← The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental. And here's your 32nd summary.
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Laura Ingalls Wilder lived during a critical and turbulent time in American history and experienced every stage of 19th century expansion. Untamed wilderness, the restlessness of the pioneers, white settlement of the Wild west, the establishment of towns, and modern industry. She grew up moving from one rough homestead to another as her family chased stability, enduring famine, drought, illness, and financial hardship. It wasn't until her 60s that she wrote her famous little house books, drawing on her childhood memories to tell stories that shaped how generations all over the world have understood the American frontier.
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The end.
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Hello and welcome to the show. What you're saying Laura Ingalls Wilder. Didn't you cover her, like, 15 years ago?
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A
We did. And in those 15 years, we were astonished to find out how much studies, how many biographies, how many looks under the rocks of her life have been done since we covered her.
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B
And also we have grown. We have grown also exponentially. Susan just said. However, if we had been faced all those years ago with the stack of books that are currently occupying each of our tables, yes, we would have been daunted.
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A
I would have, yeah, I would have, like, run away. I would have been like, I can't do this. There's so much. And even, even then, twice as many books have been published since 2011 in my stack.
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B
And we have been. And I never can remember this. And you know what? I hope I never do. We've either been lobsters or frogs in a pot, slowly and slowly adding books to our shoulders. You'll notice our episodes keep getting longer and longer. And so we wanted to give Laura Ingalls Wilder, who is actually the inspiration behind my love of history, we wanted to give her the real deep dive history chicks treatment. And so that's why we chose to refresh her story. And so, without further ado, on with the show, let's talk about Laura Ingalls Wilder.
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A
But first, let's drop her into history. In 1867, Morehouse College and Howard University were both established. Johann Strauss's Blue Danube premiered in Vienna, Austria. The first three of four reconstruction acts were passed by U.S. congress. Following the Civil War, Congress also created the first Department of Education and the Lincoln Monument association to build a memorial for the 16th president who had been assassinated just two years earlier. It would take a second Lincoln memorial association and 55 years before the monument was unveiled. Queen Victoria authorized and the construction began on the Royal Albert hall of Arts and Sciences in London. In Honor of her husband, who had died six years prior. Harper's Bazaar magazine was first published. Elias Howe, inventor of the modern sewing machine, died. Frank Lloyd Wright, Wilbur Wright, Marie Curie, and Madam C.J. walker were all born. And in a log cabin in the big woods, the Ingalls family welcomed their newborn daughter, Laura.
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B
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born in Papin, Wisconsin on February 7, 1867, the second of the four living children of Charles Philip Ingalls and Caroline Lake Quiner Ingalls, Pa. Normally right now we would say fapa, but, you know, famous Pa was born in upstate New York in a township called Cuba. That seems honestly like the most depressing place on earth to me. The air was full of the smells of heavy industry. The tannery in particular filled the air with ugly perfume, while sawmills and stoneworks gave the town a haze of particulates. It seems like such a healthy place to live. Also, the roads being what they were, everywhere you went was just like a muddy sea of either dried up ruts or muddy ruts where your foot would get stuck and horse manure. Mmm. This is a great place to grow up.
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A
Yummy. While Pa was born in upstate New York, his relatives, his ancestors, were some of the earliest Puritan settlers in the United States. The original guy, his name was Edmund Ingalls, came over on the same ship as John Endicott, who was the first governor of Massachus in 1629. That's how far back in the United States the Ingalls family goes. I know worldwide that's not a big deal, but here it sure is.
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B
That's OG here. Yeah.
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A
Yeah. And unfortunately, Edmund only makes the history books because at one point, he was carrying sticks for firewood on a Sunday, which were stolen from a neighbor's fence. But that wasn't the problem. He was working on a Sunday and he was arrested for it.
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B
Gotta love those Puritans.
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A
Yes. Yep. And the next Ingalls relation to hit the history books was Edmund's granddaughter Martha, who was accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. These are not two, like, great things
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to have in your family tree.
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A
She was executed. Our old friend Cotton Mather said that the 38 year old mother was a, quote, rampant hag.
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B
And if 38 is a rampant hag, just imagine.
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Yeah.
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B
When you get to my age, what kind of level? I don't know. Are there levels of hagness?
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I don't know.
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By the time we get to the current Ingalls PA as a young man, the country had just fallen into an Economic slump, some say the first official, quote, depression that our country had ever had. Banks collapsed. And in this era, before federal insurance, you were likely out any money that you had trusted them with. Thus the old trope about putting money in the mattress, you know, or buried in the backyard. Sometimes safer than putting it in the bank. Unemployment was high, 25% on average. And the country was on the move. People were uprooting themselves for a better life somewhere, anywhere else. There was not a lot of forethought. The thought was, away, I must get away. Surely there's something better. Not here. And Pa, as a young man watching people pass through Cuba, ostensibly to a better life. I mean, we talk on this show about things that you experience as a young person bending your twig in the direction that you grow. I am venturing, this is just me to say that his witnessing of so many people hustling to get out of this populated area into somewhere better, I think really stuck in his mind. And in the 1830s and 40s, that someplace else where everyone was going, of course, was the hitherto unsettled by white people. West. No matter, of course, that human people already lived there. We'll get to that later. When Pa, Little Charles was around nine, his father packed the family into a wagon and joined that river of migrants heading away. And they settled in Illinois, where, where there's wide open land and plentiful game and open sky, in contrast to the looming forest and sea of mud and horse poop that was fragrantly inhabiting Charles's sinuses. There was a school for the children and for a short while, stability.
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A
Charles's own father and uncles. This was a whole extended family move, started acquiring land and like you said, they started doing well enough. Charles was sent to what was called a subscription school. It wasn't paid for by the government. You had to pay some a type of tuition to attend. But Pa was sent to it, so that does again support that. They were doing pretty well.
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B
But somehow, when Pa was around 17, Grandpa lost his land and the family had to move again, this time to Wisconsin, where Grandpa had to start again on 80 acres of land. Ma's family made a similar yet less fraught journey in their own case. They started in New England back in the olden days, and they meandered over assorted places in the Midwest before landing in Wisconsin just before Caroline was born. It seems that Grandpa Quiner was a man of some enterprise and action. He had had a trade as a silversmith in New England, but, you know, less call for that on the open prairie. But he seemed to be a hustler. And I wrote H U S LA oh, yeah, Hasla. Because that's New England, you know. Yeah.
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A
Thank you.
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B
When. When Caroline was five years old, he and his brother in law had cut a shipload. That's ship with a P. They filled a boat with lumber and were on their way to sell it when their schooner called the ocean, ironically went down with all hands on deck. The ship was found days later. No mast, ragged sails. They'd been ripped to shreds. There was not a person on board. I don't know what happened to the lumber.
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A
No, I'm sure it's at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
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B
I don't know. I think it was salvaged because people found the boat.
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A
Okay.
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B
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
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Yeah, I don't know either. It's just us speculating. Yeah. I do know that storms on Lake Michigan, on the Great Lakes in general, they come up really fast. My father, who is a licensed sea captain, had contemplated sailing to Chicago. It's possible. Oh, yeah.
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B
From. From New England.
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Except when he started learning about the weather on the Great Lakes, he scratched the plan.
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B
I still remember we are standing. This is like Chicago is right on Lake Michigan. And we're standing on this beach. We had taken like the grandchildren of my mother, you know, some cousins and whatever. We're standing on the beach and this Japanese couple came and he was like trying to figure out how to say something. And I heard him kind of practicing and he came over and he's like, excuse, please, is this ocean or is this lake?
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And I'm like, it looks like ocean. It really does. Because when I moved out to Chicago from New England, I missed the ocean. And I would just go and sit probably right where you were and stare at the water because it reminded me so much of the ocean.
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B
Can't see the other side. There's waves. It's a dangerous, dangerous place when it storms.
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Yep.
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So Grandma Quiner was left in the wilderness with six children under 11 to support. And for the next few years, everyone was on the verge of literal starvation.
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They had so little food that sometimes what they ate was bread soaked in water with a little maple syrup, which is something you could make yourself in the area they were in. And that would be their only meal. They used to go foraging in the woods, you know, dodging bears and mountain lions just to find some berries and anything that was edible.
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B
This would really mark a person. I think this whole experience, they're freezing in the winter. They're desperate for food. Caroline remembered local Native Americans coming in and taking the food that was there. Although on at least one noted occasion, one of them killed a deer and left it for them as a gift.
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Yeah.
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So there are compassionate people seeing what's happening and helping as best they can. Well, Grandma, I don't know how, was able somehow to buy, likely on a mortgage, 40 acres of land near Concord, Wisconsin when Caroline was 8 or 9. And there were now neighbors to reach out to. One of these neighbors, one Frederick Holbrook, became their stepfather when Caroline was about 10. The Ingallses moved in across the river from the Quiners when Caroline was 15. And it was like the world became new. The families were like peas and carrots, as we shall shortly see, even legally. And things began to improve.
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A
Not only was there food on the table, but she was able to go to a local school where she was a very, very good student. So good, in fact, that at age 16, she. She took over as teacher at that very schoolhouse. She's now earning an income. It was $10 a month plus board, which at first I was like, okay, back then, that's a lot. No, it's $214 modern day dollars a month. It's not good, but it's definitely something.
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B
Over the next few years, the Ingallses and Quiners became quite intertwined. There were two Quiner sisters that married Ingalls boys, and one Quiner brother married one of Pa's sisters. These, of course, included Pa and ma, married at 24 and 20 years old, who settled on 40 acres that Pa had bought from his own papa.
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A
So they really are building their own community based on their family, you know, the extended family and some double cousins.
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Yeah, she actually refers in her autobiography, she referred to double cousins and half cousins.
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A
Yeah, you know what, that's so much easier.
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B
Half cousins meaning ones that didn't have an Ingalls and a Quiner.
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Right, right.
