The following abbreviations are used in the notes:
LIW |
Laura Ingalls Wilder |
AJW |
Almanzo J. Wilder |
RWL |
Rose Wilder Lane |
Lane Papers |
Rose Wilder Lane Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa |
“Pioneer Girl” |
Wilder's handwritten draft of her unpublished autobiography, written in 1930 (microfilm copy at State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia) |
Wilder's handwritten drafts of her eight novels are located in the following places:
State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia (microfilm; originals are located at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Association, Mansfield, Missouri):
“Little House in the Big Woods”
“Farmer Boy”
“Little House on the Prairie”
“On the Banks of Plum Creek”
“By the Shores of Silver Lake”
Detroit Public Library, Rare Book Room:
“The Long Winter”
“These Happy Golden Years”
Pomona, California, Public Library:
“Little Town on the Prairie”
All of the books were published in New York by Harper and Brothers and Harper and Row. References in the notes are to the revised editions, illustrated by Garth Williams, published in 1953. Original publication dates for the books were:
Little House in the Big Woods, 1932
Farmer Boy, 1933
Little House on the Prairie, 1935
On the Banks of Plum Creek, 1937
By the Shores of Silver Lake, 1939
The Long Winter, 1940
Little Town on the Prairie, 1941
These Happy Golden Years, 1943
The First Four Years, 1971
Introduction
1. William Holtz, The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), 230, 302, 313, 375, 379–85; see also William Holtz, “The Ghost in the Little House Books,” Liberty 5 (March 1992): 51–54, and William Holtz, “Ghost and Host in the Little House Books,” Studies in the Literary Imagination 29 (fall 1996): 41–51.
2. Rosa Ann Moore, “Laura Ingalls Wilder's Orange Notebooks and the Art of the Little House Books,” in Children's Literature (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1975), 4:105–19; Rosa Ann Moore, “Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: The Chemistry of Collaboration,” Children's Literature in Education 2 (autumn 1980): 101–9; William T. Anderson, “The Literary Apprenticeship of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” South Dakota History 13 (winter 1983): 285–331; William T. Anderson, “Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: The Continuing Collaboration,” South Dakota History 16 (summer 1986): 89–143; Caroline Fraser, “The Prairie Queen,” New York Review of Books 41 (December 22, 1994): 38–45.
1. Pioneer Girl, 1867–1879
1. New York Times, February 8, 1867.
2. Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967); Samuel P. Hays, The Response to Industrialism, 1885–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957); John F. Stover, The Life and Decline of the American Railroad (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), chap. 3.
3. Pepin County Press, June 2, 1860, March 1, 1862.
4. LIW, Little House in the Big Woods, 1–2; Durand Times, December 12, 1865.
5. Robert F. Fries, Empire in Pine: The Story of Lumbering in Wisconsin, 1830–1900 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1951), 7–8, 20–23, 78–82; Charles E. Twining, Downriver: Orrin H. Ingram and the Empire Lumber Company (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1975), 28–29, 105–6; Malcolm Rosholt, Lumbermen on the Chippewa (Rosholt, Wis.: Rosholt House, 1982); John N. Vogel, Great Lakes Lumber on the Great Plains: The Laird, Norton Lumber Company in South Dakota (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992), esp. chaps. 5–6.
6. Everett N. Dick, The Sod-House Frontier, 1854–1890 (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1937); Robert V. Hine, Community on the American Frontier: Separate but Not Alone (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980); Richard A. Bartlett, The New Country: A Social History of the American Frontier, 1776–1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974).
7. Donald Zochert, Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder (New York: Avon, 1977), 12–14; John C. Hudson, “Two Dakota Homestead Frontiers,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 63 (December 1973): 448; Gerald W. McFarland, A Scattered People: An American Family Moves West (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 49.
8. On the Yankee migration, see John C. Hudson, “Yankeeland in the Middle West,” Journal of Geography 85 (September–October 1986): 195–200; Carleton Beals, Our Yankee Heritage: New England's Contribution to American Civilization (New York: David McKay, 1955); Stewart Holbrook, The Yankee Exodus: An Account of Migration from New England (New York: Macmillan, 1950); and Lois K. Mathews, The Expansion of New England (New York: Russell and Russell, 1909).
9. Ruth Bunker Christiansen, American and Royal Ancestors of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Frederic, Wis.: Sally Gustafson, 1984), 5–6; Notes from Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, Inc., Pepin, Wis. 3 (December 1978): 3; Zochert, Laura, 2.
10. Zochert, Laura, 3–5, 10; Elisha Keyes, “Early Days in Jefferson County,” Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin 11 (1888): 416–34; John Henry Ott, ed., Jefferson County, Wisconsin, and Its People (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1917), 1:36–69.
11. Zochert, Laura, 6–8.
12. Ibid., 8–9; William T. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 21–22.
13. Zochert, Laura, 11–12; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 23–24.
14. Zochert, Laura, 12–14; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 24.
15. Robert C. Nesbit, Wisconsin: A History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973), 248; Richard N. Current, The History of Wisconsin, vol. 2, The Civil War Era, 1848–1873 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976), 335; Notes from Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society (Pepin) 3 (June 1978): 3 and 4 (June 1979): 3; Zochert, Laura, 18. The enlistment files and muster rolls of Hiram and James Ingalls in Co. E, 1st Minnesota Heavy Artillery (Nos. 1149 and 1150) are located in the National Archives.
16. Zochert, Laura, 15; Pepin County History Book Committee, Pepin County History (Dallas: Taylor, 1985), 29; Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge, comp., History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties, Wisconsin (Winona, Minn.: H. C. Cooper Jr., 1919), 959; Durand Times, December 12, 1865.
17. Curtiss-Wedge, comp., History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties, 960, 1005–7; Pepin County History Book Committee, Pepin County History, 28–29; Pepin County Press, June 2, September 8, 1860, August 3, 1861; Pepin Independent, June 11, 1858.
18. Durand Times, September 26, 1871. Long litigation preceded a court decision in 1867, which confirmed the removal. Curtiss-Wedge, comp., History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties, 962.
19. Curtiss-Wedge, comp., History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties, 1007–8.
20. The legal description of the 160 acres was SW 1/4 of Section 27, Township 24 North, Range 15 West. The transaction was recorded in Deed Book F, 488, and Mortgage Record Book A, 545–46, Pepin County Courthouse, Durand, Wis. See also Zochert, Laura, 15–17.
21. LIW, Little House in the Big Woods, 6–7, 12, 31, 45, 102, 119, 186, 194, 212, 216. See also LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
22. Richard N. Current, Civil War Era, 452–54; Zochert, Laura, 20; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 31–32. The transactions were recorded in Deed Book F, 410, 490, Deed Book G, 162, 164, and Mortgage Record Book C, 67, Pepin County Courthouse, Durand, Wis.
23. Zochert, Laura, 23; Warranty Deed Book D, 121–22, Montgomery County Courthouse, Independence, Kans.
24. Warranty Deed Book 11, 381, Montgomery County Courthouse, Independence, Kans. But also see Zochert, Laura, 38.
25. James R. Shortridge, Peopling the Plains: Who Settled Where in Frontier Kansas (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 46–49; William F. Zornow, Kansas: A History of the Jayhawk State (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957), 161–63.
26. L. Wallace Duncan, History of Montgomery County, Kansas (Iola, Kans.: Press of Iola Register, 1903), 43, 79.
27. In Little House on the Prairie, Laura wrote that they were forty miles from town, which may explain why she and Rose were looking around in Oklahoma and never found the place when they drove out in the 1930s to do research for the book (76). The actual location was the SW 1/4 of Section 36-33-14; Zochert, Laura, 39, 43; 1870 Manuscript Census.
28. 1870 Manuscript Census.
29. Ibid.; Shortridge, Peopling the Plains, 49.
30. Willard H. Rollings, The Osage: An Ethnocultural Study of Hegemony on the Prairie-Plains (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992); John J. Mathews, The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), 650–92.
31. H. Craig Miner and William E. Unrau, The End of Indian Kansas: A Study of Cultural Revolution, 1854–1871 (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1978), 107–8.
32. Ibid., 117.
33. Ibid., 121–23; Paul W. Gates, Fifty Million Acres: Conflicts over Kansas Land Policy, 1854–1890 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1954), 194–206.
