from laura ingalls wilder to cyberbessie

root hog, or die

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:49:00 +0000

The Presidency, from The Wisconsin State Journal, October 1936.

On November 3, the people of the United States will make the most momentous decision that has come to their suffrage since the establishment of the American form of democratic government. The presidential debate thus far, with public information that furnishes its background, shows conclusively that we are to decide temporarily between democracy and collectivism. Should we decide for collectivism, the blazing of new trails indicates that we shall eventually have to decide for or against communism.

The Roosevelt program has departed further from the groundwork of the democratic party than from that of the republican party, because in the early days the Hamiltonians were for a strong central government, while the Jeffersonians were for states' rights and for as little government as possible. Having fled from despotisms, the American colonists shrewdly invested the national government with only such powers as the states relinquished to them, providing in the constitution itself a means of amending that fundamental law whenever two-thirds of the states approved.

Immediately upon his acquisition of office, President Roosevelt ignored his ledge to stand by the democratic national platform "100 per cent", and plunged into collectivist methods administered, not by statesmen, but by theorists, many of whom by more than implication were known as communist sympathizers.

That the president "followed along" is shown by his urgent advice to congress to pass the Guffey bill in spite of constitutional obstacles "however reasonable."

We have Sec. of Agriculture Wallace publicly hoping for the day when the supreme court can be abolished.

Notwithstanding such sound proceedings, in the circumstances, as the bank moratorium and the setting up of FDIC, many of the experiments tried proved utterly futile to solve the problems of the country to which they applied. The reemployment program has left roughly 11 millions unemployed. The slaughter of meat products, and the fallow land program to reduce acreage, at a time when millions of Americans needed food, reduces itself to an absurdity.

Father Coughlin has been taken greatly to task for publicly questioning the veracity of a president of the United States, but if the president is to escape conviction for mendacity, he cannot be acquitted of a poor memory and a vacillating mind.

The far background of communism is the condition created by the advent of machinery to reduce hand production. A high authority says it was founded in the French revolutionary instinct, British economics, and German philosophy. Russia, at the moment a country practically without machinery, was stupidly the first to adopt it. Within a year Lenin knew he had failed, and turned to collectivism. Following Lenin, Stalin is passing through collectivism back to capitalism. There are few real shreds of communism left in Russia. In fact, should Roosevelt win, and make the almost inevitable turn further to the left, this country might reach communism about the time Russia attained democracy.

This remains the only country in which human liberty in a true sense still exists. Our pioneers ran away from despotism and class regimentation. As Rose Wilder Lane, using an early day phrase, puts it, they came here to "root hog, or die". That was the price they paid, and it is the price that always must be paid for the freedom of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", for the freedom of men and women to speak, write, publish, and worship as they like, and to pursue their individual inclinations in enterprise so long as they do no damage to the general run of people.

Gov. Landon, republican nominee for the presidency, is a happy choice in such a situation. He is typical of the American who found his own way. He has been reared in the atmosphere, the wind and sun of great mid-western America. He is free from any encumbrances to our predatory individuals and institutions. He knows the farm and the farmer. He knows self-sustaining industry. He has a clear conception of the true Americanism, the real meaning of liberty.

Gov. Landon has made a most significant campaign. He has caused the fireside crooner of Hyde Park to lose his temper and change his tone. He knows and acknowledges that America, within the American roadways, must reach the goal of sufficiency for all without depriving the citizen of those rights which are "self-evident facts".

We shall not go into the details of spoilsmen and incompetents who have been maladministering the New Deal. Every community knows that. Neither are we convinced that the principles and ends sought by President Roosevelt are not honest. But we doubt that he possesses insight, farsightedness or cogency of mind. We believe that the sum total of his efforts thus far are destructive of the very principles that within a hundred years have permitted a wilderness to become the wealthiest nation in the world with the highest average of living conditions. Admittedly we had come upon times distressing to many of our people and unsatisfactory to most of them, but that is no reason to adopt the ideas and methods of nations whose highest moments of prosperity have been far inferior to our worst depressions.

Two years ago a great Englishman, visiting in America, said: "We British would like to borrow your depression."