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B
Hilarious. Yeah. Just as Pa and Ma were getting settled, world events pulled the rug out from under them, which is a pattern that you should get used to because you'll come to recognize it. Unfortunately. The same year that Caroline and Charles were married, South Carolina began the cascade of southern states seceding from the Union. And this led inevitably to a sudden economic crisis in the country as a whole and more bank failures. The Ingallses lost their land. Pa had to become a laborer for wages to survive.
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This familial enclave all moved up to another river town called Pepin, Wisconsin, and basically tried to do there what they had been doing further south as.
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So the Civil War is raging to the east, and the terrible Dakota Indian War was raging just across the Mississippi river in Minnesota. So they're in a island of peace in Pepin county where Pa and Laura's uncle Henry bought land for $335. That's like $9,600 modern. They split it in half. And the cabin that Pa built among the trees in the big woods would be the birthplace of first Mary and then Laura Ingalls.
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A
When we talk about people who lived in the Civil War era, a lot of times we talk about how they were involved in Wisconsin at this particular point in time, there was indeed a draft that was a Union state. They were drafting 20 to 45 year olds. And then a federal draft within the Union began. It was the very first Federal Draft in U.S. history. The Confederate states, however, also instituted a draft. They were looking at men from 17 to 50, unless they had some money to hire a replacement. And we've talked about that before. 17 to 50 were conscribed into the war. As far as Pa getting drafted, he did not. But he also kind of dropped out of sight for a while, so it's not quite certain where he went. But he was not drafted. He did not go into the war. Two of Caroline's brothers did, and one died from injuries sustained at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. I mean, that's a big one.
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B
Right after Laura's birth, Pa and Uncle Henry took a bewildering roll of the dice and they sold their land at a socking profit. 300% profit. Okay? I'm saying that's the root of all future problems. This early success in land speculation, I think gave them a taste of the sweet, sweet, filthy lucre.
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A
Oh, no, I don't doubt that one single bit. Because if you see lightning strike once, you think it can easily strike again.
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B
They bought some land sight unseen, in Missouri, of all places. Although I guarantee you they would have said Missouri, I don't know. But anyway, this land was about two hours straight east of where I am right now, just straight east. And Laura's first journey by covered wagon was a doozy doozy. 400 miles in a covered wagon to Pa's new land, which once they got there, was substandard, prone to flooding. Henry's land that he had bought didn't even have access to water. Seems like that's something you would want to check. Perhaps they were misled. And the neighborhood in Missouri was, shall we say, seething still Seething over the outcome of the Civil War. Now remember we talked in the Mary Todd Lincoln episode about the two 50, 50 states. Kentucky was one where she grew up and Missouri was the other one. The most evenly divided state between Union and Confederate partisans. Well, this county had up until five minutes ago been full of 25% enslaved people. Yeah. And the sentiment now post war seemed to be now what? And Uncle Henry noped out immediately.
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I don't even think they actually made it there before they went back to Wisconsin.
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Pa chose not to stay either. And Laura reported that her first real memory was of looking out onto the prairie through the hole in the canvas on the back of the family's covered wagon, watching the prairie grass blow. Endless land just stretching on to infinity. They were off across the state line to what is now Kansas.
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A
You know, when I reread that, I got immediately got that image, the Garth Williams illustration from the books of the two little girls out the back of the wagon. Except the little girls in reality were much younger.
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B
Right.
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A
When they moved out to Missouri, Mary was just three. She was much younger than we had imagined based on that illustration. And Laura was a little over a year when they left. Again, Laura was just three. So she's having a memory of this from her three year old eyes out the back of what they called a prairie schooner, which was the covered wagon. It really wasn't very big. It's about 4ft wide, 10ft long, maybe 2ft deep. There was canvas cover that was stretched over hickory wood boughs.
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I mean, people slightly younger than me probably played Oregon Trail in history class throughout elementary school. That's right.
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Died of dysentery.
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B
Yeah, I would say that that prairie schooner, that covered wagon is kind of an icon of the Wild west when you see it, you know where in time and space you are.
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A
I didn't realize that sometimes in illustrations you see like a bucket hanging off the back of the wagon. And I never thought twice about it. It was a grease bucket and grease was held in there and they would stop frequently to grease the wheels. It wasn't for cooking or it wasn't water, it was grease.
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Well, because otherwise wouldn't they kind of sand themselves down?
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Oh yeah.
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B
Pa engaged in, I guess you'd call it some shady behavior. And he was not alone in this. He was playing the odds. But basically the short version is this. Pa set up a farm and built a cabin on land owned by the Osage, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to and assuming that he'd be the one sided with in any dispute. Now, I'm sorry to say, history was on his side. We talked a little bit, well, a lot actually on the Sarah Rector episode about the Indian removal Act of 1830. The goal of the United States government was to forcibly relocate all the Native Americans west of the Mississippi. So each tribe was assigned a piece of land that the United States government actually took from the Osage. By the way, didn't ask about that. Many, many Native American lives were lost during this multi decade process. And then settler encroachments began almost immediately through local lopsided, quote, treaties. I would say strong arm tactics and then squatters just taking what they wanted and then the federal government would always backtrack on those treaties. So obviously I'm paraphrasing here, the government was like, what are you going to do, you know, settlers will be settlers, etc. So Pa brought his family into Indian territory, into the Osage diminished reserve, whose name should tell you a lot about what happened to the Osage, right? Oh, I stopped at a nice parcel of land and I built a house and a barn.
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So it must be his future grown up.
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Laura, writing decades after this series of events, of course gives Pa this speech character page. When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on. The government's going to move these Indians further west anytime now. That's why we're here, Laura. White people are going to settle all this country and we get the best land because we got here first and we took our pick. And of course, three year old Laura knew none of this. Nor did she know that only a few years before, just over the river in Minnesota, the Dakota people reacting to this exact same provocation had massacred the white settlers of their land very famously.
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A
Yeah, and this is how you were talking about her. Twig gets bent. This is how it happens. You know, at this point she's learning, you know, white people good, natives bad. The native tribes tried diplomacy. You know, they were willing to deal with the Americans and they kept getting swindled. You know, okay, we'll buy this land for X amount of dollars and they vacate the land and you know, stakes go up and then, oh no, sorry, that's just not going to work. And by the way, we need a little bit more. Why wouldn't they be upset? And I don't even think this is like, does this just add insult to injury? Even the name Kansas, the state that they are in, Kansa, is from a native tribe, the Kansa Indians. So they took the name Kansa, made It. Kansas. Is this supposed to be a consolation prize? I. I honestly don't know.
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B
So there's a map that I refer to a lot, but we will link you up to it, and it's where you. If you live in the United States or Canada, can click on the area in which you live and find out upon whose ancestral land you currently reside. The road you travel to go to five guys and get your French fries was once owned by, in our case, Kickapoo and Shawnee. Here, where I am.
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A
I'm going to beleaguer a point, but even the term Indian comes from our not so much friend, Christopher Columbus, who never actually set foot in North America, but he called the people that he saw Indio. And that's what stuck for anyone who had the darker skin of native tribes. And even the word Indian. Now there's. There's discussion about whether or not that's a good term to use, and it's.
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B
I think it's pretty clear that it's not.
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A
No, it's not.
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B
Thank you.
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A
That's my point. Yeah, so. So I. I know that we all grew up with that word Indian, but like enslaved people, we really need to defer to the people who. This is their heritage and not come up with names ourselves. So I'll do my best.
- [24:01]
B
I am wondering if Pa and Ma. I'm not wondering. I'm pretty sure they were thinking about the Dakota massacres when the Osage returned from hunting. And there the Ingalls farm stood right on the main road. Provocative, isn't it? Having used their lumber to build it, we read in the Little House on the Prairie book how the Osage reacted. Not well, but as expected. There was a lot of controversy. You know, there's infighting within the Osage themselves. Some are like, well, follow. Let's follow our. Our neighbor's example and just kill the lot of them. And the other guy's like, you kill one and they keep coming. There's an unending supply of people that will come and exterminate us. We have to work with them. We would be better just to go. We would be better just to lay waste to the whole lot of them. You know, that's what was happening in the creek bed that they heard for weeks at a time. I cannot imagine the terror.
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A
No. But I cannot imagine the anger and walking in, and it's like someone's living in your house. And it was very traditional for the Osage to move camp and go hunting at this time of year, the time of year that Pa arrived And plunked down his family and called dibs on the land, which Hinge had no right to do.
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B
He was digging in deep. He had planted crops. He had bought livestock, famously as to put the frosting on this new cake of their new establishment. He had walked to town, Independence, Kansas in this case. And bought glass panes for the window. That is as high falutin as you can get on the prairie. That means we are in a civilized place now. There's glass in our windows and not wax paper or nothing. Yeah, all on other land. They'd actually had a third child named Carrie. Talk about planting your roots in the soil. I might venture to say economically, I don't know. This might be the most stable things are going to be.
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A
I'm going to backtrack just a second. Her middle name was Celestia. She was named after a relative. I just thought that was so pretty.
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B
I had a friend in high school named Celeste. And she wrote a column called Celestial Predictions.
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A
Oh, clever.
