rattle dem bones, pa!
Every year, BANNED BOOKS WEEK sneaks up on me, and I'm only reminded of it by the wagon train of Google Alerts pointing me to blogs and webpages and news items that point out, don't you know, that some of the "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder have been challenged or banned over the years. You see, the "Little House" books are racist, especially Little House on the Prairie (Indians! Dr. Tann!) and Little Town on the Prairie (minstrel show!).

Of course the "Little House" books are racist. They're also sexist (no married female teachers!). Isn't it grand, then, that I live in a country where I'm allowed to read - and love - and even be obsessed with - books that are so controversial? Let's all read a "Little House" book this week, and don't forget to thank a librarian for your continued access to the series.

Funny thing is: I haven't been seeing the usual number of mentions of "Little House" and "banned books" come through today. It turns out that according to the ALA, the Top 10 Most Frequently Challenged Titles of last year were challenged not because of racism, but due to religion, sexually explicit content, or homosexual storyline (among other things). Seven of the books were also said to be "unsuited to age group."

Everybody knows that all it takes to make a person want to read something is to tell them they shouldn't for some reason. Let's get "Little House" back in the limelight; just because we've all worked through our problems in Indian Territory doesn't mean we can't find something to gripe about... Woman with a knife! Just rock that seat! Cheat the government! Hang the paymaster! Love that cigar smoke! See Willie drool! Let's go hunting! Set more traps! Laugh at the drunk men! Child bride, anyone?!
- posted by pioneergirl at 4:14 PM

 
lovely letters. lousy human beings.

Dear Sister, Forgive us for not writing sooner. Your letter was the first to reach us and sad news it was. We had been talking a great deal and talking about dear Mother. Her death was not unexpected but it was hard to bear to think we never can see her again... That filled us with grief, believe me. Dear Sister I think that we can truly sympathize with you. We saw our own dear children fade and die, three of them in less than one short month. Oh it is hard to bear but we must be resigned and hope to meet them where parting is no more.... - Polly Ingalls Quiner to Martha Quiner Carpenter, 27 November 1884, Harney City, Pennington County, Dakota Territory

Last week, Wisconsin Historical Society finished scanning and putting their Carpenter-Quiner letters online HERE. The collection contains niney-one pages from letters dating 1861 to 1910. A portion of a letter from Polly and Henry Quiner is transcribed above. (Please note that there are mistakes in the WHS listings of who wrote several of the letters, and when they were written; the archivists are aware of corrections that need to be made and will update the site as soon as possible.)

Ruby, Charley, Lillian, and George Quiner, four of the children of Polly and Henry Quiner, died in the early 1880s and were buried in a now-abandoned cemetery oustide of Keystone, South Dakota. Within a few years, both parents would join them. The graves were marked with a large family marker and smaller footstones with initials. Due to vandalism in the cemetery, the larger Quiner marker is now on display in the Schoolhouse Museum in Keystone; the smaller stones were left in place. The photograph above shows historian Robery Hayes examining Ruby's footstone several years ago.

A couple of weeks ago, four of us who were in Keystone for Holy Terror Days went to the cemetery to again take photographs. While there are still a few headstones in the cemetery, the Quiner stones are gone! The foundation for the larger Quiner marker is still in place, so it's easy to determine where the stones should have been, based on old photographs. The footstones were neither covered nor buried. They were gone.

It's probably the sad reality that someone actually took them.


[Update: To get to the cemetery, take First Street [40] northeast out of Keystone a couple of miles to Playhouse Road; turn right. A very short distance on Playhouse, you'll turn right again across a cattle gate and be heading towards the water treatment plant. There will be cows roaming freely. The cemetery is a short walk up the hill into the Black Hills National Forest to your south, just past the turn off Playhouse. There should be one or two faint paths leading into the cemetery; look for the three weathered fenced-in family plots to find your way. If you walk directly towards the most ornate of the fenced areas (shown at right in the photo above), you will cross the Quiner graves prior to reaching the fence; look for the square, gray stone flat on the ground. The flat white stone on the ground does not mark the Quiner graves. If you are adventurous, you continue driving on Playhouse Road and go all the way to Custer State Park!]
- posted by pioneergirl at 5:17 PM

 
ginny presents mt. baker

Yes, but can she yodel?
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:11 PM