Landon, level-headed, instinctively democratic, walks with his feet on the ground. He is one of us. He pretends no magic wand, essays so "seven-league boots". With him we can walk safely to still higher ground in the development of the American people.

devotionals with laura

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:40:00 +0000

Dan White has just published a Bible study book using Laura Ingalls Wilder's Bible verses, a handwritten list found in Laura's Bible after her death and believed to be her quick reference in times of trouble or stress. A copy of Laura's handwritten list is available for purchase at the Laura Ingalls Wilder homesite museums.

Devotionals With Laura is White's interpretation of these verses, what they meant in Laura's life and what they might mean in ours. The booklet - 137 letter-sized pages - is available to download for $9 (paypal or credit card accepted) as a pdf file HERE. I bought it tonight, and I'm in the process of printing it out, glancing over the pages as they are printed. Although I've noticed a few historical inaccuracies so far, it should be an interesting study. Not only does White present his own interpretation of the Bible verses, he uses Laura's "Little House" books, articles, letters, and local Mansfield history in his anaylsis of them.

Dan White isn't new to writing about Laura Ingalls Wilder. In 1992, he published Laura's Friends Remember: Close Friends Recall Laura Ingalls Wilder. This 40-page booklet contains interviews with Nava Austin, Erman Dennis, Peggy Dennis, Emogene Fuge, Neta Seal, Anna Gutschke, and Carl Hartley. It's now available as an e-book HERE, re-titled Laura Ingalls' Friends Remember Her.

to the unknown

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 03:14:00 +0000

by Rose Wilder Lane, 1920

Where are you wandering? By what windy hollow
Did I miss your footprints in the morning-dew?
Where have you gone that I may never follow
Down all the world's bewildering ways to you?

Ah men but you are empty faces
All my life without you, empty hours.
There is no rest for me in quiet places,
There is no honey in the flowers.

Where are you wandering? Shall my seeking never
Disclose your unseen face, hidden and apart?
Still I must search for you, lonely forever,
Hearing your silent voice always in my heart.

some things change

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:23:00 +0000

In 1933, Rose Wilder Lane had this to say about gardening: "No thoughtful gardener believes in God, nor in the mechanistically reasonable universe. Use Black Flag for aphis, arsenate of lead for beetles, corrosive sublimate for root-rot, keep your fingers crossed, pray for rain, and peppergrass will still eat up your yard."

In 1917, Rose had viewed gardening a bit differently. Here's the beginning of a story-article published in the Oakland Tribune titled Garden---the Giver of Life:

My little neighbor came and leaned over the trim green-painted fence and said:

"While I was working in my garden today I realized suddenly that I have found the secret of happiness.

"And a year ago I thought I would never be happy again.

"So few of us know how to be happy! We learn so many things--how to add sums, and how to make money, and how to serve dinners, and how to dress--and all these things mean nothing at all when we haven't learned happiness.

"Now that I have learned it at last, I know that living will never be so hard for me again, though none of the things that hurt me are changed. Being happy, after all, is not a matter of environment, it is a matter of adjustment. I never saw that until today.

"A soft mist was falling. It covered the hills, and the live-oaks in the glen behind the house, with a thin gray veil. My white fleur-de-lys shimmered like delicate silver gauze through the tiny raindrops on their petals.

"The breeze against my cheeks was cool and damp, but the brown earth was warm. I felt the warmth of it through my gardening gloves, as I turned it with my trowel, and patted it down around the little roots. I was humming to myself.

"Suddenly I stopped, cuddling a baby lobelia in my hand. I almost said the words aloud in my surprise, 'Why, I'm happy!'"

I uploaded a scan of the entire article HERE. Doesn't it sound like it could have been ghost-written by Laura Ingalls Wilder?

"how about you, ida? are you going to teach for a while?"

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:31:00 +0000

Teaching McConnells Meet Today
Union Valley Service, California - The Elmer McConnell family runs to teaching school. Mr. McConnell, 76, whose family will honor him at a reunion here tomorrow, was a school teacher. So was his wife, now deceased. So were two of his sons. So were both his daughters.

One of the daughters is still a teacher. Her husband is a retired college professor.
The McConnell family, 35 strong, will gather from all over California tomorrow to pay homage to the father, who came out from Wisconsin* and settled on the ranch where he still lives.