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B
I thought that was really cute. I don't think she is into astrology. I think it was just like a play on her name. Now, was it the imminent danger from the Osage or the surprise Pa felt at the rumor that US soldiers were coming to take white settlers off this land that caused Pa to pack up the family and head back to the big woods? If Pa had only waited a few months, the government, as he had expected, did cave and begin to allow settlers to officially take land where they were camped in the Osage diminished reserve. However, I don't think it would have mattered. Pa did not have the cash to have bought that land. So it might have been a moot point. The man who had bought Pa's house in the big woods had found himself unable to make payments. So there's an income stream that Pa didn't have. That could be another reason that they decamped. Because when they came back, they were able to basically repossess the land in the big woods and the cabin. And they took up residence in their old house. And this is the house of abundance. That sort of captured our imaginations as little kids. Mr. Gustafson, who's the man that had bought the farm, had planted an extensive garden that was just now coming into flower and fruit and vegetable. And I remember the, you know, the attic full of stored food, the cozy house. There was family nearby. Unlike the books, which seem to indicate that they're like as far as you can walk in any direction, there's no humans. Well, there's humans everywhere.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And they're also related to you and the book in which, by the way, the sentence is that inspired my love of history. And of course, then indirectly, this podcast where little Laura is in her cozy cabin surrounded by her family, and she looks around and she's thinking, now is now. This can surely never be a long time ago. And of course, whooshing like that scene in Ratatouille where the critic goes back to his childhood. You know, I, as a little kid reading this on the mustard yellow shag carpet. Oof. Also looked around, I'm like, surely these burlap curtains could never be a long time ago. You know, this. This avocado green stove for real is gonna someday be quaint and old fashioned. And it blew my mind a little bit. And I started to realize, okay, history is just stories that happened just in another time, right? To people just like me. Right? I really identified with her, little girl to little girl in that moment, I think.
- [29:23]
A
And that is astonishing critical thinking for someone so young. Where the rest of us read that it's the last lines of the book and you're just like, okay, time to go to the next book.
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B
Aw, let's move on.
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A
The movie's over in my head. Let's move on to the next book.
- [29:38]
B
So that's where it all started. Now, this is also the first place that Laura ever went to school. It was called the Berry Corner School. Most of these schools are named after the family that owns the land the school is on. There was some kind of special claim. If you built a school building on it, you get a serious break in either time or money, and I'm not sure which that is, but there were a lot of schools erected because the government gave you a benefit for having done it. Mary, as the older had gone the year before, and it was with great surprise that everyone discovered when it came time for Laura to put her own lunch in a little box and walk the mile to school that she already knew how to read. And we are tipping our son bonnet brims to marry another oldest daughter who handled the family literacy
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A
right. Well, she would go to school and she'd come home and Laura would say, what did you learn today? And Mary would say this and teach her outside of school. The family really just settled into their roles here. They're going to be in this house for a few years. I mean, given the amount of time that they spend in other places. This is one of the longer stretches. Ma taught the girls how to work in the house, you know, how to tend the garden, how to keep the fire going, how to sew and clean, you know, all the domestic chores. In the evening, Pa would come home to their three room house, which was a big deal. Their little cabin in Kansas was just one room and they would have chill nights of him playing games with them. One of the games they played was called Mad Dog and he was actually the mad dog in this game. And kind of chase him around the house, which is cute. He would read stories and he would play his famous fiddle. He had picked it up as a teenager. He had gone to dances and there were musicians there and he had learned how to play the violin. A violin and a fiddle are the same instrument. Only one has a country accent. I didn't make that up. I just read it and it stuck. But you know, I really think of PA is kind of the Disneyland parent. You know, he worked really hard. But that's not what Laura saw. She saw Pa come home and, you know, just love his family and chill out and not boss her around like her mother had to.
- [32:01]
B
Ooh, ooh, doesn't that make you mad? Like you got to be the fun parent.
- [32:05]
A
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- [32:38]
B
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- [33:04]
A
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- [33:20]
B
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- [33:32]
A
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- [33:43]
B
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- [33:47]
A
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- [33:48]
B
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- [33:54]
A
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- [34:07]
B
Siamaliboo.com for unknown reasons, the Ingles has decided, and it was probably PA I'm pointing my finger at him, time to throw the dice again and take a chance on going west. I get, and this is just me talking, increasingly irritated at PA as time goes on. It's like, oh, look around you, wonderful garden. A field that you have spent spent years clearing the tree stumps from family nearby. But yet I want to go west. And I know it was infecting the country. I know it was the zeitgeist or whatever, and I know that he had won before on this roll of the dice. But increasingly I get irritated. Like just when everyone has stability, they
- [34:54]
A
get uprooted and we don't know their financial background. I mean, he could have been mortgaged out. He could have been borrowing money to buy farm equipment and seed for the next year, just like farmers have forever, you know, borrowing against their future profits. Or it could have been as simple as the Anderson family arriving and offering him $1,000 for his property and house and him saying, oh, $1,000, I can do a lot with that elsewhere. And we just really don't know. It seems like a mystery as to why they, they packed everything up.
- [35:27]
B
Laura called it his itchy foot. I think it had a lot to do with gambling. That's what I think. I think it was an irresistible urge to pull the lever. You know, maybe I'm not being very charitable.
- [35:43]
A
No, no. I mean, yes, I agree. And I think what you were talking about before, you know, where they had made a successful profit, that is gambling. Yeah, the whole thing is gambling.
- [35:56]
B
Well, PA filed what's called a preemption claim on a farm in Minnesota near the brand new town of Walnut Creek. And it required at least six months of the year residency and you had to make improvements on it. And then since it was next to the railroad, this land, you had to pay $2.50 an acre within 33 months. And all of that sounds to me like Calvin Ball. Is anyone a fan of Calvin and Hobbes? Like, oh, ha ha, but you didn't go to 17th base and sing the I'm so Sorry song.
- [36:31]
A
Right.
- [36:32]
B
Like 33 months is this randomness thing and like the amount of money you had to pay and like all the little tap dancing you had to do sounds like maybe the result of contentious negotiations in the state legislatures. Maybe, you know, I'll give you 24. I'm going to take 36. What about 30? What about 33? Okay, done.
- [36:53]
A
You know, all the compromise. Yes.
- [36:55]
B
They ended up living in a dugout. A dugout, literally what it says. A house that is dug out of a riverbank usually, and then covered over with sod. That's definitely the building material you could get a hold of on the open prairie. Laura, of course, as a little kid, loved the whole concept of this house.
- [37:21]
A
Yeah.
- [37:21]
B
I'd be so interested to know how Ma felt. It was kind of like a rabbit hole. There are modern dugout houses. Actually. Their main problem is moisture. Ma's main problem was snakes.
- [37:36]
A
That's a huge problem because they're in the sod and they're falling down into your living space, which also doesn't have a lot of light. You know, there's one side of the building that's open. Everything else is underground. And generally they would build a wooden, you know, wall with a door and maybe one window in it. And that's the only light inside for a dirt floor and dirt walls and snake filled ceiling.
- [38:01]
B
Their main advantage then and now actually is insulation. It's significantly cooler in the summer.
- [38:08]
A
Yep.
- [38:09]
B
In both eras. And significantly warmer in the winter. Rabbits don't have it all wrong. Anyway, this is ominous. By the way, the first thing Pa said, if you don't know what's coming, you don't understand how ironic this comment is. Pa looked around at this new land that he had obtained. Two previous owners had bailed on it without proving up on it. Okay, that's red flag number one. Kind of like those restaurants that always fail on the same corner. You're like, there's gotta be a reason behind that. Right. But he said, and I quote, I wonder why the previous owner planted such a small crop. He must not be a very good farmer. No, let's see.
- [38:47]
A
Because at this point, Pa's got these huge wheat dreams. You know, they're living in near a town that has a train station. So now he's able to get his crop to market, which is a huge benefit that he did not have in Wisconsin. He's just dreaming big.
- [39:04]
B
Well, yeah, he paid the premium for that land near the railroad too. That was actually double the price of other Land. So he really, really had a lot of faith that he was going to really do something here.
- [39:15]
A
I think they thought they were going to stay there for a while because they got in early on, I guess we could call it townification of Walnut Grove. They helped to build the first church there. They joined that congregation. The girls went to Sunday school and they borrowed books from the church. Libra and you know, big excitement. Of course, they also were all going to school and they had kids that lived nearby that could come and play in the creek with them and, you know, they could go to their houses. Laura got along with everybody, with one exception of a girl named Nellie Owens. Nellie was the daughter of the shop owner in town. So they had money. You know, we talk about this a lot. Who's making money in boom towns? Not the farmers, not the prospectors. It's always the people who sell stuff. And that was Nellie's family. And Nellie took every opportunity to rub that into Laura's face. So playing with Nellie meant either not playing with her toys and having her tell you how much they are and how your grubby hands are gonna ruin them, or if Nellie came to your house, you could do things like throw leeches at her.
- [40:24]
B
You know, one of my favorite episodes, I don't know if there was like a mean streak in me or like an unresolved mean streak, because I didn't really have one, at least back then I didn't. That they lured this girl into the city. Girl, blah, blah, blah, you country girls are this and the thing. And so they lured her into a pond where like a big crab was. That would like attack her.
- [40:50]
A
Yeah, I think this is.
- [40:51]
B
That's.
- [40:52]
A
I. I don't remember it in the books because I didn't memorize them the way you have them, but it was true. There was crawfish and leeches in the creek. And Nellie was the recipient of some. Thanks to Laura.
- [41:04]
B
You know what, though? Sometimes revenge doesn't need to be served cold. Sometimes piping hot, right off the hob. Revenge is what's called for. And I would say that Laura got a hold of that also. Nellie, this Nellie Owens. Let's just park her in your mind because parts of her will reappear. So it's great. They have friends and enemies in town. They have a school that is two miles away. Pa has his hands on his hips and he is regarding haha. Previous owner. Look at what I have created. It is a field of waving grain. You know, what's my name? He was very happy.
- [41:43]
A
Yeah, it looks like grain. It feels like money.
- [41:45]
B
Yes. Out of nowhere, the sun was blotted dark in the sky. And in the matter of just a few hours, millions upon millions of grasshoppers, officially called Rocky Mountain locusts, descended and ate everything. Everything green, certainly everything made of cloth that was outside, axe handles, and certainly entire fields of crops. The Ingallses were ruined.
- [42:14]
A
And Pa had done his research. He knew that there had been a crop of these locusts, they called them, that came through and ruined crops. But he was told and believed that they had moved on. This is an entire region that's getting decimated by this insect. Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Colorado, and parts of what is now north and South Dakota. But Pa believed that they had moved on, which they had. They died moved on, but they left all of their eggs in the ground, ready to hatch the following year.