34. Gates, Fifty Million Acres, 221–22.
35. Ibid., 222; Miner and Unrau, End of Indian Kansas, 125, 138.
36. LIW, Little House on the Prairie, 52–65, 149–71, 185–98. In telling about their Kansas adventures, Laura said that Carrie had come with them from Wisconsin, although she was not actually born until the family arrived in Kansas.
37. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 41–43; Zochert, Laura, 46–51. Later, Laura would suggest that her father had been part of a posse that dispatched the bloody Bender family, who robbed and killed passing travelers who visited their store in nearby Labette County on the road between Fort Scott and Independence. She said that she had avoiding writing about it in her novels because the story was inappropriate for young readers. She was no doubt mistaken in this, however, since the Benders did not arrive until 1871, after the Ingallses had left Kansas and returned to Wisconsin (LIW and RWL, A Little House Sampler, ed. William T. Anderson [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988], 220–22; Edith Connelley Ross, “The Bloody Benders,” Kansas Historical Collections 17 [1926–1928], 464–79).
38. In Little House in the Big Woods Wilder spelled the family's name “Huleatt” (180); the 1870 Manuscript Census gave it as “Hewlet.”
39. LIW, Little House in the Big Woods, 178; 1870 Manuscript Census.
40. LIW, Little House in the Big Woods, 12–13, 199–202; Durand Times, October 10, 1871.
41. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
42. Ibid.; Notes from Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society (Pepin) 6 (May 1981): 2; LIW, Little House in the Big Woods, 64, 131–55; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 42–43.
43. Zochert, Laura, 52–53; Notes from Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society (Pepin) 16 (May 1991): 3.
44. Zochert, Laura, 52–55.
45. LIW, Little House in the Big Woods, 84–85; Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 2 (fall 1976): 7. The book was 761 pages long and published in 1871.
46. Notes from Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society (Pepin) 7 (May 1982): 2, 4; A Pathway through Pepin's History (Pepin, Wis.: Pepin Commercial Club, n.d.), 7. A high degree of social democracy and community involvement is suggested by the presence of those traits in nearby Trempeleau County, as described in Merle Curti, The Making of an American Community: A Case Study of Democracy in a Frontier County (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959), 112–15, 139.
47. LIW, Little House in the Big Woods, 33–36, 39.
48. Ibid., 28–33, 38. On the limited alternatives available to frontier women, see Julie Roy Jeffrey, Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1880 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1979), xvi, 10, 62, 190; Glenda Riley, The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988), 3–4, 76; and Deborah Fink, Agrarian Women: Wives and Mothers in Rural Nebraska, 1880–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 65–67. Elizabeth Jameson, however, notes the creativity and assertiveness demonstrated by many western women in playing out their prescribed roles in “Women as Workers, Women as Civilizers: True Womanhood in the American West,” in The Women's West, ed. Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson, 148–64 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987).
49. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW, Little House in Big Woods, 44, 238.
50. Deed Book J, 150, Pepin County Courthouse, Durand, Wis.; Henry and Polly Quiner also received one thousand dollars for their half, from Oscar Anderson. Deed Book J, 160, Pepin County Courthouse, Durand, Wis.; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 46–49; Zochert, Laura, 63–67.
51. Zochert, Laura, 72.
52. Charles W. Howe, ed., A Half Century of Progress: Walnut Grove, Minnesota and Vicinity, from 1866 to 1916 (Walnut Grove, Minn.: Walnut Grove Tribune, 1916), 3–4, 39–40; William T. Anderson, The Walnut Grove Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Walnut Grove, Minn.: Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, 1987), 13, 15.
53. Webb and Swedberg, Redwood: The Story of a County, 134–36.
54. Quoted in ibid., 133.
55. Anderson, Walnut Grove Story, 13. The farm was located on the northwest corner of Section 18, Township 109, Range 38. Charles Ingalls made final payment on the farm on July 7, 1876 (Redwood County Deed Record No. 5, 411–13, Redwood County Courthouse, Redwood Falls, Minn.).
56. Webb and Swedberg, Redwood, 155; Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge, The History of Redwood County, Minnesota (Chicago: H. C. Cooper Jr., 1916), 1:266; Annette Atkins, Harvest of Grief: Grasshopper Plagues and Public Assistance in Minnesota, 1873–1878 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984), 13–29.
57. Zochert, Laura, 73–78; Anderson, Walnut Grove Story, 15; Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 6 (fall–winter 1980): 5.
58. Zochert, Laura, 81–83; LIW, On the Banks of Plum Creek, 172–76.
59. LIW, “Prairie Girl.”
60. The transaction was recorded in Redwood County Deed Record No. 5, 412.
61. Edwin C. Bailey, Past and Present of Winneshiek County, Iowa (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1913), 1:102–4; W. E. Alexander, History of Winneshiek and Allamakee Counties, Iowa (Sioux City: Western, 1882), 120, 180–81.
62. Bailey, Past and Present, 1:7–9, 55–59, 65–66.
63. Zochert, Laura, 98; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 65; Charles H. Sparks, History of Winneshiek County with Biographical Sketches of Its Eminent Men (Decorah, Iowa: J. A. Leonard, 1877), 71–72.
64. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; Zochert, Laura, 99–100.
65. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; Zochert, Laura, 101, 107.
66. Zochert, Laura, 106, 110; Decorah Republican, February 11, 1876, March 1, 15, June 7, 1878.
67. Wilder's “Pioneer Girl” manuscript is invaluable for this entire chapter, but this paragraph and the several following ones are especially dependent upon it.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.; Zochert, Laura, 112.
70. Zochert, Laura, 117–19.
71. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
72. Ibid.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.; Howe, Half Century of Progress, 4; display with election results at LIW Museum, Walnut Grove, Minn.
75. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
2. Schoolgirl and Courting Days, 1879–1885
1. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; Zochert, Laura, 129–30.
2. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; Zochert, Laura, 130–31.
3. Herbert S. Schell, History of South Dakota, 3rd. ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975), 158–74.
4. “Alexander Mitchell,” Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934), 8:39–40; Robert J. Casey and W. A. S. Douglas, Pioneer Railroad: The Story of the Chicago and North Western System (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948), 135–38.
5. Casey and Douglas, Pioneer Railroad, 161–65; James F. Hamburg, The Influence of Railroads upon the Processes and Patterns of Settlement in South Dakota (New York: Arno Press, 1981), 82–116.
6. Kenneth Hammer, “Dakota Railroads” (Ph.D. diss., South Dakota State University, 1966), 183–201. On the Dakota, or Sioux, Indians, see Royal B. Hassrick, et al., The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior Society (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964); James H. Howard, The Dakota or Sioux Indians: A Study in Human Ecology (Vermillion: Dakota Museum, 1966); Robert M. Utley, The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).
7. George W. Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1915), 2:1053–59.
8. LIW, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 61–62.
9. Brookings County Press, March 27, July 10, 24, August 21, 1879; Brookings County History Book Committee, Brookings County History Book (Freeman, S.Dak.: Pine Hill Press, 1989), 45.
10. Brookings County Press, May 15, August 21, September 11, October 9, 23, 30, November 6, 1879 (quotation from September 25).
11. LIW, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 41, 57.
12. Ibid., 58–59; John U. Terrell, Black Robe: The Life of Pierre-Jean De Smet, Missionary, Explorer and Pioneer (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964).
13. LIW, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 158–61, 168–71, 209–13.
14. Ibid., 183–86; De Smet News, June 6, 1930 (fiftieth anniversary issue).
15. Charles Ingalls, Homestead Application No. 4091 (Final Certificate No. 2708), May 11, 1886, National Archives; LIW, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 233–37.
16. LIW, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 240–42; LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
17. LIW, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 241–42.
18. Hamburg, Influence of Railroads, 90; On T-towns, see John C. Hudson, Plains Country Towns (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), chap. 7; Town Lot Record Book No. 1, 3–4, Kingsbury County Courthouse, De Smet, S.Dak.
19. A map published in the De Smet Leader on September 22, 1883, identified the locations of all the businesses in town and several of the residences.
20. LIW, By the Shores of Silver Lake, 247–48, 272–73.
21. Ibid., 267–75; LIW, The Long Winter, 28–31. Although Wilder made it sound as if her mother had been averse to fieldwork in The Long Winter (4), in her “Pioneer Girl” manuscript she indicated that her mother, in fact, did help in the field if it was necessary. That women's fieldwork was not uncommon is made clear by Riley, Female Frontier, 53, 117–18, 132–33; Fink, Agrarian Women, 68–69; Janet M. Labrie, “The Depiction of Women's Field Work in Rural Fiction,” Agricultural History 67 (spring 1993): 123–27.
