{"id":17905,"date":"2026-04-01T23:59:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T03:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/?p=17905"},"modified":"2026-04-08T00:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:03:13","slug":"april-fools-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/archives\/17905","title":{"rendered":"April Fool’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

April Fool<\/strong>. One who is sportively imposed upon by others on the first of April. \u2014 Webster, 1882<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Some practical jokes played on April Fool’s day are liable to result in serious trouble. – The De Smet Leader, April 5, 1884.<\/em><\/p>\n

     
\nA<\/span>pril 1, 2026, on my own pioneergirl <\/em>Facebook page, I posted the following:
\n     <\/p>\n

\r\n\t\t\t\t\t

\"\" LAURA SPEAKS (AGAIN)<\/strong> — At some point before or more likely after Laura Ingalls Wilder was interviewed on tape by librarian Docia Holland in Mansfield, Missouri, Laura was recorded reading from THESE HAPPY GOLDEN YEARS. The reel ended up in Douglas County and is privately owned. It was saved from being tossed last year when it was found that the box label referred to it as a “library reading by Mrs. Wilder.” Laura apparently read from both her manuscript and the published THGY.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, most of the reel was recorded over, but readings from four chapters survived (parts of Chapters 13-16). I’m not sure there are plans to release the whole recording, but I heard it was being donated to De Smet. You can hear a snipped from the tape here:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/LibraryReadingMrsWilder.m4a<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

     
\nSome of my tens of followers immediately recognized it as a prank post because it was, you know, April Fool’s Day and I’ve made prank posts in the past, but some didn’t. There were comments ranging from joy and amazement over the discovery to helpful advice that it was possible to retrieve what had been taped over. There were also comments about how Laura sounded, including “southern” and “not midwestern” or “not like I expected her to sound.” My post had been shared on Facebook eleven times when I returned to the computer two hours later, and I think I had forty-two comments on the original post. At that point, I edited the post to point out what day it was and to say that yes, it was an April Fool’s post. I also replied to each comment that I could – using my personal account (so my name showed up instead of pioneergirl<\/em>) – that it was an April Fool’s post. <\/p>\n

In at least one place where my post had been shared, once it was disclosed that it was an April Fool’s Day post and there wasn’t, in fact, a new recording of Laura’s voice out there, my post was deemed mean and hateful. I was said to be thoughtless and cruel. A couple of people commented that AI should be outlawed (I agree). I got (among other things) unfollowed, booted, and blocked. <\/p>\n

Listen, people. There was no AI involved, whatsoever. That’s 100% my<\/strong> voice, and I’m just trying to sound like Laura did during her “Laura Speaks” interview. “Talking like Laura” is something I’ve been doing for decades, especially if I see you wearing a “pretty pink dress” or if I’m on the phone with you and feel the need for Laura to join the conversation. My voice clip was recorded using the Sound Recorder app on my desktop computer. I made four recordings of me reading the same passage from the These Happy Golden Years<\/em> manuscript (which I picked only because it mentioned “the first of April”). After my first attempt, I thought it needed some background noise and scratchiness that you’d expect from an old reel-to-reel tape, so I plugged in a small fan beside the computer, and as I read, I rubbed the bottom of a Haviland Princess teacup slowly in circles on the wooden back of a printer’s block used in offset printing. <\/p>\n

I appreciate the kind words of support I received yesterday from friends while I was being ripped to shreds for daring to deceive people. I’ve been online for over thirty years and like I said, I’ve have made April Fool’s posts in the past, but rest assured it won’t happen again. Next year, I’ll just do what one person in Little House era De Smet did: I’ll throw a party and serve “soap caramels and pasteboard gum.” And since Laura’s teacher, Ven Owen, was born on April Fool’s Day, I’ll throw in a sponge cake made out of real sponges. <\/p>\n

     
\n
\nApril Fool’s Day<\/strong>
\n     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sticking with salt in the sugar bowl from now on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[646],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17905"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17905"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17992,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17905\/revisions\/17992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}