- [42:51]
B
This. That scenario really sticks in my mind. Like, I hate all of it. Like, Laura talks about them marching in a line without stopping, just whatever was in their way. If the window was open, they would march right through the window, right across the kitchen floor, right up the wall, right out the top of the house, like, oh, my gosh, people's wells were getting ruined by dead grasshoppers being in it. Of course, livestock was starving because there was nothing left for them to eat. It was just a wholesale decimation of large sections of the country. Pa had to immediately leave his family and walk miles and miles looking around until he finally found the edge, the line where the locust damage had stopped, and beg for a job they couldn't even afford. For him to get on the train to go look, he had to walk. That's how poor they were. The governor of Minnesota at the time was super reluctant to issue any relief for farmers at all. Oh, well, they knew what they were getting into, those farmers, you know, Sucks to be them. It's nature. What are you going to do? Obviously, paraphrasing. The Anguses had to rely heavily on their neighbors across the creek to not perish. Yeah, frankly.
- [44:02]
A
Well, they did have. That was the benefit of them getting involved in their community as much as they did, which was. Definitely helped them out at this point, because just like her own mom, Caroline was at home with three small children and pregnant with her fourth.
- [44:17]
B
I think it's interesting, and we'll talk about this in part two when we talk more about her writing the books. But throughout the books, and in fact, her autobiography, there is incident after incident on which neighbors have to rely on each other. And I always jokingly say that Midwesterners are the descendants of people who had to cooperate to survive. And the east coast is made of people who had to compete to survive.
- [44:41]
A
Oh, interesting.
- [44:42]
B
And thus, you know, our Darwinian traits have been passed down. Despite that in the books, there's also this whole pull yourself up by your bootstraps thing. Even though there's evidence after evidence that the best way to get through life crisis is to have a community around you. And when something happens to one person, the rest of the people can collectively help them get out of it. So it's interesting to me the dichotomy there, that the overt message is self reliance, but underneath it, you see what's propping that all up, you know.
- [45:16]
A
Right.
- [45:17]
B
Well, the year Laura was eight and nine were laden with distress. I think that's the best way to put it. Most of these events never made it into the books we're so familiar with. So our parasocial relationship with Laura as a child breaks down about here because we don't know anything about this, not from her books. So as a speed round, in vaguely chronological order, the family had to move to a rented room in the town. The Grasshoppers came back the next year and Pa had to abandon ship. You know, Ma had a baby by now, a baby boy named Freddy. Hooray.
- [45:56]
A
Named after her stepfather. You know, you hear about stepfathers and do they have an impact on your life? Obviously they did because she named her son after Charles Frederick. So she named him after the father and her stepfather.
- [46:08]
B
Unfortunately, Freddie died before he was even a year old. Ma became terribly, almost fatally sick. A friend, friend in quotes of Pa's named Mr. Stedman, asked him to come into partnership with him in a hotel in Burr Oak, Iowa. There was no other option for income. And so they went and it was, wow, it was a wild west town. Wild west town. Now, Burr Oak and Walnut Grove couldn't be more differently. If you've seen the 1970s TV show, Walnut Grove was pretty much like Walnut Grove on the back lot of whatever studio that was. Paramount, I don't remember. That was pretty much how it was. It was clean, everything was new. You know, the smell of new wood, such a good smell. So that's what Walnut Grove smelled like. This, though, Burr Oak was like Dodge City, any kind of Wild west town that you would see in a Western. Dirty old, decrepit, dangerous. The whole town was on the wrong side of the tracks, you know, there was nowhere safe for little girls, I'll tell you that. Laura and Mary had to babysit for Mrs. Stedman the partner's wife do cleaning in the hotel. A customer specifically wanted to give Laura singing lessons. A man alone in a room and they made her go and do it to please a customer. That's modern day red flag.
- [47:35]
A
Yeah.
- [47:35]
B
The next door saloon gave the ingles is an unfortunate education in domestic and other forms of violence. There's drunkenness, there's arson, how shall I say, lasciviousness. That's a good way to say it in public. This was bad. This was bad. And I have to say if you're a reader of the books, later in a book called Little Town on the Prairie there is a series of conversations where Pa says how would you like to work in town? And Ma says what sort of work could there possibly be for a girl in a hotel? No, Charles, I won't have Laura working in a hotel among all kinds of strangers. And then fictional Pa said, who said such a thing? Who said such a thing? No girl of ours will do that. Not while I'm alive and kicking. But what really happened was that Laura started to serve at table. She had to serve the public. She was a like a 10 year old waitress. This actually is the town where in her books the big boys planned to kill the teacher but he had a bullwhip and threw one out the door with it. It's a violent place. So in her fiction Laura wrote the protective parents she wished she had had. The sheltered existence she wished she had had. She is a 9 and 10 year old girl who has been exposed to the worst in human nature. And honestly, you know, and I don't know what options they had, but honestly, her parents were not shielding her from a lot.
- [49:07]
A
No. And they also were working very hard and really being taken advantage of in this situation. Pa was fixing everything, anything that needed to do with the maintenance of the building. He was the guy. Ma was cooking for all these people. She was cleaning rooms. The girls had to help out. When they weren't babysitting the owner's children. There was a baby and another boy who was not the most pleasant of kids. They were inundated with work.
- [49:36]
B
Then the friend in quotes, Mr. Stedman tricked Pa out of his share of whatever profits there had been saying there hadn't been any profits. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you, man. Pa tried everything here. He tried a grist mill. He tried doing some remote work slightly out of town, like some handyman stuff. Lower and lower their prospects sank. And the doctor's wife and typically in a Frontier town. This might be one of the more prosperous people. The doctor's wife came to ask the Ingles's for Laura to help her around the house. And keep me company, she said. And keep in mind Laura's 10, right? As she promised to legally adopt Laura, but also really wanted her for, you know, housework and stuff. And then the landlord threatened to sell Pa's horses to pay their overdue rent. And the Ingallses definitely this isn't in the books. The Ingallses one night in August of 1877, skipped town in the middle of the night. They packed up their things and drove slowly away. Because without the horses, which the landlord threatened to seize, they would have no future. They could never farm. They couldn't dig themselves out of this hole. Pa saw no other option. So good, so good, so good. Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now and they're up to 60% off. Stock up and save on Rag and Bone, Madewell, Vince, All Saints and more of your favorites. How did I not know Rack has Adidas? Why do we rack for the hottest deals?
- [51:20]
A
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B
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A
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- [51:43]
B
So the Ingles's fled back to Walnut Grove where they found friends and the children were able to go to school. They lived in town and Pa, after a bit, was able to rent a store downtown and he created a butcher shop, which I thought was strange. But then Laura explains it in her autobiography that it wasn't worth it for people to kill a cow when it wasn't the right weather for freezing. It was a waste of the rest of the cow. But if one guy killed a cow and everyone came and bought a piece of that cow, that was economical and then people could eat beef. It was a big deal. It was a big treat.
- [52:17]
A
Yeah, it makes a whole lot of sense. And Walnut Grove is developing at this point. You know, they're starting to get a lot of amenities like a butcher shop.
- [52:25]
B
Laura loved school most of the time. There are lots of stories of schoolmate conflict that we will talk about in part two when we talk about the writing of the books. But Laura is intelligent and she's quick and she's driven and it's almost as though she knows she has to make the most of any opportunity to get an education because already in her life it's not been a very stable like grab it when it comes by. Because I don't know if it's going to come by again. Again, though, Laura, during vacation from school, would go work at the hotel, dishwashing, waiting tables, cleaning, taking care of babies. 50 cents a week was what she was earning. And it was critical to her family. She's only 11 years old and her wage is critical.
- [53:14]
A
And I think there was even times when she should have been in school, but her parents said, we need some more money. You're going to need to work a little bit.
- [53:23]
B
Even living in, which she did at certain points, her hours were so long for this money. One day, keep in mind, she's 11. One day, Laura woke up to find the drunken adult son of the house in her bedroom, and she was able to get away from him. And all she wrote in her autobiography was, quote, I was allowed to come home. I'm interpreting from that that she felt uncomfortable for a long time and no one took her seriously until that happened.
- [53:53]
A
Yes. No, I. That. That implies that there was a lot more dark things that happened. And already we know that she skipped over a lot of darkness in her life when she's talking about her autobiography,
- [54:06]
B
especially this part of her life. So immediately, though, she did leave that place, but she was sent out to another house, like Susan said, taken out of school for this in order to earn money. She wrote. And I quote, I knew things were not going well at home because Pa could not get much work and we needed money to live on.
- [54:28]
A
And then she flips it and kind of says that she likes doing it because there were, quote, interesting things happening all the time. Okay. You know, she's watching dramas play out in front of her, like romance dramas, and there's a saloon. There's gotta be other kind of drama happening.
- [54:46]
B
So why was eldest daughter Mary not helping support the family? Mary had been low key, ill all winter. And in the spring, Mary's condition deteriorated. She suffered a series of strokes. Strokes and lost her vision. Now, you'll see this referred to as scarlet fever, that I think during publication era was kind of just the easiest way. It's. It's two words that you can pronounce and. And whatever.
- [55:12]
A
Yeah. And I think it was a good. It was a generic coverall term for viruses or illnesses that there was no other name for. But this one actually has a name, thanks to medical historians.
