was from the one in 1894!

Paul and Ethel were married in 1957 and lived at Paul's home in Blytheville. Paul Cooley had done many things since leaving the Railroad for a career in accounting. Sharp in math skills, he advanced quickly to the position of auditor of the Hollipeter Power Plant. He was also County Auditor for twelve years. His love for the Church was shown in his multiple positions in the United Methodist Church over the years. He served in virtually every position in the Sunday school, was auditor for the church, and then was treasurer for the Conference for more than fifty years. For eight years Paul served as a lay minister for a Methodist Church in Arkansas. He celebrated seventy years as an active member of the Methodist Church and fifty years as a Master Mason.

Paul Cooley had been interested in painting as a teenager but had to abandon the hobby when forced to go to work. After his retirement, he took lessons and painted numerous canvases of scenes he remembered from his travels over the years. He sent two paintings to Rose Wilder Lane and another to Irene Lichty, the first curator of the Laura Ingalls Wilder - Rose Wilder Lane Home & Museum. One of Paul's paintings is typically on display at the Museum, as well as copies of letters and cards he sent to Rose.

In October 1966, Ethel, Paul, and George made their last trip to Mansfield together to attend special services for the dedication of the new (and current) Methodist Church sanctuary. They donated pews in honor and memory of the Cooley and Burney families, and they sat in them during the services, which George participated in as minister. Those pews, identified by brass plaques, are near the back of the church on opposite sides of the aisle.

Rose Wilder Lane telephoned Ethel and Paul Cooley early in 1968 from her home in Harlingen, Texas, inviting them for a visit before she left for a trip overseas. Paul and Ethel were unable to make the trip; Rose died in Connecticut on the eve of her expected departure.

Frances and George Cooley continued to live in Virginia after George's retirement. For a few years they sought the warmer climate of the Gulf coast in Dunedin, Florida, but they returned to Virginia to enter a Methodist retirement home, where George Cooley died in 1973 at age 87. Paul Cooley died in 1981 at age 96.

The publication of On the Way Home introduced generations of readers to Emma and (unnamed in the book) Frank Cooley and their sons Paul and George as "the family that traveled with the Wilders." More recently, Roger MacBride's highly-fictionalized "The Rose Years" series included the family, and questions were asked about the Cooleys' places in the Ingalls and Wilder family histories: "Did it really happen that way?"

Hopefully, some of those questions have now been answered.
- posted by pioneergirl at 5:54 PM

 
business opportunity

http://activerain.com/blogsview/608301/Little-House-Buffet-in

The Little House Buffet in Mansfield, Missouri, is for sale. Asking price: $199,975. I hope it sells in a timely fashion and remains a restaurant; there aren't that many dining options in Mansfield, although there are some good places to eat in neighboring towns.
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:01 PM

 
the horse gift

...Suddenly into the sunny green and blue came two brown horses with flowing black manes and tails, trotting side by side in harness. Their brown flanks and shoulders gleamed in the sunshine, their slender legs stepped daintily, their necks were arched and their ears pricked up, and they tossed their heads as they went by... "Oh, what beautiful horses!" Laura cried. -By the Shores of Silver Lake, Chapter 28, "Moving Day"

A couple of months ago, I blogged about the mural-in-progress, Le Cadeau Du Cheval, and how artist Lee Michelson was inspired by Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books to paint Almanzo Wilder's Morgan horses, Prince and Lady.

LOOK! Michelson's contribution, panel 101, is finished. Isn't it beautiful? You can check on the progress of the entire mural here:

http://www.muralmosaic.com/Cadeau.html and the mural mosaic project itself, here: http://www.muralmosaic.com/.

Learn more about artist Lee Michelson and her work here:

http://www.mitchelsonsmountaingallery.com/.
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:51 AM

 
on the way home

I recently spent six days at the home of one of George (from the "Little House" book, On the Way Home) Cooley's sons, Frank (named after his grandfather), going through photographs, books, and papers belonging to both Paul and George and to their parents, Emma and Frank Cooley. And much to my delight, I was given the entire lot to bring home to study further! The boxes almost filled my back seat and I drove very, very carefully...

So here I sit, surrounded by a box of George's sermons and music (he became a Methodist minister who often composed music to be used in church), Paul's briefcase full of treasures (some from Mansfield school days...), letters and notes and postcards, boxes of papers, and boxes and boxes of both identified and mystery photographs that date from Emma and Frank's early years in New York - to family life in De Smet - to George plowing in Mansfield - to both George's and Paul's children and grandchildren.