22. Schell, History of South Dakota, 180–88; LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW, The Long Winter, 74.
23. LIW, The Long Winter, 77–80; John E. Miller, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town: Where History and Literature Meet (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 58–59.
24. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
25. LIW, The Long Winter, 288.
26. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW to RWL, March 7, 1938, Box 13, Lane Papers.
27. LIW, The Long Winter, 127, 133–35, 140, 143–44, 147, 157, 169; LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
28. In The Long Winter, Wilder and Lane told the story somewhat differently and at much greater length from the way Wilder had originally related it in “Pioneer Girl” (262–85, 295–308).
29. In Little Town on the Prairie, Wilder changed Clayson's name to Clancy (35–46, 56).
30. Ibid., 28, 37, 48–49, 111–12, 307.
31. LIW, The Long Winter, 65, 129, 175; LIW, On the Banks of Plum Creek, 55–60, 105, 173–76; LIW, Little Town on the Prairie, 8, 11–13.
32. LIW, Little Town on the Prairie, 93–94, 184, 228.
33. Ibid., 41–46, 56.
34. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.; LIW, Little Town on the Prairie, 127–36, 145–84.
37. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
38. Ibid.; LIW, Little Town on the Prairie, 239–51.
39. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
40. Miller, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town, 117–21.
41. Ibid., 118–20.
42. 1880 Manuscript Census.
43. Miller, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town, 122–23, 140.
44. De Smet Leader, August 9, 1884; Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 6 (fall–winter 1980): 6; LIW, Little Town on the Prairie, 277.
45. Grade ten was added in 1893, eleven in 1899, and twelve in 1908. John E. Miller, “End of an Era: De Smet High School Class of 1912,” South Dakota History 20 (fall 1990): 201.
46. Miller, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town, chap. 4.
47. Ibid., 60–61; LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW to RWL, March 7, 1938, Box 13, Lane Papers.
48. 1880 Manuscript Census.
49. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW, Little Town on the Prairie, 197–99.
50. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW, These Happy Golden Years, 100, 114–22, 130, 133–34.
51. Gilbert C. Fite, The Farmers'Frontier, 1865–1900 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), 44, 104–5; Ray A. Billington and Martin Ridge, Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier, 5th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), 634–36.
52. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW, These Happy Golden Years, 96–98.
53. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; Miller, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town, chap. 7.
54. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.” Contract on display at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Mansfield, Mo.
55. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
56. Ibid. In These Happy Golden Years, Wilder melded Stella into the character of Nellie Oleson (171–81).
57. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW, These Happy Golden Years, 185–99.
58. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; LIW, These Happy Golden Years, 214–16.
59. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
60. Ibid.; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, 2:1363–70. Several De Smetites went to New Orleans (De Smet Leader, February 14, March 7, 1885).
61. Contract on display at Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, Mansfield, Mo.; LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
62. Ibid.; AJW, Homestead Application No. 3610 (Final Certificate No. 1490), September 16, 1884, National Archives.
63. LIW, “Pioneer Girl”; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 127–28.
64. LIW, “Pioneer Girl.”
65. Ibid.
3. The Joys and Sorrows of Early Married Life, 1885–1894
1. LIW, The First Four Years, 3–6.
2. William T. Anderson, The Story of the Wilders (by the author, 1973), 2–5; Dorothy Smith, The Wilder Family Story (Malone, N.Y.: Industrial Press, 1972), 7–8.
3. Anderson, Story of the Wilders, 5–6; Smith, Wilder Family Story, 15–18, 21.
4. William T. Anderson, ed., A Wilder in the West: The Story of Eliza Jane Wilder (De Smet, S.Dak.: Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, 1985).
5. Ibid., 5; AJW, Homestead Application No. 3610 (Final Certificate No. 1490), September 16, 1884, AJW, Cash Entry No. 10979, August 6, 1891, National Archives.
6. “I wrote Free Land,” Rose told the Saturday Evening Post, “because I could no longer bear hearing people say, ‘But everything is so changed now; there's no more free land.’ Everything certainly is changed now, but as to really ‘free’ land, there never was any” (Saturday Evening Post 210 [March 5, 1938]: 34).
7. Royal's and Eliza's claims are also on file at the National Archives. They are also recorded in Tract Book 22 for South Dakota, Township 111 North, Range 56 West.
8. See Tract Book 22 referred to in previous note.
9. For Almanzo's homestead's file, see footnote 5, above.
10. LIW, The First Four Years, 23, 49, 50, 52.
11. Ibid., 11–14, 22, 24, 29, 45; LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 9.
12. Ibid., 131–32; LIW, The First Four Years, 22.
13. De Smet Leader, July 7, 28, August 11, September 15, October 27, November 10, December 8, 15, 1883, August 30, 1884.
14. Ibid., August 11, 1883, June 5, 12, 26, 1886, May 7, 21, 1887.
15. Ibid., November 13, 1886.
16. Ibid., November 7, 1885, August 7, 28, November 6, December 11, 1886.
17. Ibid., February 17, April 7, 1883, February 6, August 15, September 18, 1886, February 26, 1887.
18. Ibid., July 11, December 26, 1885, January 9, April 17, September 11, December 25, 1886, January 15, March 26, April 16, August 6, 1887.
19. LIW, The First Four Years, 48.
20. Ibid., 43–44, 52, 54; De Smet Leader, July 3, August 7, 1886.
21. LIW, The First Four Years, 62–63.
22. Ibid., 70–72.
23. Grace Ingalls Diary, January 12, March 20, 1887, March 5, 1888, Box 17, Lane Papers.
24. LIW, The First Four Years, 102–3, 116.
25. Ibid., 72–73; De Smet Leader, July 30, August 6, September 3, 1887.
26. LIW, The First Four Years, 82–83; De Smet Leader, July 30, 1887.
27. De Smet Leader, September 26, October 3, 1885, May 14, 1887; LIW, The First Four Years, 87–88.
28. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 134; LIW, The First Four Years, 88; Grace Ingalls Diary, March 5, April 18, 1888, Box 17, Lane Papers.
29. LIW, The First Four Years, 89.
30. Ibid., 89–90. Almanzo's sworn affidavit for purchasing the land later as a preemption claim said that they were back at the tree claim by April 1888 (AJW, Cash Entry No. 10979, August 6, 1891, National Archives).
31. LIW, The First Four Years, 87, 93–95 (quotation on 95).
32. Ibid., 121–22; John E. Miller, “More than Statehood on Their Minds: South Dakota Joins the Union, 1889,” Great Plains Quarterly 10 (fall 1990), 214–15.
33. De Smet Leader, January 24, 1885, March 13, September 18, 1886, July 23, 1887, June 7–July 12, 1890; Dakota Huronite, December 25, 1884; Schell, History of South Dakota, 223–27.
34. Grace Ingalls Diary, August 27, 1889, Box 17, Lane Papers; LIW, The First Four Years, 125–27.
35. Quoted in William T. Anderson, Laura's Rose: The Story of Rose Wilder Lane (De Smet, S.Dak.: Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, 1976), 4.
36. LIW, The First Four Years, 128–31.
37. Ibid., 131–32; Grace Ingalls Diary, November 17, 1889, Box 17, Lane Papers.
38. Grace Ingalls Diary, November 17, 1889, May 18, 1890, Box 17, Lane Papers; Anderson, Story of the Wilders, 9–10; Mary Jo Dathe, Spring Valley: The Laura Ingalls Wilder “Connection,” 1890 (by the author, 1990), 14; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 138; AJW, Cash Entry No. 10979, August 6, 1891, National Archives.
39. AJW, Cash Entry No. 10979, August 6, 1891, National Archives.
40. De Smet Leader, February 1, March 22, April 5, July 12, 1890; Grace Ingalls Diary, May 18, 1890, Box 17, Lane Papers.
41. Dathe, Spring Valley, 14–16, 20–21.
42. Ibid., 19–20.
43. Ibid., 22–23, 25; Alene M. Warnock, Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Westville, Florida, Years (by the author, 1979), 7; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 139.