There will be a picnic and barbecue at the ranch, and in the afternoon neighbors will be invited in for open house.

In These Happy Golden Years, Mary Power asks Ida Wright if she is going to teach school. Ida laughed, "No, indeed! I never did want to teach. I'd rather keep house. Why do you suppose I got this ring?" (See Chapter 24, "Almanzo Goes Away")

Ida may not have wanted to teach, but teach she did. While Laura Ingalls taught in the Wilkins School north of De Smet, Ida was teaching the Langdon School in Manchester Township to the west. Ida had earned only a probational teaching certificate; it allowed her to teach for six months or one school term. Had Ida wanted to teach again, she would have had to take the teaching exam and pass with at least a third grade certificate. There is no record of Ida being re-certified in Kingsbury County. Elmer had taught school prior to moving to Dakota Territory; he also taught school after he and Ida were married.

*Wisconsin?
Ida and Elmer left De Smet after Reverend Brown died and moved to northern Wisconsin, where they lived until 1914. They followed a daughter and her husband to California and spent the rest of their lives on a ranch near Sacramento.

mabel o'donnell introduces me to laura ingalls wilder

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:25:00 +0000

I've been feeling all nostalgic after reading Singing Wheels for the billionteenth time since 1962.

Singing Wheels was my 4th grade reader in the Alice and Jery Basic Reading Program, first published in 1940 by Row, Peterson and Company. It was written by Mabel O'Donnell with beautiful illustrations by Florence and Margaret Hoopes (surely you recognize Star and Bright in the picture above). I know I've blogged about the book before, because it was my introduction to Laura Ingalls Wilder. Chapters from Little House in the Big Woods (1, 7, and 8) and Farmer Boy (22 and 23) were adapted for use in Singing Wheels, yet even more than those chapters of the two "Little House" books can be found as inspiration for bits and pieces throughout Singing Wheels.

See if THIS doesn't sound like an old friend, and make you want to read more.

one of these things is not like the others...

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:29:00 +0000

The above pictures are all of Rose Wilder Lane. Or are they?

One of the things I found in a box of George Cooley's photographs was an addressed but unstamped or cancelled photo postcard of a young woman in foreign costume. The face looked a bit familiar. There was nothing else even remotely similar in the collection. The postcard was addressed to Rev. George Cooley, Hope, N.J. It read: This is just the way I looked one Sunday. [signed] A Hindoo. Underneath was written: Guess who. Was it a photograph of Rose Wilder Lane?

George Cooley's first church out of Seminary was in Hope, New Jersey, where he served from late 1910 to June 1913. At that time, Rose would have been 23-26 years old, married, and living anywhere from Kansas City to New York City to San Francisco. I do know that she visited George in New York at another of his churches. I know they kept in touch until Rose's death.

After a lot of photoshopping around with every known picture of Rose I could find, I have come to the sad conclusion that the hindoo woman is probably not Rose. While there are similar features, and the handwriting on the card is suggestive of Rose's but not a perfect match, there's a major problem. When you cut/paste half of Rose's face from any known photo over the face of any other known photo, Rose's features remain lined up in the same horizontal relationship to each other. The hindoo woman's face can only be lined up as to mouth and nose, or nose and eyes of the Rose photos; it's just a weird match that I don't think can be totally the fault of camera angles. I also do realize that a person's handwriting can change over the years, and since this card said "Guess who," it's possible that the handwriting was purposefully disguised. I will mention that the ring on the woman's hand in my photo looks very much like a ring worn in a known photo of Rose. Rose rarely showed her teeth in photographs, but did so in one taken in Kansas City. In both that one and the hindoo woman one, there are gaps between the teeth that are similar. Lips? Eyes? Chin? Hmmm...

I'll leave it with you.

a house... or the house?

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:11:00 +0000

Someone on the Laura Ingalls Wilder yahoogroup that I belong to (the link will let you email and ask to join) wondered if the house in the photographs Garth Williams took in 1947 is actually the Ingallses' house from their homestead claim, i.e. the one Laura lived in. You can see the above photo and others in William T. Anderson's Laura Ingalls Wilder Country; I include the amazon.com link because you can peek inside the book there. Do a search for Garth Williams; the house photo is on page 56. If you don't own this book, you should.