- [55:23]
B
It's meningitis, inflammation of the brain. The desperate Ingallses had summoned doctors to come and save Mary's life and her vision. Even now, it requires interventions that they just didn't have Access to because of the time they lived in, Regardless of where in space they lived. Pa had closed his butcher shop. It was not making enough money. He had some handyman work. But the family's situation was dire. They were in deep distress. This might have been the lowest the family had ever been, the most perilous situation. And then Pa's younger sister, Laura's Aunt Dosha, appeared with a lifeline and, in fact, like a halo as far as Pa was concerned. She and her husband had made a deal with the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, where they would run support operations for the railroad as they expanded. They were going from Minnesota west through Dakota Territory. And the Dakota Territory had been recently, through legislation, open to settlement, although not quite yet. Like, it's not there yet, but legally it's coming. That is a very attractive thing that is happening. It's percolating in the background. So what would the ingles be doing? Well, the women would be cooking, cleaning, laundry. Pa might be doing payroll, bookkeeping and keeping a store for the workers. So Aunt Dosha offered Pa a salaried position. And you know what? No matter what it was, Pa would have had to take it. Like, would you like to shovel out outhouses? Yes, I would. But it was a clean, nice office job that Pa had. It was kind of a family operation. Many members of the extended family took up these offers and went out there. Luckily, it was not that job. It was a clean job in a controlled environment. So Pa went on ahead to take up his new job, and Ma stayed behind with the girls to allow Mary to recover somewhat. But when it was time to go, Laura had an amazing new experience to write about.
- [57:24]
A
This was her very first train ride. Pa's working with the laborers that are building the train tracks. You know, the train is going where they are. So Ma, Laura, and her sisters boarded a train in September of 1879. This is just mere months after Mary had lost her sight. And they took the train for an amazing seven miles. That's how long the train tracks lasted. But it was their first time on a train. So it was. It was exciting. It was new. Laura told Mary everything that she saw. She was just describing everything she saw in as much colorful language as possible to convey to Mary the wonders of this train trip.
- [58:10]
B
This might be where what we see in the future. With her descriptive powers, her ability to draw a picture with her words might have actually begun. On this train trip, Laura had to find words and concepts for the novelty of the train ride, also to describe what was happening outside. Pa and Ma Wanted Laura to be Mary's eyes. Since she could no longer see.
- [58:39]
A
She had said, I. And I don't have this in front of me. But the last thing that Mary saw before, just weeks before this train trip was Grace's. The baby, Grace, the. Grace's blue eyes. As Grace looked up at her.
- [58:52]
B
I know well. So they met up with Pa, who drove them to meet with Aunt Dosha, who was the boss of distribution. And the Ingallses were assigned a camp 40 miles further west from the hub on the shores of Silver Lake. And it was Laura's first sight of the Dakota prairie, which would be so central to the stories in her books. Pa was the bookkeeper, timekeeper, payroll guy. He ran the store. He had an assistant and ran the little company store. Inevitably, of course, this was an all hands on deck situation. Ma and Laura would be roped into the cooking and the cleaning. And as the other families who'd been assigned to that location moved on to other assignments, it then fell to Ma and Laura to basically run an impromptu boarding house. Laura wrote, my dresses wore out, and Mary luckily had an extra one, so I just wore that. They're paddling to keep afloat even here. She wrote, we were just fatalistic. We just took things as they came. We didn't look ahead. They did get a respite during the winter, so everybody left to avoid the harsh winter. But they were nervous about leaving the surve surveyor's house unguarded. Bad things could happen to property left unattended on the prairie. People would appropriate it or burn it or they would, like a caretaker. Could Pa take this on, please? Oh, my goodness. Was that like a rope to a drowning man? Laura tells the story of the surveyor's house as if she had made it to Valhalla. I mean, it is a place full of food. It is clean, it has a floor, it has a fireplace. It is insulated, it is warm. It might as well be heaven, you know what I mean? And I am glad they had a break. There's really nothing to do for other people because they're gone and I'm hooray, you know, the surveyor's house, by the way, is still there, preserved. But it's a cute house.
- [60:50]
A
We'll put a picture in the show notes.
- [60:52]
B
Well, I'm glad they all had a break and they needed it desperately because here's the thing. In February, so the. The worst part of the winter is over. And, you know, you think February is the end. February still winter. Fully winter, especially that far north. But in February, People started knocking on the door. They were coming in to file on this new Dakota land, and this was the only place to take shelter. Could they stay here? You know, we'll pay. Is there any food around? Like, can somebody make me a pancake? And there Ma and Laura were again running an impromptu boarding house. Yeah, there was a room downstairs that was about 12 by 15. There was another room upstairs about that extent. There were two bedrooms and a kitchen. And sometimes they had 20 strangers staying in their house. I think the standards for hotel stays were very low. I remember reading, like, Charles Dickens and everything, where you show up at a hotel and you have to share a bed with a random.
- [61:47]
A
Yeah, we talked about that in Mary Todd Lincoln.
- [61:49]
B
How.
- [61:49]
A
Yeah, yeah, how Abraham would have to do exactly that with his long legs.
- [61:54]
B
You know, in the books, it's made to seem as if this was like, wow, this one time they did this. Feeding strangers. It sure does look like printing extra money. We've never done this before. But, in fact, Laura in particular was experienced at this kind of customer service to a rough population, even though she was still, at this point, only 13 years old. And it was clearer and clearer to her that she was going to have to be the third backbone in this family. Real Laura never really had the carefree childhood that we get in her books, though, of course, there were moments of great joy. You know, Pa and his fiddle, his stories, the little celebrations that ended up meaning so much. But the whole tale was more like that Yellowstone prequel. Have you seen that? 1883. Yeah. Than the Michael Landon Little House on the Prairie. Man, if you have not seen that. Yellowstone, 1883. I mean, don't get attached to anyone. That's all I'm saying about that.
- [62:51]
A
Kind of like Game of Thrones.
- [62:52]
B
Yeah, it was just calamity after calamity, which, you know, given the fact that we are currently in 1880. You know, the guy must have known something when he wrote that. 1883. It tracks series, because it does track. Honestly, that shows a lot. You know what? There is a new Little House on the Prairie series coming out this summer. I'm so interested to know how much of the grittiness they plan to include. Mm.
- [63:16]
A
Yeah.
- [63:17]
B
And also, yes, is there gonna be a prairie skirt craze?
- [63:21]
A
There already is. Right now, my daughter was shopping for dresses to go to a friend's wedding, and for a whole series of the ones that she was trying on, they look like little house dresses with the ruffle on the bottom.
- [63:33]
B
Now, I'm not gonna lie. I wore a Blue gingham Sunbonnet in the 70s to be someone's flower girl. Are the sunbonnets coming back for day wear? I don't think so.
- [63:46]
A
Not on my head, I'm pretty sure.
- [63:48]
B
You know, super fans of Laura Ingalls call themselves Bonnetheads. I. I don't know. I think that's kind of niche, though. We're not gonna like Bonnethead our way to like the bar. No, no, not at all. Anyway, back to the story. Pa seeing the way the wind is blowing, seeing the way his floor is looking full of palettes and men with beards and a dream. He's like, I gotta make a move.
- [64:13]
A
Yeah, he could get in on it. Now. All these people were coming out to be homesteaders. The government was offering 160 acres to anybody who would live on the land and farm it for five years. And that seemed like a deal that Pa could get behind. So he spent some of the time while everybody was gone scoping out the area looking for his homestead. And he found it.
- [64:40]
B
I know. 160 acres you could buy with nothing but sweat equity and a tiny filing fee. I am pulling for you, Pa. We all are pulling for you. So near his land that he filed on the brand new town was being laid out. A town called De Smet. And it was right on the railroad. Always a positive indicator of progress. And guess what? The first business to open was in town, inevitably, a saloon.
- [65:05]
A
Yeah, I was gonna say. I'm sitting here with my finger on my notes because the name De Smet is very unusual. And it was named after a Jesuit priest who had worked in the Great Plains. He had built missions, but more importantly, he drew a lot of maps. And his name was Pierre Jean Despet.
- [65:25]
B
Well, there you go. Yeah. Although is it dismay? I don't know, because Iva was taught.
- [65:30]
A
Oh, would it be? Oh, yeah, I'll look it up. Hey, it's Susan from the future here. I looked it up. It seems that the T is pronounced even in French. Father De Smet was Belgian, so in French it would still be De Smet. So in French, Pierre Jean de Smet is pronounced exactly like it is in South Dakota.
- [65:50]
B
Pa also bought two town lots and quickly threw up a gym crack building on one of the lots because the surveyor's house was going to be occupied again. Jim Crack, by the way, means didn't sound. It sounds good like crack a wackin. No, it's not. It means like Jim crappy. It's more rickety and shoddy is what it means. Jim Crack. Word of the day. Word of the day. I don't know what. Anyway, he built a building on one of his lots, because if you didn't build within a certain time frame, you lost the town lot, too. So they're not playing around with this. Don't squat on it if you're not going to do something with it. We got to pass it to someone who is, so they don't mess around either. So he's kind of forced to do it now to that end, since the house was made of nothing but, like, a weekend's hard labor. Laura later tells the story of waking up with snow on her blanket, which has come through holes in the roof. So we're obviously not done with construction. But it's late April, and with spring's usual optimism, imagine that you're watching not only the leaves come out and the grass greening up, but a whole town emerge from the prairie.
- [66:58]
A
Right.
- [66:59]
B
Joining the saloon, a railroad depot. That was inevitable. A schoolhouse, a bank, a livery stable, two hotels, two grocery stores, a furniture store, which I've seen a picture of. Amazing. And Pa himself opened a general store on his town lot, and they lived behind it. Pa and Ma helped organize church services. They were held in first the railroad depot and then when it was built. This is more respectable. In the school building. Yeah, we'll hold it in the depot, which is kind of like. I mean, maybe the depot's always on the wrong side of the tracks by default. I don't really know. But it's a real town. It's a real town at last. And Laura and Carrie were again able to go to school. But poor old Pa had a lot on him, a lot of responsibility.