44. Warnock, Westville, Florida, Years, 8; quotation in LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 40.
45. RWL, “Innocence,” Harper's (April 1922), reprinted in LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 44.
46. Ibid., 46, 48–49; RWL, “Grandpa's Fiddle,” in LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 65.
47. Zochert, Laura, 194.
48. Smith, Wilder Family Story, 25–26; Anderson, Story of the Wilders, 6–7, 10–13; Anderson, Wilder in the West, 31.
49. LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 56–58; William T. Anderson, The Story of the Ingalls (by the author, 1971), 15.
50. LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 60–64.
51. Ibid., 55–56.
52. Ibid., 65–66.
4. In the Land of the Big Red Apple, 1894–1911
1. Missouri Ruralist, December 1, 1923.
2. Kansas City, Fort Scott, and Memphis Railway Company, “Among the Ozarks: The Land of ‘Big Red Apples,’” 2nd ed. (Kansas City: Hudson-Kimberly, 1892), 17 (copy on file at State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia).
3. Ray Ginger, Age of Excess: The United States from 1877 to 1914 (New York: Macmillan, 1975), chap. 8; Nell Irvin Painter, Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877–1919 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), chap. 4.
4. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 144–45; RWL, introduction to On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894, by LIW (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 6–12.
5. LIW, On the Way Home, 15–21.
6. Ibid., 25, 27n.
7. Ibid., 28–59 (quotation on 59).
8. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 148–49; LIW, On the Way Home, 62–65 (quotation on 65).
9. LIW, On the Way Home, 67–71.
10. Ibid., 71, 74.
11. RWL, afterword to ibid., 75–76.
12. Missouri Ruralist, July 22, 1911; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 150–51.
13. Warranty Deed Record Book No. 28, 178, Wright County Courthouse, Hartville, Mo.; RWL, afterword to On the Way Home, by LIW, 77–83.
14. Missouri Ruralist, July 22, 1911, June 1, 1912, February 20, 1918.
15. Ibid., July 22, 1911, February 20, 1918; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 152–53.
16. Vearl Rowe, Sketches of Wright County, Part III: Schools and Education (by the author, n.d.), 68–69; Mansfield Mirror, March 25, 1948; RWL to Jasper Crane, December 13, 1961, Box 4, Lane Papers; William Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 32–33; LIW, On the Way Home, 95; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 153–54.
17. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 155–56.
18. Ibid., 157–58.
19. RWL, Old Home Town (1935; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 8–9.
20. Charles Ingalls, in a biographical sketch about him published in Ogle's Compendium of Biography (1898), identified himself as a Populist. Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 6 (fall–winter 1980): 6. In July 1948, as the national party conventions were approaching, Rose wrote in the Economic Council Review of Books, “At the age of three, prone on the rag carpet in a Dakota claim-shanty, I licked a pencil-point thoroughly and with anxious care cast my first vote, for Cleveland, on a sample ballot. (My father had previously given me my first political instruction)” (4). Allowing for some faulty recollection on her part (she would have been still a month short of two years old in November 1888, and may rather have been thinking of 1892, when Cleveland ran a third time for the presidency), Rose's memory would support the notion that her father had been a Democrat at that time. On the Republican tenor of Mansfield and the surrounding region, see Mansfield Mirror, April 8, 1948 (fortieth anniversary issue); History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas, Webster, wright, Texas, Pulaski, Phelps and Dent Counties, Missouri (Chicago: Goodspeed, 1889), 379; and election voting returns.
21. Warranty Deed Record Book No. 39, 489, Wright County Courthouse, Hartville, Mo.
22. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 162–63.
23. Warranty Deed Record Book No. 36, 317–18, Wright County Courthouse, Hartville, Mo.; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 165–66.
24. RWL, afterword to On the Way Home, by LIW, 83–84.
25. Mansfield Mail, January 22, May 6, 27, 1904, December 22, 1906; Mansfield Press, October 9, 1908, April 23, May 21, 1909; Larry Dennis and Debbie Arnall, Mansfield, Missouri: The First Hundred Years, 1882–1982 (Mansfield, Mo.: Centennial Book Committee, 1983), 185.
26. Clyde A. Rowan, ed., History and Families: Wright County, Missouri (Hartville, Mo.: Wright County Historical Society, 1993), 12, 14, 160; Mansfield Mirror, April 8, 1948; History of Laclede, 413–23. Milton D. Rafferty notes the crucial importance of the coming of the railroad in transforming the economic and cultural geography of the Ozarks region (The Ozarks: Land and Life [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980], 98).
27. Vearl Rowe, Sketches of Wright County, Part I: General History (Mountain Grove, Mo.: by the author, 1984), 13.
28. Rafferty, Ozarks, 47–48; Russel Gerlach, Settlement Patterns in Missouri: A Study of Population Origins with a Wall Map (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 21–22; Russel Gerlach, “The Ozark Scotch-Irish,” in Cultural Geography of Missouri, ed. Michael O. Roark, 11–29 (Cape Girardeau: Southeast Missouri State University, 1983); Floyd C. Shoemaker, “Missouri's Tennessee Heritage,” Missouri Historical Review 49 (January 1955): 127–42; Vearl Rowe, Sketches of Wright County, Part IV: Churches (Mountain Grove, Mo.: by the author, n.d.), 33–39; Dennis and Arnall, Mansfield, Missouri, 177–80.
29. Robert K. Gilmore, Ozark Baptizings, Hangings, and Other Diversions: Theatrical Folkways of Rural Missouri, 1885–1910 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984); Douglas Mahnkey, Bright Glowed My Hills (Point Lookout, Mo.: School of the Ozarks Press, 1968), 2, 35.
30. David Thelen, Paths of Resistance: Tradition and Dignity in Industrializing Missouri (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). While the language of the introduction to Old Home Town as published blurs the identity of the town and implies that her comments were relevant to small towns everywhere, the original drafts of the manuscript at the Hoover Presidential Library make clear that Lane had Mansfield in mind in writing this piece (see drafts, Box 40, Lane Papers). For an analysis of this collection of short stories, see William Holtz, “Rose Wilder Lane's Old Home Town,” Studies in Short Fiction 26 (fall 1989): 479–87.
31. RWL, Old Home Town, 23.
32. Ibid., 23–24.
33. RWL, postscript to On the Way Home, by LIW, 77.
34. RWL, “I, Rose Wilder Lane…,” Cosmopolitan 80 (June 1926): 42.
35. RWL, Journal, April 10, 1933, Box 23, Lane Papers.
36. Quoted in Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 33.
37. RWL, “I, Rose Wilder Lane…,” 42.
38. RWL, Economic Council Review of Books (September 1947), 2; RWL, “Rose Wilder Lane, by Herself,” Sunset, the Pacific Monthly 41 (November 1918): 26; RWL, “We Women Are Not Good Citizens,” Woman's Day (March 1939), 4.
39. RWL to Norma Lee Browning Ogg, May 17, 1964, Box 10, RWL to Jasper Crane, December 13, 1961, Box 4, Lane Papers.
40. Rowe, Sketches of Wright County, Part III, 68; RWL to Jasper Crane, December 13, 1961, Box 4, Lane Papers.
41. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 41–48; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 168–69.
42. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 169, 171; Warranty Deed Record Book No. 42, 483, No. 53, 112, No. 55, 452, 511, and No. 63, 496, Wright County Courthouse, Hartville, Mo.
43. History of Laclede, 355; Rowe, Sketches of Wright County, Part I, 29.
44. State of Missouri, Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Inspection (1902), 64.
45. Missouri Yearbook of Agriculture (1915), 301, 304, 307–8; Forty-Third Annual Report of the Missouri State Board of Agriculture (1910), 474–79.
46. Mansfield Mail, October 28, 1905, September 7, 1906; Mansfield Press, October 9, 16, 1908, April 2, 1909.
47. De Smet News, September 11, October 16, 1903; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 166–67.
48. See fragment beginning, “In the days of old when black magic was practiced,” in folder titled “Laura's ‘Ideas for Work,’ 1903+,” Box 14, Lane Papers.
49. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 48–53. Rose may have later had a child that lived only a short time or may have suffered a miscarriage that left her unable to have any more children.
50. Peggy Dennis interview, by the author, Mansfield, Mo., June 18, 1993; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 173.
51. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 171–75.
5. Building a Writing Career, 1911–1923
1. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 176.
2. Missouri Ruralist, February 18, 1911.
3. Ibid., July 22, 1911.
4. Ibid., June 1, 1912, February 5, April 20, June 20, 1914, November 20, December 5, 1915.
5. Mansfield Mirror, October 2, 1913.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., March 20, July 24, 31, August 7, 1913.
