Little House on the Prairie: Pa - selfish or mad?

[gramercy]

I'm reading the Little House books to dd. When I read them years ago I thought the pioneering life sounded very exciting.

Now, as a lily-livered adult, and seeing things from the point of view of Ma, I keep getting wound up about Pa. I mean, he had four daughters, one of whom was blind, another in poor health, and he keeps moving around trying to start farms from scratch. WTF? It's clear he loves his dds, but brawny blokes they are not, and it just seems ludicrous that he persisted in trying to forge a life that was just not manageable.

Anyone agree that Pa was a pain?

I watched the tv series and then read the books, I was around 8 or nine I think. I haven't re-read or re-watched so can only say what I remember. From the TV prog I mainly remember Laura's face, the theme tune, and the girls running down the meadow looking happy. From the books I remember Laura got whipped in the shed and her mum gave away her favourite doll.

I agree! have you read the bit where he insists they go over the frozen river as it's miles round and the ice only just takes the wagon? And then the ice breaks up that night. Sent shivers down my spine. It's clear Laura (or Rose or whoever actually did write them - have ypu looked at that? it's fascinating) idolised her father, but it is very interesting reading with adult eyes. I have far more sympathy for her mother (racist views notwithstanding )

I always imagine that Pa was a damn fine piece of hot ass who knew how to handle a woman, and that's why Ma a. married him and b. put up with all the pioneering with a smile on her face

Yes there's that lovely flirty bit where they reminisce about pa being able to span her waist with his hands when she was a young lass back East.

I always fancied Almanzo.

I re-read the first book fairly recently and found it quite depressing for those reasons. But I guess Pa didn't have too many options.

We've got some of the books but DD wasn't really interested in them. I much prefer the TV series. I totally love the Olsons. They are great characters. But was Pa selfish? Not sure really. I think the girls had to do far too many chores. But maybe the pioneer was kind of adventurous.

They are portraits of their time. No sense judging their choices with modern values, it was normal back then to lose children to disease, or have them crippled, and just soldier on. Taking big risks to get big gains, American dream & all. I think they were moved on by someone else from the woods, too?

I am descended from dirt-poor early American pioneers like that, including people who lived in the same places, I find it fascinating as descriptions of my own family history. Caroline knew what she was getting into when she married him, she could have stayed a teacher in New England & married someone else with established wealth there. She wanted the adventure, I reckon.

Yes, I think you have to remember with no welfare state to fall back on, only the charity of their families, the Ingalls basically had no choice but to try and scratch a living out of the land. The government wanted to open up the land (ahem, not of course to force the Native Americans out or anything like that - oh no) and so was providing incentives that simply weren't available elsewhere. Plus it was the American Dream and the idea was the greater risk you were prepared to take, the greater the reward.

One of the more interesting segments is when Laura 'house sits' with a woman whose husband can't afford to take the summer off work to farm the claim, so she has to go and sit there in the middle of fecking nowhere for 6 months with a 5 year old for company - when she could also be in town and earning money as a tailor/milliner.

Just had to look at this when I saw the thread title because we have always had a theory he was running away from the law or bankrupcy or something!

I read DD the first three and thought that was it, I had always assumed it was a trilogy. But then she found all the rest on a second hand book stall so we read them all.

Poor Ma. Frankly I always thought they would have been a lot better off if they had just stayed in the Big Woods - but I guess that would have been a loss to literature.

Yes, it wasn't like life in the Big Woods was exactly a picnic. But I also don't think she got a heck of a lot of say about going tearing off to live where their nearest neighbours were 40 miles away, or where the entire town could starve to death in the winter. It was a hell of a lot less good hearty fun than it looked on the telly!

Are there more than 3?

There are 8 littleducks.

I want to read the biography of Laura, for the less sanitised version. I've read extracts - most shocking detail is the three boys who died from the fever that left Mary blind. I always wondered about that large age gap between Carrie and Grace.

I've recently reread them all too and while I'm not convinced about the first move from Wisconsin, it wasn't his fault they were force from Indian Territory and then there were weather problems. He agreed to settle in De Smet and get the girls educated, after all.

I think that they didnt have much choice but to carry on.

I have recently read the first book to my DDs and they were totally horrified by all the beating of children that goes on in it. They had no idea that that could happen.

I think that there are 7 or 8 books in all in the series.

OMG my absolute favourite ever children's books! I almost felt that Laura was my personal friend when I was growing up. I read, and re-read those books countless times (esp the later ones as I loved the romance with Almanzo).

Chrestomanci, what does this mean? "It's clear Laura (or Rose or whoever actually did write them - have ypu looked at that? it's fascinating) idolised her father," Are you suggesting there is speculation that Laura didn't actually write the books?

FWIW I think Pa comes across as a man trying to do the absolute best for his family in difficult times, and I am not sure you can say he was trying to forge an unmanageable way of life, because, AFAIK, he remained in De Smet for the rest of his life. Didn't he?

My mother always pointed out what a shit life Ma had (not in those words when i was 9) and what a nightmare it could be when you are dependent on a man and have no control over the circumstances of your life. Telling stuff. I think she related to it...

I think they did stay in De Smet, although he always had a wanderlust for more places where his family could contract terrible diseases and die. In fairness actually most of the Ingalls family lived to be very old and I think at least three of the girls actually died (as old ladies) of complications related to diabetes. Not eaten by bears or anything.

It's true they had no choice but to move from Indian territory although I think they did know they weren't meant to be there in the first place? They'd just had glass put in the windows as well ... unimagined luxury

I think that it is felt by some that the books were a collaborative effort between Laura and her daughter.

The boys that died: yes it was a shock finding that out (check her out online, anyone who has read the books and feels they know her - it is fascinating and sometimes shocking to see photos, and hear her story from a biographical, as opposed to autobiographical point of view).

I always thought that the fact that Laura missed out of her books that her brothers died (or even existed in the first place) was indicative of the unbearable grief that must have afflicted the family at the time. It was just something too painful for her to revisit even all those years later.

I think it was just one boy that died ( Charles Frederick )?

I think that is right, and then Laura's second child was a boy who didnt survive.

I think that that's just how life was back then. As a man with little money, Pa wouldn't have been able to earn a whole lot in the East where he needed education and contacts to even get a job in a bank. So heading West was the only hope to make enough to support a family.

Ma would have known that when she married him. She was prob being quite rebellious.

It's the equivalent nowadays of marrying an eastern european immigrant who has no family/money etc in the UK, and his only hope is to set up an entrepreneurial business. You know he'll work all the hours, and you'll live hand to mouth, hoping that someday you will have done enough that the money starts coming in.

also, child mortality was very high - and frequently families didn't refer to children that had died. For one thing, it was too common - every family had various children who didn't make it to 10. Often pioneers would continue to have children, not just due to lack of contraceptive, but because they were your workforce and pension plan. The girls getting home from school and having endless chores was also totally normal.

btw - not v knowledgeable about little house, but now live in the US midwest. went to visit a place that has a historic fort there - one of the generals had a wife when he moved in. 11 children were born there, I think only 4 reached adult hood. it was kind of accepted that you enjoyed (or resented) the time you got with your kids when they were young, and that only a few of them would be adults you'd be able to know (if you got to live that long yourself)

True, although I think both Pa and Ma's families Back East were fairly successful farmers (not as rich as the Wilders but not without any option but trying the pioneer trail). I do think Pa wanted to go out West, although god knows why he wanted to drag a wife and kids along for the ride.

2 of Carolines sibs maried 2 of Charles sibs, so she cant have been that much of a rebel (unless the whole family were )