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Original poster

Any Laura Ingalls Wilder fans?

233 replies

moondog · 16/09/2012 19:17

I visited the LIW house and museum in Missouri a few weeks ago and it was one of the most moving experiences ever. I made a detour of thousands of miles to see it.
If anyone loves her just as much as I do I wanted the chance to tell you about it so that you can savour every delicious detail.

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TunipTheVegemal · 17/09/2012 21:25

I read once that she changed her own age for the book because she was embarrassed about having been married so young and didn't want people to think she was a 'child bride'.

LaundryFairy · 17/09/2012 21:24

DS has just recreated the wagon river crossing scene in LEGO (looks great - complete with the dog Jack being swept away!)

HumphreyCobbler · 17/09/2012 21:23

Dh is a fiddle player. I try to make him learn all the same tunes Grin I don't get very far. The whole thing about the importance of music is interesting though. If you didn't play you didn't get any. Remember how exciting it was when they afforded an organ for Mary?

Original poster
moondog · 17/09/2012 21:20

Almanzo very quiet-apparently Laura was very bossy all their lives together.
Was mad rumour that violin was a Strad, but museum states it was mass produced German one.

I find it fascinating, thinking of a life largely devoid of shopping and money, two things which define and imprison us now so much.

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CheerfulYank · 17/09/2012 21:18

I love, love, love Anne as well. PEI is my dream vacation!

I've always thought Almanzo was sort of devilishly handsome...kind of a twinkle to his eye!

LRDtheFeministDragon · 17/09/2012 21:17

I wonder how Pa got the money for a good fiddle (which it surely must be to last this time and be play-able?). Do you know?

I am getting very fan-girly over all this. Smile

SheelaNeGoldGig · 17/09/2012 21:17

I'd have cried too.

I really want to go. I'd love to go to DeSmet too.

Original poster
moondog · 17/09/2012 21:10

Only the childhood books are chronological and part of a set.
That manuscript was one her daughter found after her death.
It's pretty dull actually, not written in same style as the books. Meant for an adult audience if at all.
In the museum btw, there is the glass breadplate that is one of the few things Laura and Almanzo salvage from the fire that destroys their home (just after their baby boy dies).
Also the clock Almanzo bought for them which is worn away on the face from 50 years of Almanzo winding it up. It still keeps perfect time.
Pa's fiddle is played once a year.
We watched a video (!) of it being played.

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SheelaNeGoldGig · 17/09/2012 20:53

Which is the one that comes after 'the first 4 years'. I think maybe written by Rose or from her point of view? Their journey to Rocky Ridge.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 17/09/2012 20:41

Ahhh, I see. I wonder why ... maybe she wished he was closer to her age. I found it so sad that her whole family died so long before her. Is it daft that I find it sadder that Mary died so long before her, than Almanzo?

tunip - ah, I see, thank you.

TunipTheVegemal · 17/09/2012 20:39

Museum funding in the US isn't the same as here - there are far fewer publicly funded museums, lots more independent museums.

EvilTwins · 17/09/2012 20:37

Thanks Moondog. I'll get over to Amazon.

Original poster
moondog · 17/09/2012 20:37

No. She does say in books he is 10 years older but when he makes a claim on a homestead she says he is 19 when in reality was 21 or 22.
Dramtic license.

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LRDtheFeministDragon · 17/09/2012 20:34

I'm really surprised they get no funding ... you'd think they'd be thrilled to make her into a 'national treasure' or whatever it would be in the US.

I know Almanzo was 10 years older in real life (well assuming his birth date is right) - but in the books he is only a few years older, and she also says he lied about his age so as to get a farm, so it's never very clear how old he is. Is that all just made up?

Original poster
moondog · 17/09/2012 20:31

Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder.
See earleir link.
For a long time, the key authority on her was a boy who did a pamphlet on her as a school project when 14.

I have the cookbook too.

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Original poster
moondog · 17/09/2012 20:30

Me too but no it isn'ty! Museum is awful 70s extension, the peopel working there are really old (and the one who shows you around the house is snappy to the point of rudeness). Exhibition distincly amateur in terms of display. They get no govt. funding. Can you imagine!!
Almanzo was 10 years older than Laura.

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EvilTwins · 17/09/2012 20:29

My class 2 teacher read Little House on the Prairie to us when I was 6 and I then read all the others myself - I remember totally burying myself in them. I stopped when Laura was a grown up (odd child, and slightly precocious- didn't like books where the main character was either a grown up or an animal). I bought the box set last Xmas for me for the DTDs. They adored the picture books when they were smaller and I'm just waiting for the right time to start LHITBW with them. We have looked at the Little House website and they loved the whole family tree thing- the books about Caroline and her mother and her mother as girls. I never watched it on TV. I would really like to read a decent biography- what's my best bet?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 17/09/2012 20:22

moondog this is absolutely lovely. Thank you so much for this thread. I am loving it and re-living the books in my head (I must dig them out but they're in boxes propping up our sofa atm!).

I am so glad it was the way you describe - you could imagine it being all commercial and schmaltzy, and I'm really glad it wasn't.

As for Anne ... I love her too. I actually like that the books are so sad (though surely Rilla of Ingleside is the real tear jerker, what with it being WWI?), because she does it beautifully and it feels very real. This is going to sound stupid, but the bit where Anne slightly shocks her religious neighbours who're insisting she'll see her baby in heaven by saying she can imagine her at the age she would really be - that really struck a chord with me.

I read earlier today Almanzo had an older sister who'd left home before he was very old, and a younger brother born when he was nearly grown up, so I think that's why there aren't more in Farmer Boy. But then Almanzo's age is odd anyway, isn't it, something funny going on there.

HumphreyCobbler · 17/09/2012 20:13

I have always wondered about family relationships after the description of nasty Miss Wilder was published by Laura. I had forgotten that she was the cause of the family losing their money.

I liked the first Emily book a great deal, but thought that the other two were weak.

Bunbaker · 17/09/2012 20:07

This has to be my favourite MN thread ever. I shall now go and browse through all the links. I shall expand my Christmas wish list to include all the books I haven't got.

CheerfulYank · 17/09/2012 20:06

Whistler Shock She did?! I adore the Blue Castle!

CheerfulYank · 17/09/2012 20:04

I love, love, love her. And I live in Minnesota, I really ought to go to the museum here!

Original poster
moondog · 17/09/2012 19:50

Tonnes of Wilders.
Eliza was Laura's teacher for a while and horrid to her (made her rock the desk) but also v tough. She had a homesterad claim as a lone woman.
I asked at the museum about how Almanzo asnd rest of family took to description of Eliza but he said it was deserved.
She persuaded his resonably well off parents to move to Loiusiana where they lost a tonne of $$$.

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thewhistler · 17/09/2012 19:50

Am an Anne fan too, but also Emily. Did you know that Colleen Mccullough plagiarised a whole chunk of an LMM book called - I think- The blue castle?

Katy I find more tedious but feel sorry she never had children, yes I know its not real, and discovered more of them on my kindle.

Did Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm ever marry and was it Alan Ladd?

aJumpedUpPantryBoy · 17/09/2012 19:45

In Farmer Boy there are Almanzo, Royal, Eliza and Alice but I think were at least 2 other siblings