8. Ibid., July 10, 1913, May 6, 1915.
9. Ibid., July 24, December 4, 1913, October 8, 1914, May 27, 1915, May 4, December 21, 1916 (the quotation is from the July 1, 1915, issue).
10. Mansfield Mirror, January 23, December 26, 1912, March 13, 1913.
11. Ibid., February 13, March 27, November 27, December 4, 1913, June 4, 1914, February 11, May 13, 1915, March 16, May 18, November 9, 23, December 14, 1916, December 13, 1917, February 7, 1918. The contradictory relationship between the movies of the time and traditional culture is noted by Robert Sklar in Movie-Made America: A Social History of American Movies (New York: Random House, 1975), 139–40.
12. Mansfield Mirror, September 25, October 2, 1913, October 22, 1914, August 16, 1917.
13. RWL to LIW, undated [December—] (begins “I am sending you some drapery samples”), Box 13, Lane Papers.
14. RWL to LIW, undated (page 4 begins “How would it be, with your organizing ability”), Box 13, Lane Papers.
15. RWL to LIW, undated (begins “The Star Farmer looks quite nifty”), undated (begins “I open this letter to suggest”), Box 13, Lane Papers.
16. LIW, West from Home: Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder to Almanzo Wilder, San Francisco 1915, ed. Roger Lea MacBride, 3–5 (New York: HarperTrophy, 1976).
17. Ibid., 8–9, 12–14, 17, 20.
18. Ibid., 30, 35, 38–39, 41.
19. Missouri Ruralist, March 5, 1916.
20. LIW, West from Home, 43–46, 71–73, 78–79, 98. See also original letter, LIW to AJW, September 23, 1915, Box 13, Lane Papers, whose statement “Rose hoots at that idea” was edited out of the published letters.
21. LIW, West from Home, 67, 92–93.
22. Ibid., 95.
23. Ibid., 110–11, 113; Missouri Ruralist, December 5, 1915.
24. LIW, West from Home, 109.
25. RWL to LIW, undated (begins “I open this letter to suggest”), Box 13, Lane Papers.
26. John E. Miller, “Laura Ingalls Wilder's Apprenticeship as a Farm Author,” Papers of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Dakota History Conference, comp. Arthur R. Huseboe and Harry F. Thompson, 481–88 (Sioux Falls, S.Dak.: Augustana College, 1994).
27. Missouri Ruralist, July 22, 1911, July 20, 1916, February 20, 1919, March 20, 1920.
28. Ibid., February 5, 1920.
29. Ibid., August 20, 1916, April 20, 1918, December 5, 1919; LIW, The Long Winter, 65.
30. Missouri Ruralist, February 18, 1911, July 20, 1917, November 20, 1919, June 15, 1922, January 1, 1924.
31. Ibid., October 5, 20, 1916, January 5, February 20, 1917, September 5, October 20, November 5, 1918.
32. Ibid., May 20, 1918, March 5, 1919, October 20, 1920, June 15, 1921.
33. Ibid., February 1, 1924, April 5, June 20, 1916.
34. Ibid., May 5, 1917.
35. Lawrence O. Christensen, “Popular Reaction to World War I in Missouri,” Missouri Historical Review 86 (July 1992): 386–95; John C. Crighton, Missouri and the World War, 1914–1917: A Study in Public Opinion (Columbia: University of Missouri Studies, 1947); Mansfield Mirror, June 10, 17, August 9, 1917; Missouri Ruralist, August 5, 1917.
36. Mansfield Mirror, May 17, July 5, August 2, 9, 1917, April 18, 1918.
37. Ibid., January 3, March 21, April 25, August 15, 22, September 19, October 24, 1918.
38. Mansfield Mirror, April 4, 25, May 2, 9, 1918; Missouri Ruralist, January 5, 1918.
39. Missouri Ruralist, February 20, July 5, 1918.
40. Mansfield Mirror, November 7, 14, 1918, February 6, May 8, 1919.
41. Missouri Ruralist, August 5, 1919.
42. Ibid., October 5, 1916.
43. Ibid., November 5, 1917.
44. Ibid., October 5, 1917, February 20, 1918, April 1, 1924.
45. Ibid., November 1, 1922.
46. LIW, “Whom Will You Marry?” McCall's 49 (June 1919): 8, 62.
47. RWL to LIW, April 11, 1919, Box 13, Lane Papers.
48. Ibid.
49. San Francisco Bulletin, February 10, March 19, April 24, 1915.
50. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 93–136, 184.
51. Ibid., 136–41.
6. Turning to Autobiography, 1923–1932
1. RWL to “Dear Comrades” [Berta and Elmer Hader], [December 1924], Box 5, Lane Papers; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 141.
2. RWL to Guy Moyston, December 24, 1923, Box 9, Lane Papers.
3. RWL to Guy Moyston, undated, January 19, 1924, May 4, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
4. RWL to Guy Moyston, February 9, 1924, July 27, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
5. RWL to Guy Moyston, February 9, 1924, August 30, [1925], Box 9, Lane Papers.
6. RWL to Guy Moyston, [late 1924], May 7, December 1, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 142.
7. Mansfield Mirror, April 3, 1924; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 144–45, 151–52.
8. RWL to Guy Moyston, July 9, 1924, Box 9, Lane Papers; Mansfield Mirror, July 10, 1924, July 7, 1927, July 12, 1928, June 13, 1929, June 23, 1932; RWL, “Prairie Hollow Singing,” Country Gentleman 91 (February 1926): 15–16, 135–36, 139. The county singing conventions continued into the 1960s.
9. Mansfield Mirror, January 10, June 12, 1924; RWL, Diary, January 3, 1924, Box 21, Lane Papers.
10. RWL to Guy Moyston, July 9, 1924, Box 9, Lane Papers.
11. Mansfield Mirror, February 5, April 23, 1925, January 21, June 17, December 23, 1926, January 5, 1928, January 24, 1929.
12. Ibid., March 5, July 16, 1925, April 29, July 29, 1926, April 7, May 5, 1927, February 2, 1928.
13. Rose mentioned her fox-hunting expeditions and her efforts to get a fox-hunting article published in her diary on March 7, June 1, 7, and July 21, 1930, Box 21, Lane Papers. Amon Short recalled how when he was a young boy his father took Rose fox hunting (interview by the author, Mansfield, Mo., August 19, 1995).
14. LIW, “My Ozark Kitchen,” Country Gentleman 90 (January 17, 1925): 19, 22; LIW, “The Farm Dining Room,” Country Gentleman 90 (June 13, 1925): 21–22; LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 137; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 148; RWL to LIW, [November 1924], Box 13, Lane Papers.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., RWL to LIW, November 12, 1924, Box 13, Lane Papers.
17. RWL to Guy Moyston, February 17, March 31, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
18. Mansfield Mirror, February 26, 1925.
19. RWL to Guy Moyston, March 9, 22, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
20. Mansfield Mirror, March 19, April 2, 1925; RWL to Guy Moyston, April 1, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
21. De Smet News, April 25, May 2, 1924; LIW to Martha Carpenter, June 1925, Box 17, Lane Papers.
22. LIW to Martha Carpenter, June 22, September 2, October 9, 1925, Box 17, Lane Papers.
23. RWL to Guy Moyston, July 27, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
24. Ibid., May 7, 1925.
25. Ibid., June 9, August 10, 1925.
26. Ibid., July 27, 1925.
27. Ibid. On the relationship between mother and daughter, see Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 31–34, 142–44, 155, 194–96, 220–25, 230–32, 237–39, 243–45, 264–65, 273–76, 293–94, 334–35, 373–76; and Anita Clair Fellman, “Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: The Politics of a Mother-Daughter Relationship,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 15 (spring 1990), 535–61.
28. RWL to Guy Moyston, September 12, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
29. Ibid., January 14, [1925].
30. Ibid., February 17, [ca. April 20], 1925; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 153–54.
31. RWL to Guy Moyston, March 19, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
32. Mansfield Mirror, June 25, July 23, 1925, April 4, 25, 1929, November 20, 1930, April 30, June 25, 1931.
33. Ninth Biennial Report of the State Highway Commission of Missouri (1934), 37, 45; Mansfield Mirror, January 29, 1931, June 30, July 28, 1927, July 19, 1928; RWL, “Thirty-Mile Neighbors,” Country Gentleman 90 (May 16, 1925), 33.