- [67:45]
A
Well, the homestead, somebody has to live on it. And if this house in town wasn't made really well, the homestead house was made even less with less skill. It's really just a shanty. It's a temporary housing. Someone has to live in it. A lot of the homesteads, wealthier people, would pay others to just, like, scatter clothes around their shanty to make it look like they were living there when they really weren't. Pa and the family actually did spend time living out at this shack on their land. And this was another time that Laura just didn't write about later in her life because it was so hard. It was such hard living. They had no crops, yet. The only thing that they were able to get into the ground before the weather got bad was turnips. And sometimes Pa would like leave dinner and say he wasn't hungry. And Go outside. And Laura could see him gnawing on a raw turnip. And she actually started doing the same thing so that her sisters and mother could have a little bit more food. And the little bit more food they had was not a lot. It was minimal.
- [68:55]
B
So I just want to emphasize again, Pa and then Laura both held back on purpose for the benefit of their families. And I think that's going to be important in just a second when I talk about someone else. But that's the state they're in where Pa feels like he can't have a full meal because it would take, literally take the bread out of the mouths of his children. You know, Pa did sell his first building in town and built another one on his second lot. I mean, he was in a lot of places. He's trying desperately to, like, do whatever he can on the claim because that was legal. He didn't want to lose the land. You don't want to lose the town lots also. I mean, he's the only one. And I said over and over, what Pa had probably needed in this time, in this Victorian era, was a son. And Laura wrote later that Ma said to her, life would have been far different if Freddie had lived. Yeah, if Paul had had someone to share that kind of work with, they may have done a lot better. I'm 100% sure that doesn't make the existing children feel super awesome, but Laura did the best she could. You know, you see it throughout to help do some of the work that Pa was shouldering.
- [70:09]
A
And I. I'm just going to toss this in here. Not only is he trying to work his new land, trying to build up businesses in town, but he's also running the county office. He's the constable and the justice of the peace. How? How? I'm exhausted just reading that sentence.
- [70:26]
B
So Pa is investing his time and his money on the future. And there's no way, regardless of what you see of the outcome, there's no way you can claim Pa was a lazy person. He might not have been a successful person ultimately, but there is no doubt in my mind he was a hard worker. And he just, like, would try different things, you know, chop, change all over the place. That man, I wish the best for him. I mean, I really, I really do. He just never caught a break. And then Mother Nature decided to run the prairie through the gauntlet just like you do. And it began with a quick, sharp shock of a snowstorm. They were out on the claim and realized, oh, ho, there's only a quarter inch of Board between us and temperatures of below 40 degrees. So we should probably go to town.
- [71:17]
A
She went to bed one night and it was raining and the rain was dripping on her. And when she woke up in the morning, it was a whiteout outside because it had snowed that fast of a weather change and that, like you just said, they went into town and lived in their other building.
- [71:33]
B
Yeah, they sort of camped in PA's second building and almost the second, they put Mary's rocking chair nearest the fire. That terrible, terrible, long winter of 1880 and 1881 began in earnest. It was a series of just relentless blizzards that lasted from November until May. And if you've read the books, evidently this is the one that stays closest to the real story. The railroad stopped running. Supplies ran low. Everyone was starving. Slowly people huddled in half built, uninsulated buildings and twisted hay into sticks for firewood. The Englishes lived on potatoes and turnips, which by the way, cause horrible gas. So good for you. Yeah, the air was delightful. And then wheat that they ground in a coffee mill to make little crackers of flour and water or Ma was very good at making sourdough starter and keeping it alive even in these conditions.
- [72:31]
A
A lot of times the wheat that they were grinding into flour was not a crop wheat. It was the seed wheat that they had in stores to plant in the fields the following year. But it's all they had, so they ground that down.
- [72:45]
B
So they're basically grinding down their future prospects now too. But they had to. And as grim and frightening as this was, what Laura left out of her books was the fact that the family had company the whole time. There was a young couple named Mr. And Mrs. Masters that had been kicked out of their parents house for the baby coming sooner than expected after the wedding. I don't know. She was very, very pregnant when. When they came to visit. Then the snowstorms started. I mean, yikes, when the weather started. In fact, this lady had her baby upstairs. That's not in the books.
- [73:22]
A
She had to have it somewhere.
- [73:24]
B
Well, and of course Pa and Ma felt like, you know, like, well, let's not kill them by kicking them out of here. They've got to take shelter here. And this story makes me so angry. We just talked about how Pa and Laura have been going without so their family can eat this. George Masters, the husband of the guest, would hurry and gobble up most of the food when it was served. He would sneak down and steal more in the night, putting himself ahead of every other person in the household, including his wife and new child and the person who took him in out of the cold. He never helped them twist hay into sticks. He was always pushing to get closest to the fire. I mean, PA should have kicked at least him out. Lauren never forgot or forgave George Masters for this. And as her little sister Carrie got thinner and weaker, he because he could hogged the resources. And for the rest of her life, Laura had a violent reaction to people that she called shirkers. Her whole life, she'd been expected to put her own wishes aside. She watched her PA sacrifice and struggle. And this side of human nature, this selfishness was intolerable to her. Absolutely became a part of her in a way that you can see in her the rest of her life that this was an eye opening experience. I keep reading online about all these men that weaponize food and I, I'm shocked. And how old am I? And she learned that lesson a lot earlier than I did. Yeah, well, there were only about a hundred people in De Smet, most with hardly any supplies. Shortages happened almost immediately. There were only a hundred people in Desmet and most had hardly any supplies. No one thought this was going to happen so soon. Surely the trains would bring more. We've ordered more. Our Cisco order, as they would say in the restaurant industry, is on the way. Shortages started immediately. Laura calls out, the last bag of sugar in town went for 50 cents for one pound. And that is modern day $15. So $15, modern day for one pound of sugar. The last pound of flour went for double that. So $30 modern for one pound of flour. That's where we are right now. So the shortages are real. Not for any amount of money that you possess. Even if you had 30 modern money, you could not get a bag of flour anywhere. Things were tightening, things were getting desperate. George Masters was eating all the potatoes. Everyone was getting thinner and thinner. And soon we're going to start reading about deaths, aren't we? So in other, happier news, two young men of the town had the opposite character to George Masters and risked their lives to save the town.
- [76:16]
A
Word had come into town that there was a farmer who had a crop of wheat that he was willing to sell if someone could make the 12 mile each way journey out to his farm to get it. Two young men stepped forward. One was named Cap Garland and the other was named Almanzo Wilder. Yep, you heard me. Almanzo. That's like, that was like the biggest thing I learned, I think in this, because of the origin of his name, it wasn't Almanzo as We've been calling him for how many years now. Thank you, Michael Landon. It was Almanzo. And there is actually a recording out there of Laura saying her husband's name, and it is Almanzo.
- [76:59]
B
So we'll do the best we can, but if Almanzo sneaks out, you know.
- [77:03]
A
Yeah, I know.
- [77:04]
B
You know, it's programming that's a brain cell that has a hardened shell and will not give up. No kidding.
- [77:10]
A
I have actually been practicing Almanzo, Almanzo. But it makes total sense in just a little bit. So Cap Garland, who Laura actually had a crush on, Cap Garland and Almanza Wilder set off during a short break in the weather. I mean, there was still a lot of snow on the ground. It just wasn't falling. So they got out to the farm, they negotiated a fair price and brought back as much wheat as they possibly could. Mere hours after their return into town, yet another blizzard hit. They had just left a little while later or had taken longer to negotiate. They, too, would have been caught in that again, and who knows what would have happened?
- [77:54]
B
So at any moment during this trip, they could have been caught out on the open prairie and died. These two men risked their lives to save the rest of the people in town. Their selfless action, of course, made it into Laura's books. And it's a main story that we remember. The man that had fronted the money, a storekeeper named Loftus, initially charged top dollar for this wheat. And the men in town went there and like, okay, you can charge this and we'll pay it, but we will remember, come spring, there's more stores in town than you, my friend. And you can just kiss your commercial life goodbye. And, in fact, maybe his actual life. I don't know how deep the threats went, but Mr. Loftus, like, okay, backtracked, backtracked, actually gave refunds to men that had paid the inflated price and charged a fair like what it had cost him, he charged. He did not profit from this endeavor, although he tried to. Almanzo and Cap did not charge for this service at all.
- [78:52]
A
Almanzo had actually. Him and his brother owned a feed store, and sometimes he would fill up some small buckets with feed, with grain for the Ingalls family, open up tap,
- [79:07]
B
fill the bucket, and drop it off. That action actually got them through the last week ahead of when Cap and Almanzo decided they had to go. Yeah.
- [79:16]
A
And it would be another four months before a train could get through again.
- [79:21]
B
Laura turned 14 during the hard winter, and the only present she got was a song from PA. Spring starts at the home Depot. And we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under 300, like the next grill four burner gas grill. That's perfect for hosting your spring cookout. Then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go to spot the patio sets for every budget. Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot exclusion supplies. See homedepot.com pricematch for details. In April, the very first train made it through to town, and men rushed eagerly in. They opened all the cars, but what did they find? Farm equipment. Well, that would be helpful later or next year, or if we hadn't literally eaten all of our wheat in the very last car. Right as they had run out of hope, they discovered a car full of supplies that had been sent ahead by an immigrant party. And people broke the lock and distributed the food. Sugar, flour, tea, salt pork. A feast. A feast. Every family got some. And the second train came in. Yay. We ran down there again, some calories. And there was nothing but telephone poles. The men of the town tried to buy them for firewood. And the railroad people are like, and these are not for sale. These are somebody's. And the town's like, yes, they are ours. And they seized them and caught them up and use them for firewood. No more twisting hay to stay warm.
- [81:11]
A
Town folks gotta do what town folks gotta do.
- [81:14]
B
I mean, the spring came in as lovely as if the winter had only been a bad dream. The garden produced lettuces, chickens laid eggs, the cow gave milk, and the sun shone. And this is a period of Laura's life where she just basked in the glory of the peace and quiet after the trauma of the winter. But alas, it was not to last. She went to work in town, sewing shirts for the man. Heavy town, I guess. Men didn't sew. And she earned 25 cents a day plus board. And Laura lived in town, the exact place she did not want to live anymore. But again, her family needed the money.