I've been told by several people in De Smet that house on the homestead and photographed by Garth Williams wasn't the one from Laura's day, but that that one had been moved to another farm, and parts of it were possibly hidden in the existing house there. I don't know if this is true or not. I do notice that Anderson only wrote that the house photographed by Williams was on the Ingalls homestead, not that it was indeed the house. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote after a visit to De Smet in the 1930s that there was a fine farmhouse on their former land, which implies that it wasn't the one Laura remembered.

According to Charles Ingalls' homestead file, he built a frame house 14 x 20 feet, and an addition measuring 12 x 16 feet in size. In By the Shores of Silver Lake, Wilder described the shanty on the claim as looking "like half a woodshed that has been split in two," with the roof slanting all one way, no windows, and no door in the doorway. Pa said it was "a little house only half built, and that half unfinished." (See Chapter 28, "Moving Day") This half-house was either 7 x 20 feet or 10 x 14 feet in size. In the next chapter, Wilder describes the placement of furniture and windows. I must have studied this in depth at some point, because I found this drawing I did in 2003 of how I think the shanty was laid out. In it, the door opens on the west wall. You can see another interpretation of the layout on page 101 of The World of Little House by Carolyn Strom Collins and Christina Wyss Eriksson.

The original frame house of the homestead file would have probably meant the half-shanty after the bedrooms were added; see Little Town on the Prairie, Chapter 2, "Springtime on the Claim." The parlor addition was supposedly built to the east of the existing structure; see These Happy Golden Years, Chapter 19, "The Brown Poplin." This addition had a door to the north (towards the town of De Smet), and windows on the east and south walls.

Looking at my drawing and others, and at the Garth Williams photos, I can't really make anything fit unless I mirror the GW photographs and change my thinking about window and door placement. I've manipulated two rectangles of graph paper in the proper proportions until my head hurts. No doubt I've missed some LH descriptions somewhere, and I always assumed that the half-house was long and skinny in configuration, while I drew it exactly the other way. It's fairly easy to draw Wilder's layout of the interior of the original shanty the way I drew it, and make everything fit.

I did just notice that in By the Shores of Silver Lake, Wilder mentions a back door. I always pictured the shanty as only having the one door, and I don't often think of having a back door unless there is also a front one. Btw, in the top photo, if you assume that the door is a standard 3-feet in width, then that wall is 14 feet wide. Fourteen feet? Sound familiar? Add some fuel to the long and skinny shanty argument fire, please.

No wonder I walked away from all this back in 2003; I'm about to do it again!

after almanzo lived there

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:30:00 +0000

Main Street, Burke, New York.
Taken at the intersection of Main (23) and Mill (34) Streets, looking west towards Malone. The building at right is still standing. Uncle Andrew's starch factory? Go straight into the photo and turn left just before you get to Trout River. Father Wilder's farm in Burke? It's a good bit northwest. Where Almanzo grew up? That's a good bit southwest.

a story of a lincolnesque figure in stirring conflict

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:47:00 +0000

"Something of the instinctive antagonism which the Highland Scot feels for his Lowland countryman is inherent in the character of our own native mountain men. Perhaps this antagonism is partly a survival of primitive clan spirit, but certainly it has been strengthened and developed by the different conditions under which hill men and plain men have lived their lives. This factor of environment in the evolution of human character is strikingly illustrated in the Ozark Mountain story of Rose Wilder Lane which she calls Hill-Billy.

"Abimelech Baird, a hill man of the Missouri Ozarks, at the age of 20 quits his father's cabin on Baird's Peak and descends on the plain town of Millersville. Here he begins the practice of law, with scant learning but much native hill wisdom and no little native shrewdness. His rise in the community is sure and swift until he becomes infatuated with Bessie Miller, a "little scrap of prettiness, an' no more." Bessie precipitates a devastating situation which promises to be his undoing. The solution of this unhappy entanglement carries the tale to a triumphant close, which leaves this hill-billy the happy husband of a hill woman, while the weak and deceitful Bessie is awarded to Baird's chief enemy, the devious prosecuting attorney of the town." - New York Times, June 13, 1926, page BR9.