34. LIW to AJW, September 18, 1925, Box 13, Lane Papers.
35. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 157–58; RWL to Guy Moyston, October 31, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
36. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 162.
37. RWL to Guy Moyston, December 17, 1925, LIW to Guy Moyston, June 28, 1926, Box 9, Lane Papers; Mansfield Mirror, June 17, July 22, September 30, November 4, 1926, March 10, November 10, 24, 1927.
38. LIW to Guy Moyston, June 28, 1926, Box 9, Lane Papers; Mansfield Mirror, January 3, February 21, 1924, August 6, October 15, 22, November 19, 1925, May 13, 1926, January 13, May 5, June 9, 1927, January 23, 1930.
39. RWL to LIW and AJW, September 25, October 7, 1926, Box 13, Lane Papers.
40. Ibid., RWL to Guy Moyston, January 20, 1925; Mansfield Mirror, May 20, July 8, August 19, 1926, February 17, April 21, July 21, October 20, 1927, March 15, 1928.
41. Mansfield Mirror, November 26, 1925, July 28, September 1, 1927, March 8, April 5, June 21, 1928.
42. Ibid., December 30, 1926, February 17, April 28, July 21, 28, 1927, March 29, June 14, July 5, 1928, October 10, 1929.
43. Ibid., May 1, 1924, April 1, September 9, 23, November 18, 1926, March 3, April 7, June 30, August 11, December 22, 1927, January 5, 1928, April 4, 1929, October 2, 1930, February 19, 1931.
44. Ibid., January 13, February 24, 1927.
45. RWL to Clarence Day, September 3, 1927, Box 1, Lane Papers.
46. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 184–85; RWL to Guy Moyston, March 6, 1928, Box 9, Lane Papers.
47. RWL to Fremont Older, April 20, 1928, Box 10, Lane Papers.
48. RWL to Guy Moyston, August 1, 1926, Box 9, RWL to Clarence Day, June 26, 1928, Box 10, Lane Papers.
49. RWL to Carl Brandt, April 24, 1928, Box 1, RWL to Clarence Day, June 26, 1928, Box 5, Lane Papers.
50. RWL, Diary, July 31 and memorandum at end of year, 1928, Box 21, RWL to Fremont Older, October 31, 1928, Box 10, Lane Papers; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 194–96.
51. RWL, Diary, December 22, 1928, Box 21, RWL to Fremont Older, October 31, 1928, January 23, 1929, Box 10, Lane Papers.
52. RWL to Fremont Older, June 27, 1928, Box 10, Lane Papers.
53. RWL to Clarence Day, April 8, 1928, Box 5, Lane Papers; Mansfield Mirror, August 11, 1927, April 26, 1928, March 7, July 25, October 10, 31, 1929, January 16, February 27, March 6, 20, May 15, July 17, August 21, September 25, October 30, November 13, 1930, May 7, October 8, 1931; RWL, Diary, April 19, 1928, September 27, October 9, 17, 1929, March 19, 1930, Box 21, Lane Papers.
54. RWL, Diary, January-February 1929, Box 21, RWL to Fremont Older, April 12, 1929, Box 10, Lane Papers.
55. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 197; RWL, Journal, May 28, 1929, Box 20, RWL to Fremont Older, July 28, 1929, Box 10, Lane Papers.
56. RWL to Clarence Day, April 8, 1928, Box 5, Lane Papers.
57. RWL to Fremont Older, October 7, November 3, 1929, Box 10, Lane Papers.
58. RWL, Diary, May 23–29, June 15–21, 1930, Box 21, RWL to Rexh Meta, June 7, 28, 1930, Box 8, Lane Papers.
59. RWL, Diary, January 30, 1930, May 7–17, July 31-August 5, August 15–22, August 28-September 2, 1930, Box 21, Lane Papers; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 220.
60. RWL, Diary, July 31, 1930, Box 21, Lane Papers.
61. Anderson, “Literary Apprenticeship,” 319, 324; RWL to LIW, [November 12, 1930], Box 13, Lane Papers.
62. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 225; list of authors is attached to George T. Bye to RWL, February 30, 1935, Box 1, Lane Papers; quotation is from Bye to RWL, April 6, 1931, Box 13, Lane Papers.
63. Marion Fiery to LIW, February 12, 1931, Box 13, Lane Papers.
64. Ibid., RWL to LIW, February 16, 1931.
65. Ibid.
66. Anderson, “Literary Apprenticeship,” 324; Marion Fiery to LIW, March 3, 1931, Box 13, RWL, Diary, May 8, 18, 20, 1931, Box 22, Lane Papers.
67. RWL, Diary, May 21–27, 1931, Box 22, Lane Papers.
68. RWL to Marion Fiery, May 27, 1931, Fiery to RWL, September 17, 1931, Box 13, RWL, Diary, June 6, 1931, Box 22, Lane Papers; De Smet News, June 19, 1931; Anderson, “Literary Apprenticeship,” 326.
69. RWL to George T. Bye, September 25, October 5, 1931, Box 13, Lane Papers. Further indication of Rose's low estimate of the importance of her mother's book came in an undated letter to Marion Fiery written sometime in early November 1931: “I don't feel like asking [George Bye] to take on, as a favor to me, a lot of petty detail work on my mother's stuff; his time's too valuable” (ibid.).
70. Marion Fiery to RWL, November 3, December 4, 1931, Box 13, RWL, Diary, November 26, 1931, Box 22, Lane Papers; Virginia Kirkus, “The Discovery of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” Horn Book Magazine 29 (December 1953): 428–29; Anderson, “Literary Apprenticeship,” 328.
71. Virginia Kirkus to LIW, December 8, 1931, Box 13, Lane Papers; Anderson, “Literary Apprenticeship,” 328–29.
72. Virginia Kirkus to LIW, December 18, 1931, Box 13, RWL, Diary, January 20, March 28, 1932, Box 22, Lane Papers.
7. Becoming a Celebrated Author, 1932–1937
1. Book Review Digest (1932), 1021.
2. RWL, Diary, June 6, August 24, September 11, 12, 19, 1931, November 9, 26, 1931, January 1, 1932, Box 22, Lane Papers.
3. Ibid., September 9, October 15, 26, November 4, 19, December 3, 5, 1931, end of year memorandum, February 6, 7, 12, 29, March 3, 1932.
4. Ibid., end of October memorandum, November 3, 1931.
5. Ibid., March 6–11, May 9–22, 28, June 2–15, 21, August 12–16, 1932.
6. De Smet News, June 20, 1930.
7. RWL, Diary, June 6, 1931, Box 22, Lane Papers; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 196–97.
8. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 197–98.
9. RWL, Diary, June 15, 29, 1931, Box 22, Lane Papers.
10. Ibid., June 26–July 1, 13, 15, August 1, 6–7, 1932, February 2, 1933.
11. RWL, Journal, May 29, 31, June 8, 1932, Box 22, RWL to Guy Moyston, May 30, 1925, Box 9, Lane Papers.
12. Ibid., January 25, 1933; LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 200–215.
13. RWL to Jasper Crane, April 18, 1955, Box 3, Lane Papers; RWL to Eleanor Garst, reprinted in Better Homes and Gardens 12 (December 1933): 19.
14. RWL, Diary, August 12–15, September 22, 1932, Box 22, Lane Papers.
15. Richard S. Kirkendall, A History of Missouri: Volume V, 1919 to 1953 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 131, 133, 165; Mansfield Mirror, August 15, 1935.
16. Mansfield Mirror, September 6, 27, 1934, August 20, 1936; RWL, Diary, July 19, 22, 1934, Box 22, RWL to Adelaide Neall, July 20, 1934, Box 10, Lane Papers; Kirkendall, History of Missouri, 131.
17. Mansfield Mirror, November 17, 1932, November 15, 1934, November 5, 12, 1936; Official Manual of the State of Missouri (1933–1934), 214, 374; Official Manual of the State of Missouri (1937–1938), 227, 332; Robert S. Wiley, Dewey Short: Orator of the Ozarks (Cassville, Mo.: Litho Printers, 1985).
18. Mansfield Mirror, November 30, 1933, January 9, March 12, May 14, September 17, December 3, 1936.
19. Ibid., September 28, October 5, 26, November 2, 30, 1933, April 5, August 16, September 20, 1934; Kirkendall, History of Missouri, 164.