I'll be sharing tidbits over the next week as I organize everything for an Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder / Coooley project I'm working on. Stay tuned.
- posted by pioneergirl at 4:30 PM

 
still on the road
One more week might just do it...
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:13 PM

 
on the road again
I'm heading out in the moring on another "Little House" adventure. Check back in ten days!
- posted by pioneergirl at 3:44 PM

 
laura speaks
In his blog today, Dean Butler discusses why Noel Silverman, attorney for the Wilder Heritage Trust, believes that the way Almanzo Wilder's name was pronounced on the television show is the correct pronunciation: in other words, as Al-MON-zo, not Al-MAN-zo.

Those of us who say Al-MAN-zo base our pronunciation on Laura Ingalls Wilder's own. When Mrs. Wilder was 62 years old, she was recorded during a scripted interview by Docia Holland, librarian in Mansfield. A set of "character dolls" (on display in Mansfield) had been given to Laura by fans in California, and the recording was sent in thanks.

On the recording, both Wilder and Holland pronounce the name the same: Al-MAN-zo. If you haven't heard the recording, it is well worth having, and is sold by most of the "Little House" museum gift shops. In addition to Laura's voice, there are songs played on Pa's fiddle.

After reading Dean's blog this morning, I copied the three times Laura says "Almanzo" and you can listen to it HERE. Give the .wav file a few seconds to open. I think I'm going to make that the ring tone on my cell phone...

I have a couple of videos from the early 1990s in which Neta Seal - friend of the Wilders - repeatedly says Al-MAN-zo. I have one from 1993 in which Roger MacBride (who never met either Laura or Almanzo, btw) uses that pronunciation. I didn't record Norma Lee Browning's speech at Rocky Ridge Day, but I have talked to a number of people over the years who did know both Laura and Almanzo, and they always pronounced his name Al-MAN-zo.

Let's face it: It's Al-MON-zo on Little House on the Prairie and there's nothing wrong with that. But until a recording of Almanzo surfaces, I think the best authority we've got is Laura's own voice, and hers is the pronunciation I'll continue to use, unless I'm talking about Dean Butler's character on the television show.

It's not straight from the horse's mouth, but it's pretty darn close.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:38 PM

 
yay
Earlier this week, The Guthrie actually had tickets left for the very day I needed them. Whew.

"Look at Nellie dance!"
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:25 AM

 
books that define your childhood

This article from the London TimesOnline lists "90 most awesome old-school children's books" in response to an earlier blog in which the author listed books that defined her childhood. While there are a couple of unfamiliar (to me) titles on the list of 90, the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are included as one selection, and On the Banks of Plum Creek is listed as a separate entry as well.

I first read many of the titles as an adult, including those by Elizabeth Enright and Lucy Maud Montgomery, the What Katy Did series, and Girl of the Limberlost. Others, such as the Bobbsey Twins books, the Hardy Boys books, Charlotte's Web, Louisa May Alcott's books, and Black Beauty, I read as a child.

I don't know if these books defined my childhood or not, but the following have been with me since my pre-teen years, and are still read and re-read by me today.

(1) The "Little House" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

(2) The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace.

(3) Miss Jellytot's Visit by Mabel Leigh Hunt.

(4) 121 Pudding Street by Jean Fritz.

(5) The Edith and Mr. Bear books by Dare Wright.

(6) The Bobbsey Twins series by Laura Lee Hope, the non-PC ones belonging to my mother and aunt.

(7) Ellen Jane by Frances Margaret Fox.

(8) The Surprise Doll by Morrell Gipson.

(9) Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.

(10) The Borrowers series by Mary Norton.

