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I drove by her former hometown in Minnesota, and where there is a museum for her, and it is in southern Minnesota, rolling hills and lots of Amish riding around in horse and buggy, it is like taking a step back in time, the area is just absolutely beautiful. Definitely off the beaten path but a gorgeous drive on a highway in very good condition. Were it not for Goggle Maps sending me on that winding road I would have never seen this.
I just remembered a chapter from "Little Town on the Prairie", when Pa and his friends blackened their faces and performed as "darkies" in a minstrel show. How could THAT still possibly be in the book? (sarcasm).
Minstrel shows were very popular and common entertainment back then, an evening so memorable for Laura that she wrote about it 50 years later. Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson were famous for performing in black face on Broadway in the Ziegfield Follies...and in the first talking picture. It's part of U.S. entertainment history.
They aren’t building actual bonfires but book burning is alive and well right now.
I’ll say again, it is unfair to judge people of another era by the current social mores. Many of those climbing high on their self-righteous soapboxes would have most likely had the same attitudes as those they condemn had they lived during that time period.
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I drove by her former hometown in Minnesota, and where there is a museum for her, and it is in southern Minnesota, rolling hills and lots of Amish riding around in horse and buggy, it is like taking a step back in time, the area is just absolutely beautiful. Definitely off the beaten path but a gorgeous drive on a highway in very good condition. Were it not for Goggle Maps sending me on that winding road I would have never seen this.
I never realized the name of Laura's town really was "Walnut Grove", like in the TV show. The name is never mentioned in the two books that took place there..."On the Banks of Plum Creek", and "By the Shores of Silver Lake".
We visited the House at Rocky Ridge, in Mansfield, Missouri, where she wrote most of the Little House books. Definitely worth the trip. We saw Pa's fiddle and Mary's Braille Bible, among other famous artifacts. The house is well built and tiny...Almanzo designed the kitchen cabinets and counters for her height (she was less than 5 feet tall). He, himself, was only 5' 4". He wasn't the big strapping guy like the actor who played him on TV...he was short, stooped and crippled. The house was not ostentatious at all...suited Laura perfectly. Nothing has been changed since she went to the hospital in 1957, where she died.
On the other side of the hill is a Tudor style stone house Rose had built, which they lived in for a time, but liked the Little House on Rocky Ridge better, and moved back. I wish I would have had a whole day to explore the place...search for Rose's cave, look for any of Almanzo's surviving apple trees, or visit her grave in the Mansfield cemetery.
Currently reading Prairie Fires, the American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Fantastic book that really delves into the history of the USA in the 1800s. Pa Ingalls possibly knew he was invading Indian country when he took his family to southern Kansas and built their little house there. They had to leave and went back to The Big Woods. Laura and Almanzo's daughter Rose is a trip. Rose and her husband were pretty much grifters. She divorced him. Unlike Laura's books and TV show, this book shows the poverty that Laura and her sisters grew up in.
Another good one is Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography which is based off of Wilder's original manuscript. It is definitely darker and grittier than the Little House books, and tells a much different story about the Ingalls life.
They were dirt poor, often hungry, and Pa was not much of a provider. He dragged the family around the country while he did odd jobs here and there. At one point they farmed Laura out as a companion to an elderly woman for the money it would bring the family. And yes, he knew full well he was taking his family into Indian Territory where he had no business being, and didn't leave until he was forced to by the government.
That said, I love Wilder's books. I read them voraciously as a child, and reread them again as an adult. Her writing was a reflection of the time it was written in, so I don't have an issue with them in context.
But we have grown away from many of those attitudes, so I'm fine with having the award renamed. We grow and we move forward. That's a good thing.
Currently reading Prairie Fires, the American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Fantastic book that really delves into the history of the USA in the 1800s. Pa Ingalls possibly knew he was invading Indian country when he took his family to southern Kansas and built their little house there. They had to leave and went back to The Big Woods. Laura and Almanzo's daughter Rose is a trip. Rose and her husband were pretty much grifters. She divorced him. Unlike Laura's books and TV show, this book shows the poverty that Laura and her sisters grew up in.
.... and Mary did not run a "Blind School". In reality, she was a burden on her family and never left home.
.... and Mary did not run a "Blind School". In reality, she was a burden on her family and never left home.
She did go away to college, supposedly to learn to be more independent. Laura's teaching income all went toward that effort. But she does seem to have returned home afterward. Hard to judge - I have no idea what the standard was at the time. Having a blind woman going away to school seems pretty progressive in itself.
I loved the books as a kid and am still fascinated by the family.
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