20. RWL to Mark Sullivan, August 16, 1938, Box 11, Lane Papers.
21. RWL, Journal, March 24, 1933, Box 23, Lane Papers.
22. Ibid., January 24, 1933.
23. Ibid., January 24, 27, 1933; RWL, Diary, January 13-March 2, 1933, Box 22, Lane Papers.
24. RWL, Journal, January 25, 27, 1933, Box 23, Lane Papers.
25. Ibid., February 11, 18, March 25, April 29, 1933, RWL, Diary, end of March 1933 memorandum, Box 22, Lane Papers.
26. RWL, Journal, April 10, 1933, Box 23, Lane Papers.
27. Ibid., May 20, 1933.
28. George Bye to RWL, March 24, 1933, RWL to Bye, April 2, 1933, Box 13, RWL, Diary, June 1, 1933, Box 22, Lane Papers.
29. Book Review Digest (1933), 1016–17.
30. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 201; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 253; Grant Foreman to RWL, March 26, 27, 1933, R. B. Selvidge to LIW, July 5, 1933, Helen McFarland to LIW, June 19, 1933, Box 14, RWL, Journal, March 17, April 8, June 26, 1933, Box 23, George Bye to RWL, August 9, 1932, Box 1, RWL to Adelaide Neall, June 23, 1934, Box 10, RWL, Diary, June 25, 1933, March 19, June 27, 1934, Box 22, Lane Papers; John E. Miller, “Rose Wilder Lane and Thomas Hart Benton: A Turn toward History during the 1930s,” American Studies 37 (fall 1996): 83–101.
31. Mansfield Mirror, September 6, October 4, 1934, September 5, 1935.
32. RWL, Diary, April 23, September 11, 1932, January 16, February 5, 1933, September 10, 1934, February, 25, 1935, Box 22, Lane Papers.
33. Ibid., December 24, 1932, March 12, June 9, December 5, 1933, January 7, February 15, June 10, October 7, December 24, 1934, January 4, February 10, May 18, 1935.
34. RWL, Journal, December 16, 1933, Box 23, Lane Papers; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 108–9, 184, 198, 248–49, 253–54.
35. RWL, Journal, December 29, 1933, Box 23, Lane Papers.
36. RWL, Diary, February 1, 1934, Box 22, Lane Papers.
37. Mansfield Mirror, July 14, 1927, August 2, 1928.
38. RWL, Diary, May 19–21, 27–28, 30–31, June 10, 25, 1934, Box 22, Lane Papers.
39. Ibid., July 13, 17, 20, August 27, 1934, February 26, 1935 (in memoranda section at end of year).
40. George Bye to RWL, April 26, 1935, Box 1, Lane Papers.
41. Ibid., February 19, 1936.
42. Ida Louise Raymond to LIW, July 13, August 27, 1934, Box 13, Lane Papers; Mansfield Mirror, October 3, 1935; Book Review Digest (1935), 1068–69.
43. RWL, Diary, March 29, May 10, 1936, Box 23, Lane Papers; see income tax returns, “Miss Rose Wilder Lane—Statement for Calendar Year 1936,” in George Bye file, Box 1, Lane Papers; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 264, 268–69.
44. LIW to RWL, August 6, 1936, attached to manuscript of LIW, On the Banks of Plum Creek, folder 19, Missouri State Historical Society, Columbia.
45. This and the next several notes come from mainly undated notes and correspondence between Rose and Laura as they collaborated on the writing of On the Banks of Plum Creek in June, July, and August 1936. The letters are attached to the manuscript in folder 19, Missouri State Historical Society, Columbia.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.; LIW, On the Banks of Plum Creek, 299–312.
50. LIW to RWL, July 3, 1936, attached to manuscript of LIW, On the Banks of Plum Creek, folder 19, Missouri Historical Society, Columbia.
51. LIW to RWL, June 25, 1936, ibid.; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 264.
52. RWL, Diary, August 10, 1940, Box 23, Lane Papers.
53. RWL to LIW, September 21, 1936, Box 13, Lane Papers.
54. Book Review Digest (1937), 1049.
8. Completing the Series, 1937–1943
1. LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler; ed. Anderson, 179.
2. Ibid., 215; RWL to LIW, October 11, 1937, Box 13, Lane Papers.
3. Neta Seal interview, by the author, Mansfield, Mo., June 18, 1993; Helen Burkhiser, Neta, Laura's Friend (by the author, 1989), 8–11.
4. AJW to RWL, December 19, 1937, Box 13, Lane Papers.
5. Ibid., RWL to LIW, October 11, 1937.
6. Ibid., LIW to RWL, January 26, [1938].
7. LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 216–17.
8. LIW to RWL, March 22, 1937, Box 13, Lane Papers.
9. LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 219, 222–23.
10. Ibid., 180.
11. RWL to LIW, [late October 1937], Box 13, Lane Papers.
12. Ibid., LIW to RWL, February 5, 1937.
13. Ibid., AJW to RWL, March 12, 1937; LIW and RWL, Little House Sampler, ed. Anderson, 200–215.
14. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 272; Steven Kesselman, “The Frontier Thesis and the Great Depression,” Journal of the History of Ideas 29 (April-June 1968): 253–68. On the political assumptions that lay behind Free Land, see Holtz, “Rose Wilder Lane's Free Land: The Political Background,” South Dakota Review 30 (spring 1992): 46–60.
15. RWL, Free Land: Outline of Manuscript and Fragments, Box 33, Lane Papers.
16. New York Times Book Review, June 5, 1938, 24. Compare the story in RWL, Free Land (1938; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), 18–33, with the letter from AJW to RWL, March 20, 1937, Box 13, Lane Papers; the quotation is from Free Land, 7.
17. Saturday Review of Literature 18 (May 7, 1938): 5; letters in file titled “Saturday Evening Post Pioneer Stories,” Box 11, Lane Papers.
18. RWL to LIW, December 20, 1937, Box 13, RWL to William Allen White, January 28, February 1, 13, 1938, White to RWL, February 8, 1938, Box 12, Lane Papers.
19. LIW to RWL, [March 20, 22, 1937], Box 13, Lane Papers.
20. Miller, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town, chap. 6.
21. RWL to LIW, December 19, 1937, Box 13, Lane Papers.
22. LIW, undated response to RWL's letter of December 19, 1937, LIW, undated notes on “Silver Lake,” [ca. February 1938], LIW to RWL, January 26, [1938], Box 13, Lane Papers.
23. Ibid., RWL to LIW, January 21, 1938, LIW to RWL, January 25, 1938.
24. Ibid., LIW to RWL, January 28, February 15, 19, 1938.
25. The Mansfield Mirror reported their departure and return (May 12, June 2, 1938). The story of their trip and the places they visited is recounted in Burkhiser, Neta, Laura's Friend, 11–18; see also De Smet News, June 3, 1938.
26. Burkhiser, Neta, Laura's Friend, 18; AJW to RWL, January 15, 1939, Box 13, Lane Papers; Anderson, Story of the Ingalls, 26–29.
27. RWL, Diary, August 9, 12, 1938, Box 23, Lane Papers.
28. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 287–88.
29. LIW, “To American Mothers,” [1938], LIW to RWL, September 26, 1938, Box 13, Lane Papers.
30. Ibid., LIW to RWL, April 2, 10, May 23, 1939, Ida Louise Raymond to LIW, April 6, 1939.
31. Book Review Digest (1939), 1044.
32. LIW to RWL, May 23, 1939, Box 13, Lane Papers.
33. Ibid., June 3, 1939; Mansfield Mirror, June 22, 29, 1939; De Smet News, June 8, 15, 29, 1939; Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 15 (spring-summer 1989): 1, 5.
34. LIW to RWL, January 6, February 15, 1938, March 17, 1939, Box 13, Lane Papers.
35. Ibid., March 12, 1937, January 12, 1938; Burkhiser, Neta, Laura's Friend, 18.
36. Burkhiser, Neta, Laura's Friend, 18–19.
37. LIW to RWL, February 5, March 22, 1937, May 4, 1938, April 2, 10, 1939, Box 13, Lane Papers.
38. Ibid., February 5, 1937, March 17, 1939, AJW to RWL, January 15, 1939; Burkhiser, Neta, Laura's Friend, 18.
39. Mansfield Mirror, December 16, 1937, March 17, 1938, January 19, 1939, February 15, 1940.
40. Ibid., March 25, September 16, 1937.
41. Ibid., January 26, 1939, October 10, 1940, December 24, 1942, March 4, 1943; LIW to RWL, January 27, 1939, [March 17, 1939], Box 13, Lane Papers.