While the ten entries above are books I've owned since I was a child, I don't remember buying books on my own until I was in high school. I remember repeatedly checking the following books out of the library, though, and I've since bought copies: Ginger Pye and Pinky Pye and other books by Eleanor Estes, The Fairy Doll by Rumer Godden, Grimm's and Anderson's Fairy Tales, Caddie Woodlawn and Magical Melons by Carol Ryrie Brink, and The Story of Lohengrin: The Knight of the Swan by Doris Orgel.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:04 AM

 
don't be a willie

The first year the Owenses lived in Walnut Grove, Willie was blinded in one eye and damaged the other after playing with firecrackers. According to Laura Waskin's 1997 article in the Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore, "One day, a group of boys in town decided it would be fun to pile up some rocks in the middle of the road and blow them up. Willie was eager to please the older children, who persuaded him to go over to his parents' store and get some firecrackers. WHen he brought them back, the older boys lit them, and quickly put them into a striped paper candy bag. Then, they piled up gravel on top, and stood back to watch it all blow up. But instead, the firecrackers went out, so the boys asked Willie to go over and blow on them to get it started again. Not knowing any better, he obliged, Suddenly, the volatile material exploded..."
- posted by pioneergirl at 5:53 PM

 
o.m.t.

...Being all that tract or parcel of land situated in part of lot number eleven in Township number seven of the old military tract bounded as follows to wit: Beginning at the south east corner of said property... and running thence west on the south line of said lot sixteen chains to the middle of Trout River thence south twenty degrees east four chains and thirty three links, thence south three degrees thirty minutes west three chains and ten links, thence south forty five degrees east seven chains and thirty one links, thence south four chains thence east eight chains and ninety links...

In the late 1700s, Alexander Macomb purchased a tract of land containing 821,819 acres in what later became Franklin County, New York, for a mere eightpence per acre. Adjoining this tract to the east were Military Tract lands, originally surveyed to award as bounty to Revolutionary War soldiers or those soldiers who protected the north from Indian raids, but eventually sold by New York State as wild lands (they were believed to be practically un-inhabitable because of the climate). The land was surveyed into townships of one hundred square miles which were divided into lots of varying size and shape. Some townships weren't divided into lots at all.

It has been said that unlike a homesteader later filing on a claim in the west and taking his parcel of land - warts and all - based on the coordinates of the claim, buyers in the metes and bounds lands of Franklin County got to chose the parcel of land they wanted, then it was platted accordingly. Therefore, when James Wilder bought and sold land in Franklin County, the legal description reads like the bit shown above, taken from the 1858 deed whereby he sold a large portion of his farm to his brother-in-law, Andrew Day.

All deeds in Franklin County still reference the Old Military Tract townships and lots, so in order to "know where your land lies on the map," you have to be able to read the original O.M.T. survey map. Fortunately, that map is readily available. But to make it even more fun, many of the older deeds begin with reference to a parcel of land simply belonging to a previous named owner, so you often have to trace back through deeds of previous owners for decades to find a property description that can be plotted on the map.

It also helps to know that there are 100 links in a chain, and a chain is 66 feet.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:06 PM

 
art swap

Last month, I took part in a Laura Ingalls Wilder blog-a-thon and art swap sponsored Quill Cottage. Thanks so much for organizing this, Miss Sandy, and for letting a non-craft-regular participate.

I realized early on that I probably shouldn't have signed up for a month-long anything when I was going to be out of town for two of those four weeks. As a result, I didn't have as much time or energy to devote to the art projects as I'd have liked, and I never even blogged about two of the topics. I also found that I didn't have as much time for research as usual, and that was pretty painful.

Another thing I realized is that I have very definite craft ideas about Laura Ingalls Wilder and "Little House" and me, and about being creative in general. In my mind, it was more about Laura and less about the crafting, and I am willing to bet that others didn't see it that way. I'm not at all fond of coordinated and pre-packaged papers, trim, borders, letters, or anything you can purchase at a craft store or see in a craft magazine. I tend to want to do everything from scratch and I definitely obsess. I've been working on both a LIW scrapbook and a log cabin dollhouse for a while now, and the going is slow when you want to use a bit of lace but find yourself knitting it first, and only after finding a pattern from the 1860s.

Anyway, I thought I'd share the art swap projects I did and explain a bit of what each contains in the way of LIW imagery.



WEEK ONE: Embellished quilt square; click HERE for biggie view. -- This took me a really long time to get into, partly because I didn't like the color choices on the old quilt square I was provided with. It was a ninepatch tied with red floss, featuring a green/brown plaid and a blue/white leaf print. I never would have paired these two together! The first thing I did was to tea-dye the square, hoping to tone down the white (it didn't help much). I contemplated using a piece from an old quilt of my own, but in the end I just decided to cover up as much of that sucker as possible, which was the general idea anyway.