- [82:00]
A
We know all that season as the long winter, but honestly, at the time they called it the hard winter. And something that happened the year after the hard winter that opened up in town and just to me says, this is now an official town. A roller rink. Who's fascinated by that? A roller rink.
- [82:20]
B
Later on, everyone would get busted for skipping school and going to the roller rink. But it's like, how do you skip School in a town of like a hundred people. Isn't it pretty clear? Like, oh, look, there's someone skating. It is Laura. I wonder why she's not in school. Like, you're not going to be, like, fading into the arcade crowd at the mall.
- [82:38]
A
I know. It's like every time I was riding on the back of Barry Zalkman's motorcycle, somebody in my town saw me and told my mom. Mostly because I wasn't wearing a helmet. Yeah, I know, Susan. I know. We used to go through the drive through at Taco Bell.
- [82:53]
B
Oh, my God.
- [82:55]
A
You know what? When I was writing my column, I had a column about this and I sent it to Barry Zalkman. I hunted him down and he didn't respond.
- [83:03]
B
Oh, no, that's not a good end to the story.
- [83:07]
A
I'm sorry. So, Barry Zalkman, if you're listening, you could just drop us a note, make me feel better about myself.
- [83:13]
B
The roller rink was not the only good thing to happen. A chance had appeared for Mary to study at the Iowa College for the Blind in Vinton, Iowa. Dakota territory as an entity paid for five years of tuition. The family just had to come up with clothes, an allowance, and then you had to get your student back and forth to school. But room and board was also covered. In reality, this was seriously a chance that could not be squandered. They had to send her. This is the only chance Mary was going to have for education. And everyone rallied and sewed and knitted, and Laura gave her sewing in town money and turned over money from babysitting that she had done. And Mary was always the bright one, said Laura, always. While I was slower and stupid, which, I mean, like, not from here, you don't seem so.
- [84:06]
A
No, no. And when you read her words, she's always comparing herself and falling short with. With her sister. Unfortunately, she can't see the version we see. You know, Mary was prettier, Mary was nicer. Mary was smarter.
- [84:20]
B
Yeah. And later in her life, as she was writing these books, she wrote, Laura wrote. And I, who had always wanted a college education myself, was so very happy thinking that Mary was getting one. And I'm sorry, this is me now. I. That makes me feel very, very sad.
- [84:41]
A
Yeah.
- [84:42]
B
Because this whole time, I mean, it was necessary and I get it, and I don't know what else they could have done, but, like, this whole time, they just expect Laura to buck up, you know, and it makes me feel. I don't know, makes me feel stressed out and not good about it.
- [84:57]
A
Yeah. Is this Middle child syndrome. I don't know.
- [85:01]
B
I think she was almost the oldest child. She's treated as the oldest child. She's actually treated as a son would be treated. A son would be expected to like, well, you're 12, go harvest some blah, blah, blah. I don't know, I just. Ugh.
- [85:14]
A
For Mary and for any visually impaired people, this was an amazing opportunity. This college had only been founded about 30 years, which still, that seems so early in time. 30 years before Mary was able to go. It only shut down in the 2011 era, probably about the same time we were covering Laura the first time. And it's now turned into like a social service agency. But just so you know, the Iowa College for the Blind in Vinton, Iowa, had a team called the Rams. I don't know what they played, it's just the mascot was the Ram.
- [85:52]
B
A few things happened this year. The year Mary went off to school, the school children, including Laura, bullied the teacher right out of school. A teacher who would end up being Laura's sister in law later. Seems very awkward. We'll have to deal with that later. But later, Laura became the star pupil in school. Her social life also bloomed. Now, unlike in her books, Laura was a popular choice for school sweethearts. And one of my favorite passages in Little Town on the Prairie is how she goes to her first teenage party and gets the second orange of her entire life. And they, for the very first time, play with electricity by shocking each other. Super fun. The town was full of life. They had town suppers and waxworks and a literary society and charades night and a debate club and a famous spelling bee. And, oh, yes, the most problematic of pursuits, a minstrel show in which PA starred. And I will tell you, during our coverage of Aunt Jemima, we covered the history of minstrel shows. And I even refer to this chapter of Little Town on the Prairie during that episode. So for more on blackface and the history of that performance, I would urge you to listen to to our Aunt Jemima episode. Most importantly, for the purposes of our story, the town also hosted a series of revival meetings. They were leaving the revival meeting, which I don't pretend to know a single thing about. A revival meeting. I've never been near one. I don't know what happens there. I don't know what the expectations are, how long they are. I know nothing about a revival meeting.
- [87:34]
A
And this is not you asking me.
- [87:37]
B
Do you? Have you ever been to one in the modern day?
- [87:41]
A
No. No, I don't. But where I go in the Summer, there's a tabernacle and they used to have revival meetings there. So I looked into what that meant.
- [87:50]
B
Okay, what does it mean?
- [87:51]
A
In my life, it was kind of a rally for Christians and it was basically a church service with lots of singing and an altar call so people could, you know, give their prayers over to the congregation. It's a high energy church service.
- [88:07]
B
What's an altar call? Like open mic?
- [88:09]
A
No, if you have prayers and you'd like to come forward to the altar so we as elders can pray for you. And maybe more importantly, during a revival meeting, an altar call is a time to publicly profess your faith and dedicate yourself to the church. Oh, yeah.
- [88:27]
B
Well, there you go. She was at a revival. I think it was a multi night deal. So the expectation was that they would be there. Everybody came. It was a social event. And a man hurried to ask if he could walk her home. And Laura looked over like, hello, friend of my father's. I know who you are. You're super famous. You're the man that went away and got all the wheat and thanks for saving my life, et cetera. Like that guy. May I walk you home? And she heard her mother gasp and say, Charles, she's only 15, and postered Ma away. And Almanzo Wilder walked her home.
- [89:04]
A
It turns out that first night was kind of on a dare, which is really sad. But the subsequent nights, that was all on Almanzo.
- [89:12]
B
I actually think this is kind of sweet. Like his hired man. I think his name is Oscar. Anyway, Oscar the hired man dared Almanzo to go ask this other person to walk home. And Almanzo instead went and asked Laura who he really wanted to ask.
- [89:28]
A
I see.
- [89:28]
B
And therefore he still got his money from Oscar, but he got to walk the one home that he wanted. And he pretended all along. Well, that's who I thought you meant, so it could have been sweet. That's a story he told Laura later. So let's. I don't know, I'm gonna go with that one. That's the one the man actually told himself. He could have been covering his patoot. You know what I mean?
- [89:50]
A
Yeah, maybe, maybe.
- [89:51]
B
Well, so this is the famous Almanzo Wilder.
- [89:55]
A
Almanzo and his brother Royal. There's a great name. Almanzo and Royal had arrived in De Smet about the same time that the Wilders did for the exactly the same reason. They had dreams of homesteading. He was the fifth of six children. Royal was his older brother by about 10 years. When exactly Amanza was born is up for debate. He always said 1857. But historians now think he was two years younger. But when they got out to the Dakota Territory, you had to be 21 to file a claim for a homestead. So an 1857 birthday would make him old enough to do that. So he's either, you know, 10 or eight years older than Laura.
- [90:38]
B
Now. He grew up in a relatively speaking, extremely prosperous farming family, rich in food and material comfort anyway, compared to the Ingallses and three of the family actually. So Almanzo Royal. See, look at me trying to say Almanzo, I can't do it.
- [90:57]
A
I know. I practice. That's the only reason it's coming out.
- [91:01]
B
So I'm gonna just like Almanzo, his older brother and ill fated teacher sister Eliza Jane, lazy, lousy Liza Jane. Read Laura's books for more details on what the heck that is all about. The one that got bullied out of the schoolroom. They took advantage of the Homestead act and they all three filed claims, which women could file claims. As a matter of fact, immigrants could file claims. You didn't even have to be a citizen to do so. And in that era of like extreme immigration, that's amazing to me. So either he's 25, asking to walk a 15 year old home from church, or he's 23. Not unheard of in this age to marry at that time, but not common at all. Like the average age of marriage for women was 20 even then. Although I just went and looked up some literary references from about this time. And in Gone with the Wind, did you realize Scarlett O' Hara's mother was 15 when she married her 43 year old husband? Oh, that's actually if I did.
- [92:03]
A
I'd forgotten.
- [92:04]
B
Wow, that's in Gone with the Wind, huh? Anyway, not common at all. Although we do get a story of a really, really young marriage early on when they first arrived at the shores of Silver Lake to work at the railroad camp, they were sent out to go get the laundry from the woman who had taken that job on. And she's like, oh, I'm sorry, it's going to be late. I had to get my daughter's wedding all arranged. She's 13 now. It's about time she starts, you know, making her own life, get her feet out from under my table. And Laura, who at the time was 12, was like, holy moly, where have I come to? You know?
- [92:38]
A
Yeah.
- [92:38]
B
But that seemed to be the exception rather than the rule, even on the frontier.
- [92:44]
A
Yeah.
- [92:45]
B
So hooray. But anyway, so 15 and 25. Interesting. She viewed him as more of a friend of paws. Like a member of another generation. She actually had had a thing for the other member of the band, the Cap Garland, who actually was a couple years ahead of in school, it was more her age, contemporary. But here he was. Here he was. So it has begun, the romantic interest between Almanzo and Laura Ingalls. However, we interrupt this romantic encounter for an interruption. A family friend came over and introduced Laura and her parents to a man named Louis Bucci, who is looking for someone to teach the little school on his land.
- [93:28]
A
At Laura's school, she finally had a teacher after Liza Jane, who recognized her intelligence and recognized that she was an astonishing student. So he was really encouraging to her. So this really didn't come out of left field for Laura when they said, how about Laura? And her teacher agreed that Laura would indeed also make a great teacher, and he encouraged it. The little hitch here is that Laura was either 15 or 16, not quite old enough to become a teacher and take the test required in the books.
