Any Laura Ingalls Wilder fans?

[moondog]

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.

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.

I'd have cried too.

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

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.

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!

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.

Dh is a fiddle player. I try to make him learn all the same tunes 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?

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

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'.

Always felt a personal connection to those stories as my Great Grandpa was a homesteader in the Canadian prairies (and later a sherif!)

I never knew Laura Ingalls was a real person.
I vaguely remember Litle House on the Prarie from way back when I was a kid but didn't know until now it was based on fact!

Cheerful - do try to get to PEI - it is so very beautiful.

There's a bit in the books, isn't there, when she's shocked by a 13 (14?) year old bride?

When I read them I assumed at 18 she was a perfectly normal age to get married.

How old was she when she got married then?

18 according to Wiki, I don't know why but I always thought she was younger than that.

loved the books - my wee sister adored them, must forward her some of the articles linked here

That would be pretty normal for that time then, wouldn't it?

I'm an Anne fan too. Do you lot like the Story Girl too?

Is there a proper LIW song book? I have hunted for all the tunes Pa played and can't find them all, esp the Christmas carols and the songs she sang at singing school, oh childhood's pleasure's very great, etc. And I want the readers with the spelling and the recitations. Where do j get them?

Cheerful, yes I think it's the Ladies of Missolonghi.

I thought Laura suffered because all Ma's attention went on Mary, always. It seemed to me that she, Laura, was intellectually pretty brilliant but could never please her Ma. Who wild have seen her as a threat and regretted the loss of the only son.

I always thought there was a possibility if Grace Going to the Bad.

Have you read Rose's account of how she was nearly poisoned by her ain't by marriage, when the wilders went to Louisiana and had to be rushed out of town? Clearly Laura did not fit in there.

I love the Story Girl. In fact I think it is the best of the lot. So idyllic.

I rather hate the fact that Cecily has to die young though

She's 15 at the start of Happy Golden Years so the book does rattle along at a fair pace, doesn't it!

I suspect it would be normal for then, but I thought it was normal for now when I was little.

I don't know Story Girl - who's it by?

whistler - yeah, Grace was 'spoilt', wasn't she? I remember the swan-down coat pieced together with Ma's dress ... clearly the height of sophistication ...

The 'child bride' thing is here (second last para). He started to court her when she was 15 and he was 25 - I can see how she might have later worried that would look dodgy.

I loved the TV series and my darling boys gave me a couple of DVD sets for Mothers Day and my birthday, but vacated the room every time I watched them!! Hadn't thought about reading the books- must do that now!

Story Girl, another LMM.

LMM not really evident on Kindle. I have her diaries, which are so depressing.

Would it have been unusual then?