Most of the bottom third is a pocket trimmed in netted lace and plaid ribbon. I made a little 3-inch tall ragdoll for one side, and also stuck in some wheat grown on the Ingalls homestead. I also made a little autograph album, complete with some entries scanned and copied from Laura Ingalls' own album (that's Ida Wright's entry shown in the picture). Also tucked in the pocket are some miniature pages of the LIW manuscript for Little House in the Big Woods ("Once upon a time, long ago..."). Above the pocket on the left is another pocket (crocheted) with a fabric Laura Ingalls photo sewed on. It contains some namecards, including mine, Almanzo's, and one in New York Point that I made. There's also a soapstone slate pencil tucked in there.

The top part of the piece has a big wooden button, a small slate, and a brass skeleton key (I was thinking about the key to the schoolhouse that Clyde Perry gave Laura in These Happy Golden Years). I made a bear claw / dove-in-the-window square for the upper right. Hanging in front are some prairie roses and two (shrink plastic) "candy" hearts with the sayings from Little House in the Big Woods. The hanger at the top is a twig from one of Pa's cottonwoods, tied on with bits of leather.



WEEK TWO: Hang-tags. We were provided with some buttons, paper LIW images, several pages from a "Little House" book (mine was On the Banks of Plum Creek), plus three manila "luggage" tags. I think this was the project that made me realize that - to me - Laura Ingalls plus art do not equal "fussy Victorian." (Yes, I know Laura made a Victorian crazy-quilt at some point in her life.) This was the first project I did, and I looked at those blank tags and book pages and all I could think of was weaving strips of text or somehow turning them into a log cabin. I actually loved keeping a more monochromatic color scheme.

Some of the things I added were part of an "I love Laura Ingalls Wilder" pin, lace, ribbon, and bits of hay. I used all my own buttons here, including one made from a cottonwood branch. For a biggie view, click HERE.



WEEK THREE: Recipe card. We were provided with a couple of blank recipe cards, an 8-inch square sheet protector with black paper, and some cookbook pages. I ended up using my own stuff for this, and I used one of Caroline Ingalls' recipes rather than one of my own. The recipe is for "Mixed Pickles" and was published in the 1914 Cream City Cook Book, published in De Smet by the Aid Society of the Congregational Church. The cookbook also contains recipes by Mrs. Loftus, Mrs. Power, Mrs. Boast, and others.

I used a gold/red handmade paper for the base. I printed the recipe in brown ink, and added wooden buttons and a couple of "gardening" illustrations from Little House on the Prairie. The photos are of Laura and Ma. At the top are some paper seed packets I made; they represent the tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and onions used in the pickle recipe. There's also a mason jar drawing (on acetate, so it's clear) tucked in with them.

At the left is a little ribbon bag containing the spices mentioned in the recipe: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, allspice, mustard seed, and celery seed. I toyed with the idea of adding circles of spices glued onto wooden disks but I couldn't make it fit. At the bottom left is something Pa says in Little House on the Prairie about "living like kings."

After deciding to use one of Ma's recipes, I realized that there simply aren't all that many gardening references in the (non Farmer Boy) "Little House" books!! Click /HERE for biggie view.



WEEK FOUR: Cover for notebook of inspirational music / quotes from Laura Ingalls Wilder and the "Little House" books. We were given a little booklet of pages made out of old music, and were to make a cover for it, and also to use the pages for our own inspirational messages.

I could have really gussied this one up, but I kept it simple. The cover is plain padded gingham cotton with a crocheted pocket (I seem to have a thing for pockets...). Into the little triangle, I tucked a couple of LIW sayings. The book closes with a crocheted loop and pearl button. I included a ribbon bookmark.


I know that Laura herself used old books and glued recipes and interesting clippings into them for safe-keeping, and that's sort of the idea here. If it's one thing I don't lack for, it's favorite LIW sayings. I've made kept lists, booklets of sayings, a card index file, and I even made a perpetual calendar with my favorite "Little House" illustrations and quotations.

So, on the sheet music pages, I glued pages of quotations and favorite lines from "Little House" books and songs. I sprinkled it with Garth Williams illustrations. I also tucked in some memorabilia because I could imagine Laura doing just that - a violet, a leaf from one of Pa's cottonwoods, a Sunday School card, a few photographs. The first page is handmade paper containing leaves and flower petals; I sewed on another bit of paper and another picture of LIW on muslin.

My next project will be to clean up the crafting mess made while working on this project!
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:36 PM