42. Mansfield Mirror, February 15, 1940, August 26, 1943.
43. LIW to RWL, response to latter's letter of December 19, 1937, Box 13, Lane Papers. See also LIW to RWL, [ca. February 1937], August 19,1937, May 4, 1938, February 20, 1939, Box 13, Lane Papers.
44. Mansfield Mirror, April 15, June 3, July 8, 1937, April 25, 1940, September 18, 1941.
45. Ibid., January 14, 1937, April 25, 1940.
46. Ibid., May 16, 1940.
47. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 308.
48. LIW to RWL, [early February 1938], February 19, March 15, 1938, Box 13, Lane Papers.
49. Ibid., January 27, May 23, 1939.
50. Ibid., February 5, March 12, 1937, February 20, March 17, April 2, 1939.
51. Ibid., [December 29, 1937, on back of recipe for dandelion wine], January 6, 1938, Carrie Ingalls Swanzey to LIW, attached to letter from LIW to RWL, May 24, 1939.
52. Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 16 (spring-summer 1990): 3.
53. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 302.
54. LIW to RWL, February 15, 19, 1938, Box 13, Lane Papers.
55. Ibid., March 7, 1938.
56. Ibid., March 15, August 17, 1938.
57. Ibid., March 17, 1939; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 275, 279, 292; LIW, Draft No. 2 of By the Shores of Silver Lake, Missouri Historical Society, Columbia; compare this draft with the published text of the book on page 67.
58. LIW, Draft of The Long Winter, Missouri Historical Society, Columbia; compare LIW, The Long Winter, 302–7.
59. On the social history of the United States during World War II, see Geoffrey Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph: The American People, 1939–1945 (New York: Coward, McCann and Geohagan, 1973); William L. O'Neill, A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II (New York: Free Press, 1993); John M. Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976).
60. Mansfield Mirror, October 10, 1940, June 18, July 9, August 20, November 12, December 10, 17, 1942, February 18, March 11, June 24, July 8, August 12, 1943, May 25, July 6, 1944.
61. Ibid., January 22, June 11, 1942.
62. Book Review Digest (1941), 958.
63. Ibid. (1943), 869.
9. Basking in the Glow of Her Readers’ Affection, 1943–1957
1. Nava Austin interview, by the author, Mansfield, Mo., August 19, 1995; Stephen W. Hines, I Remember Laura (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), 121–22.
2. LIW, The First Four Years, 133–34.
3. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 313–14.
4. Grace Stevenson to LIW, May 27, 1942, Katherine Afonin to LIW, May 28, 1949, Robert Neuman to LIW, May 13, 1948, Dorothy Allen to LIW, May 13, 1948, Box 14, Lane Papers.
5. Ibid., LIW to Frances Mason, October 1, 1948; LIW to Aubrey Sherwood, July 29, 1942, reprinted in De Smet News, August 6, 1942; LIW, Composite Letter, LIW File, Missouri State Historical Society, Columbia.
6. Hines, I Remember Laura, 223–24, 238; Society club reports in the Mansfield Mirror recorded Laura's presence at a number of meetings in 1945 and 1946. See issues for January 1, October 25, 1945, January 31, July 4, October 31, 1946. On religious revivals, see the Mirror for July 5, 1945, July 4, 1946, June 23, 1949, July 6, 1950, July 10, 1952, June 17, 1954.
7. Mansfield Mirror, May 10, July 5, 12, August 9, 1945; Caroline Fraser, “The Prairie Queen,” 38.
8. Mansfield Mirror, November 11, 1945, March 21, 1946, January 30, May 8, November 27, 1947, January 8, 1948, June 29, July 13, 1950, January 29, September 17, 1953, January 7, 1954, August 16, 1956, January 24, 1957.
9. Ibid., July 5, 1945, August 14, 1947, May 26, 1949, April 10, 1952, July 19, 1956, May 22, 1958.
10. Ibid., May 25, June 8, 1950; Richard S. Kirkendall, History of Missouri, chaps. 9–10.
11. Mansfield Mirror, January 31, July 25, August 1, 1946, May 5, 1952, January 20, 27, March 3, 1955, September 26, 1957, April 9, 1959.
12. LIW to D. L. Blocher, February 21, 1947, on display at LIW Museum, Walnut Grove, Minn.
13. Hines, I Remember Laura, 110–11; Nava Austin interview.
14. Clifford Cooper interview, by the author, Mansfield Mo., August 18, 1995; Peggy Dennis interview; Dan L. White and Robert F. White, Laura's Friends Remember (Hartville, Mo.: Ashley-Preston, 1992), 14, 34.
15. These comments are based on conversations that the author had with people in Mansfield in August 1995.
16. Hines, I Remember Laura, 128, 135, 144, 224.
17. Ibid., 134, 144, 220, 224; Peggy Dennis interview; Neta Seal interview.
18. Neta Seal interview; Peggy Dennis interview; Hines, I Remember Laura, 110–11.
19. Warranty Deed Record Book No. 126, 107–8, No. 113, 422, 618, No. 118, 273, No. 125, 466–67; Hines, I Remember Laura, 111.
20. Anderson, Story of the Wilders, 31; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 221; Mansfield Mirror, December 23, 1948.
21. Anderson, Story of the Wilders, 32; White and White, Laura's Friends Remember, 30–31; Mansfield Mirror, October 27, 1949.
22. LIW to “Dear Friend,” November 19, 1949, displayed at LIW Museum, Mansfield, Mo.
23. Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 315–18, 325–27.
24. Ibid., 335–37; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 230; Mansfield Mirror, April 2, 1953; LIW, Last Will and Testament, February 6, 1952, on file at Wright County Courthouse, Hartville, Mo.; Anderson, Story of the Ingalls, 31.
25. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 214–15; Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 12 (spring–summer 1986): 3.
26. Mansfield Mirror, January 22, 1948, November 17, 1949, May 18, 1950, May 3, 1951. Two “Local Newsette” items in the Mirror noted such dinner visits, January 14, 1952, and February 12, 1953. Such local paragraphs about Laura and Almanzo were rare during the 1940s and 1950s.
27. Clifford Cooper interview; Amon Short interview; Carl Hartley interview, by the author, Mansfield, Mo., June 19, 1993; Peggy Dennis interview.
28. Clifford Cooper interview; Mansfield Mirror, June 6, 1940, January 9, June 12, 1947, December 28, 1948, July 19, 1951, October 30, 1952, February 10, 1955.
29. Kansas City Star, April 10, 1949, reprinted in Mansfield Mirror, May 5, 1949; see also Mirror issues of March 16 and August 10, 1950.
30. Kansas City Star, September 20, 1951; Mansfield Mirror, September 20, October 4, 1951, November 5, 1953, September 29, 1954.
31. Mansfield Mirror, November 13, 1952, October 15, November 19, 1953; see articles reprinted in William T. Anderson, ed., The “Horn Book's” Laura Ingalls Wilder (Horn Book, 1987); Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 13 (spring-summer, 1987): 4–5 and 13 (fall–winter 1987–1988): 10.
32. Hines, I Remember Laura, 111–12, 120, 127, 141; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 225–26.
33. Nava Austin interview; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 228; Hines, I Remember Laura, 116, 229.
34. Carl Hartley interview; Virginia Hartley interview, by the author, Mansfield, Mo., August 19, 1995; Hines, I Remember Laura, 145; Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore 17 (spring–summer 1991): 1.
35. Cornelia Meigs et al., A Critical History of Children's Literature (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 414; Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 229–30.
36. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 228; Hines, I Remember Laura, 117–18.
37. Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, 230–31.
38. Ibid., 231.
39. RWL to Jasper Crane, January 5, 1957, Box 3, Lane Papers; Holtz, Ghost in the Little House, 337; Virginia Hartley interview.
40. New York Times, February 12, 1957, p. 27.
41. Mansfield Mirror, February 14, 1957; Virginia Hartley interview.
42. Probate Court Records in the Estate of Laura Ingalls Wilder, No. 2498, February 27, 1957, Wright County Courthouse, Hartville, Mo.; LIW to RWL, July 30, 1952, Box 14, Lane Papers.