I give you (from another NYT review) "a rugged lawyer and a deceitful woman... a novel that thunders to a crashing climax" - Rose Wilder Lane's HILL-BILLY. This is a scan of my own copy; if anyone has a dust jacket they would like scan and share with me, I can edit the pdf file to include it. Feel free to download, save, and/or print for your own personal and non-profit use. By all means, feel free to read the book. The reviews are so glowing; I always thought the "thundering crash" was when you fell asleep while reading and the book fell to the floor...

come back tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:04:00 +0000

This is not a blog entry about Laura Ingalls Wilder or Little House on the Prairie. This is a blog entry about the statistics I receive about people visiting my blog and/or pages on my domain.

I hardly ever look at some of the stats, but from them I have learned that more people visit my site in the winter than summer (which makes sense - people spend more time at the computer when it's cold outside). For some reason, I get more visits during the middle of a month than early or late in the month. I also get more visits in the evening than in the morning or middle of the night. And I tend to get more foreign visitors from Japan than anywhere else on the globe, followed by Denmark.

Since I haven't really added anything much to the pioneergirl.com site in the past few years (I've removed more pages than I've added), it stands to reason that people visit my blog more than my other pages. And more people enter my site by going directly to my blog than by following a link to it. If you want to see the blog without the pioneergirl.com header, use this: http://www.pioneergirl.com/blog.htm .

One thing I get a kick out of looking at - statistics-wise - is the list of search strings that point people in my direction. Somebody is always looking for information about Tay Pay Pryor, Ida B. Wright, or Stella Gilbert. I get emails asking "Little House" characters all the time. I also get lots of people searching for Missouri Ruralist article titles and songs from the "Little House" books. Duh. Those are pages that are still on my site. Some search strings fascinate me, though. Who was looking for information about "Charles Ingalls murderers" yesterday, and what were they after? Were they looking for information about "Mr. Hunter" from SSL?

What amazes me most, though, is that there are people out there who go to my blog ten to twenty times every single day. Trust me. I can almost guarantee I'm not going to blog about anything so important that you have to keep checking back to see "Is it there yet?"

Seriously, dude. You need to get a life. Or at the very least, come back tomorrow. I'll even make it easier for you to stay away; I promise not to blog until close to midnight (Eastern time) tomorrow, okay?

when laura was twenty-three

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:25:00 +0000

The latest issue of Pepin Notes, the newsletter from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, Inc., Pepin, Wisconsin, contains a transcription of a 1933 letter Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote to a teacher and fan of Little House in the Big Woods.

Laura wrote that after leaving the Big Woods, she never went to Pepin again as a child, but "...when I was twenty-three years old I went back from South Dakota and took my little girl to the town of Pepin." (Do you think Almanzo went, too?) A note in the newsletter adds that Laura, Almanzo, and Rose were living in Spring Valley, Minnesota, when Laura was 23. Laura had relatives in the area, so it's not hard to imagine the Wilders paying a visit. The Pepin newsletter also points out that Peter Ingalls, Perley Wilder, and Joseph Carpenter began their Mississippi River journey in the sailing craft Edith on October 1 of that year - another possible reason for a visit.

According to the De Smet News, the Wilders left De Smet on May 30, 1890. An earlier article reported that "Wilder and Ingalls" (that would be Laura and her cousin Peter) had sold their sheep on May 10 (see The First Four Years).

You know what's sad? The first Old Settler's Day in De Smet was held on June 10. It's a shame that Laura and Almanzo weren't there to attend.

frank l.

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0000

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.

george

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:49:00 +0000

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.

paul

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:57:00 +0000

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.

emma

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:59:00 +0000

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.

frank

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:27:00 +0000

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.

serving theater since laura and almanzo got engaged

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:16:00 +0000

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?

the cooleys and the wilders

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:54:00 +0000

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.

business opportunity

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:01:00 +0000

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.

the horse gift

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:51:00 +0000

...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/.

on the way home

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:30:00 +0000

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.

still on the road

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 02:13:00 +0000

One more week might just do it...

on the road again

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:44:00 +0000

I'm heading out in the moring on another "Little House" adventure. Check back in ten days!

laura speaks

noreply@blogger.com (pioneergirl) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:38:00 +0000

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.