Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little House on the Prairie Tidbits

by

 

LEAD Technologies Inc. V1.01

Many people are excited that Netflix will be filming a new Little House on the Prairie TV series. I’ll be curious to see it myself. While I’ve not seen the entirety of the original series, I do love the time period, so I think it will be interesting to watch! I need to finish the original series too! 

Thinking about her led me into today’s blog topic—Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the Little House on the Prairie books with her daughter, Rose Wilder’s, encouragement and help. I think it’s safe to say that most of us have read those books.

How old were you when you first learned of them? I remember I was in third grade, and a girl on the bus had On the Banks of Plum Creek. She kept telling me I should read it. I really didn’t want to. I didn’t want to stop reading Nancy Drew! After she kept pestering me, I finally did read it… And…promptly asked the school librarian to start me off at book one. 

When I was eleven, my family and I went to Missouri to visit an uncle. We stopped along the way at Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home where she worked on those books. As a child, I didn’t appreciate it the way I would have now. All I can remember is the very little bit of the house they let us go through seemed so tiny! There was a shawl on a chair in a room with a single bed, and I thought to myself, how uncomfortable that would be to sit in and write! I guess, though, if that’s all one knew, they wouldn’t think twice about it? 

 

Those books, and I think the old TV and the new one, will remain in the hearts of readers and viewers for the rest of their lives. There’s something that just feels so good about being in a simpler time, around people who are kind to each other, problems that are solved, and family and friends there for you. A lot of us don’t get that now, and books are our only way to experience that. Maybe that’s why I love to write heartwarming stories myself. 

Now, let me get to some of those facts about Laura and her books that I discovered. I think they are pretty interesting. You might or might not already know them! 

 

  • Laura’s first book, Pioneer Girl was a memoir geared toward adults and was rejected by publishers. It was vastly different from the stories we all know and loved, and it was her daughter, Rose, who helped edit the books and make them more enjoyable for children. 
  • In 2014, Pioneer Girl finally was published.
  • There have been over 73 million copies of the Little House books sold, in over 100 countries, and they’ve been translated into 27 languages! 
  • As an adult, Laura was 4 feet and 11 inches. And that was not considered short for a woman back then! Currently, the average height for a woman is 5 feet and 4 inches.
  • Since the books were first published in the 1930s, they have remained continuously in print. 
  • There was another illustrator Helen Sewell, who came before Garth Williams, the illustrator of the books we are all familiar with. 
  • Though there are still living descendants of Laura, there are no direct descendants. Her daughter Rose only bore one child, who died as an infant. Laura’s sisters also didn’t have children. Her brother never made it past infancy. 

 

Aren’t those some interesting facts? It amazes me just how many languages this series is in.

Did you read the Little House books? Did you have a favorite character or book? The Long Winter was my favorite of all the books.  

If you answer one of those questions below, you can be entered to win an ebook copy of A Journey for Leah. 

 

Falsely accused of being a loose woman, she has nowhere else to go. His heart belongs to another, and he has no desire to become entangled.

A victim of misplaced affections, Leah Dearing dreams of starting over in Oregon where she can own land and put her past behind her. But as a single woman, she is refused a place in the wagon train, no matter that she’s more than capable of doing all she needs. Desperate to build a new life for herself, she is willing to do anything—including a marriage in name only.

Stanley Keith has no intention of heading out West with a bride until he overhears Leah’s plight. He knows the way will be difficult and many don’t make it. To top it off, he’s got a woman waiting for him when he gets there. Yet, something about her determination sparks in him, and before he’s realized it he offers to let her join him on his journey in exchange for her cooking and companionship.

However, the trail is long and dangerous, and the challenges they face might be more than either realized. Especially when one of them starts to fall in love…and the reminder of another waiting for them at the end of the trail becomes impossible to ignore.

 

Laura Ingalls Wilder Trivia and Fun Facts

by

Hello everyone, Winnie Griggs here.

Today marks the 63rd anniversary of the death of Laura Ingalls Wilder and in her honor I thought I’d share a bit of trivia about her life and accomplishments.

 

  • Laura was 65 when the first of her Little House books, Little House in the Big Woods, was published. It was 11 years later, when she was 76, that the 8th and final book in the series was published.
  • Laura received her teaching certificate at age 15 and taught in one room schoolhouses until she married Almanzo Wilder at age 18.
  • The Little House books were not her first paid writing accomplishments. At age 42 she went to work for the St. Louis Farmer as their poultry columnist. She eventually went on to write columns for the Missouri Ruralist, McCall’s Magazine and The Country Gentleman. In order to give her writing more credibility with male readers, her columns were published under the name A.J.Wilder.

 

 

  • As a young child, she lived through a devastating invasion of over 3.5 TRILLION locusts. It was one of the worst natural disasters the country had ever faced to that date, causing an estimated $116 billion worth of damage and causing near starvation for many settlers,, including her own family. The culprits, the Rocky Mountain locusts went extinct about 1902, though no one knows the reason why.
  • Laura had some interesting leaves on her family tree. One ancestor, Martha Ingalls Allen Carrier, was hanged as a witch during the Salem Witch Trials.  She was also related to Franklin Delano Roosevelt through her great grandmother, Margaret Delano Ingalls.

 

  • She was once told that writing for children was a waste of time. I’m so glad she ignored that advice! Her Little House books have remained in print continuously since the 1930s and the series has sold over 60 million copies and have been published in 26 languages.
  • Laura received lots of fan mail over the course of her writing life. After her Little House series took off she averaged about 50 pieces of mail per day. In fact, on her last birthday she received over 1000 bits of correspondence.
  • The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award was established in 1954 by the American Library Association. Its purpose was to honor authors and illustrators whose children’s books have made a major impact on children’s literature. Laura was, of course, the first recipient. Since then, other recipients have included Theodor Geisal (Dr. Seuss), Maurice Sendak and Beverly Cleary. However, the organization announced in June 2018 that it planned to change the name of the award to the Children’s Literature Legacy Award due to the way Laura portrayed Native Americans in her books. In their statement the organization added this caveat: “Changing the name of the award, or ending the award and establishing a new award, does not prohibit access to Wilder’s works or suppress discussion about them. Neither option asks or demands that anyone stop reading Wilder’s books, talking about them, or making them available to children.”

  • Prior to the establishment of her namesake award, Laura had already won Newberry Honors on four of her Little House books.
  • A fun little bit of Laura Ingalls Wilder trivia – In the summer of 2017, Laura (in her young pig-tailed girl persona) was sculpted in butter at the Iowa State Fair in honor of the 150th anniversary of her birth.
  • Laura died on February 10, 1957, just 3 day after her 90th birthday. She was survived by her daughter and only child, Rose. Rose never had any children of her own, but Roger MacBride whom she met when he was a teenager and who later became her lawyer and literary agent, became her heir. He inherited an estate  that has a present day value of over $100 million and was responsible for licensing the television rights to the Little House books.

So there you have it, some interesting tidbits from the life of one of the most beloved of children authors. Were any of these new to you? Do you have some fun facts of your own to add? Have you read the books yourself?  

Leave a comment to be entered into a drawing for your choice of any book from my backlist.