- [94:07]
B
Of course, she's famously only 15. In her autobiography, she refers to another date, and historians looking at her actual certificate find another date still, which proves that she might have been 16. All of this doesn't really matter because in Dakota territory at this time, a new law stipulated that you had to be 18. And there's by no stretch of the imagination anyway, she could have been 18. So she's not old enough to teach technically. And the general thought was we'll just, we'll just work that out. I'll just tell the guy not to ask you, and then you won't have to lie.
- [94:43]
A
Right. And that's exactly what happened.
- [94:45]
B
Right. So the man, the inspector, came to her house and gave her an exam so she could get her teaching license. Wink, wink to the rules. You know, everybody needed a teacher and they were only going to pay $20 a month. So that was like rock bottom dollar for a teacher. They tested her in spelling, reading, U.S. history, grammar, geography, math and writing. Here I am shining a light on her report card. Sorry, Laura. She only got a 69 on history in real life. In the book, she got a 98. So we'll go with that. But in real life, I don't think she hit the mark. The challenge is this school was not in town. This school was out on Mr. Bouchie's land.
- [95:30]
A
And it was very small. There was only five students. And she would have to board with the Bucci family.
- [95:36]
B
It was 12 miles away. That's one way. And in that time, that's. I might as well be A million miles, you know, 12 miles means you have to depend on someone else for transportation. So she was going to go away from her family for two months. It was a lot. And it was a terrible experience for Laura, this first foray into living in someone else's house with no possibility of coming home. Let's just say the Boochies were in a contentious relationship. Contentious, right. Some might even say abusive. Oh, hold for that. But Laura worried also about her performance as a teacher. She was almost sick at the thought of being trapped over the weekend after her. Like, she had to hold it together at school. She had to be the teacher. And then when she got back to the place where she was born, she had to hold it together and not talk and not be a presence, because otherwise she would draw attention to herself and it wouldn't be good. It was a lot.
- [96:37]
A
I mean, if they were hateful to each other, what would they be to her?
- [96:41]
B
So bad.
- [96:42]
A
She was so. And this was nothing, nothing at all like the married relationship that she had seen in her parents when she was growing up. It just caught her off guard.
- [96:52]
B
I wonder how often this happened. And I fell down a rabbit hole of reading pioneer women's stories over and over. And not that this is an excuse for her behavior at all, but it seems like Mrs. Bouchie, I don't remember her maiden name, was actually widowed with a small child and sort of had to marry for security, for safety. Like, I don't know that this was a love match. He was the next door neighbor. And their plots met. And so this cabin, which even Laura says was. It looked like, curiously, it was two claim shanties pushed together because it kind of was. One half was on her land and one half was on his land, and they shoved them together. I mean, what were Mrs. Bushy's options? You know, like, so what was anyone's options? How many of these pioneer women were there by choice and how many just had to follow whatever their husbands had said and come out here to this wilderness where they didn't know how to do anything and didn't have a support system? I don't know. I'm not excusing her behavior necessarily, but I can see why people were falling apart.
- [97:51]
A
Yeah.
- [97:51]
B
Anyway, Laurie didn't know any of that, certainly, and she wasn't ready for it. And so she was in the depths of despair on Friday at school thinking about what she was facing over the weekend when she heard the sounds of an angel. Score more with the college branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo stash got paid back with the Venmo debit card, you can instantly access your balance and spend on what you want, like game day,
- [98:23]
A
snacks, gear, tickets and more.
- [98:26]
B
The more you do, the more cash back you can earn. Plus, there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Sign up now@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank. NA Select Schools available. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me stash terms max $100 cash back per month.
- [98:47]
A
It was Almanzo. He was coming out to pick her up and take her home for the weekend. How thoughtful. Yes, please. And at this point, she's saying, look, I'm not romantically interested in you. We are really good friends and I totally appreciate this ride. This is. Is great. But it's not going to go any farther than this, right? She was upfront with him.
- [99:07]
B
She was. She said she didn't want to be deceptive. I'm only going with you because I miss home. Like, don't get your hopes up. And he's like, that's fine. Like, that's fine. One of the kids she was teaching, every time Almanza would come, he would yell, teacher's beau. Teacher's Bo's here to pick her up. And he did it because it made her turn red. And that was like, super rewarding. Like, hooray. The teacher's now blushing. It's like, yay. Well, there was a day. There was a day that there was a cold snap. It was so bad that the mercury has frozen in the thermometer at the general store. Now Mercury freezes at minus 37.89 Fahrenheit. He's sitting there looking at this. How much lower did the world go than this cap? Garland comes along and says to Almanzo, God hates a coward, bro.
- [99:57]
A
Man up.
- [100:00]
B
You know, Almost died because Amanda couldn't take a dare. Like, whatever. But she was almost at the end of her tenure there at the Bouchie School. And right before this cold snap, Mrs. Bucci had cracked. Laura was actually sleeping in an alcove that was only roped off by a curtain that was hooked to the ceiling on a rope. And she woke up to find that Mrs. Bushy was standing over her husband in the night in her nightgown with a butcher knife, life threatening to kill him unless he took her back east. Now, let's just say this. Laura hasn't slept in a while. It's cold. She knows Almanzo's not coming. She's really scared, and it's horrible. And she knows she can't tell anybody because they wouldn't let her go back and finish the term. And if you don't finish your term, no one ever lets you do another school. It was a lot. And so she could not believe it when Almanzo came that didn't swoon her.
- [100:52]
A
I don't know what would on that
- [100:54]
B
particular occasion, actually, he probably should have not gone. He should not have taken that dare, no matter what was happening out at the Booshies, because Laura almost died. She was so cold, she practically fell out of the sleigh. I'm not sure Ma and Pa really appreciated that delivery. You're a fool, number one. And number two, thanks for the parcel, but goodbye. There was a little bit of that going on. Um, however, he did deliver her to the bosom of her family and kind of gave her the energy to make it through that one last week. And it had to be over, and it was, hooray. And then she kept going with Almanzo Wilder. After the acuteness of her need for him was over, people kept dropping by. Laura is a popular lady. You know, the boys like her. She's peppy and sparky and intelligent and funny and willing to play snowball fights with them. And she is a real awesome lady. You know, people liked her a lot. They kept stopping by to ask her to go with them, and she just kept saying it didn't feel right. Thank you for the invitation. It. It feels wrong to go out with you. And it wasn't until Amanda came to invite her to go sledding that she realized, oh, ho. Oh, no. Maybe I like him more than I thought.
- [102:11]
A
And how could she not? They had all that time on those rides, 12 miles each direction, and they just talked. He was kind of introspective and quieter. She was outgoing and gregarious, and they got along so well. I, at this point, pushing her over the edge to romance was certainly not a very difficult thing to do. They had talked one day, what should I call you? And he said, my family calls me Manny. But she heard, manly. So that's what she called him. Manly. And he said, my sister's name is Laura, so I don't want to call you that. What's your middle name? She said, elizabeth. He said, how about Bess? So they were manly and Bess to each other. I think that's so sweet.
- [102:55]
B
That is sweet. She couldn't keep calling him Mr. Wilder. That's raw.
- [102:58]
A
Raw? Yeah. No. At some point, you. Yeah, it's like you've come out here how many times now? Yeah. And he had to do the drive twice as much.
- [103:06]
B
Oh, right.
- [103:07]
A
Yeah.
- [103:07]
B
Well, she wrote in her autobiography, I kept on going with manly, and pretty soon people began to take it seriously. And, you know, looking at Almanzo at this time, he's strong, he is defiant, he's successful in a way that Paul never had been, you know, also very handsome. Don't get me wrong. Have you seen that picture? We'll have to post it in the
- [103:29]
A
show right about this time. Yes.
- [103:30]
B
Yeah.
- [103:31]
A
I mean, she's adorable, too.
- [103:32]
B
Don't. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. So he has a lot going for him. He offers security in a way that she has never felt it before. In addition to being a kind of soul matey, he's also a practical choice. Those two don't always go together. And she continued to go to school and also to take more jobs in the summers to help the family. Once as a companion for a woman who had to stay on a claim, she sewed at a milliner's shop. Also did more babysitting because pot just wasn't doing well financially. He was working by hand in this new era of mechanized farm equipment, and he had no son to help him. And he was upset at the settled up nature of the country, and he wanted to move to Oregon. I'm not even joking. And Ma absolutely put her foot down for the first time in the books. I don't know if she ever defied him before. She's like, nope, the children are going to school here. We are settled, we have friends, we have a house. I'm not moving. And maybe this is the first time in her life she ever put her foot down. Laura wrote, PA was not very happy. And I found myself at this point antagonistic toward Pa. Like, stop it.
- [104:43]
A
Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's okay to make this move for your dream so many times, but that ride has to end, especially when we have kids that need stability. Yeah. And look what we're doing to poor Laura. I mean, I don't even know if that came up in conversation, but expecting so much of her from such a young age.
- [105:04]
B
Well, at 17, she was asked to teach another school, the Perry School, but this one was close enough to walk to, and it was the springtime. They wanted school to go from April to June. Beautiful, beautiful environment. She left her own lessons at school to earn $25 a month teaching just three students. She looks back on this as one of the Most glorious times in her life. She could meander to school all three of the children, and at times she only had one, as a matter of fact, because two of them in one family did move from place to place and went to a different school for part of this. So she only had one student for part of the time. All of those students, obedient, learned their lessons, loved her, drew her pictures, wrote her notes, picked her wildflowers, and she said, and for all this, I am bringing home $25 a month. It was great. The Sunday drives continued, and Laura got a reputation for daring do because Almanzo, a known horseman, would bring by the most cockamamie team. Cap Garland, never one to stint on a compliment, said, no other woman in town is going to ride behind these horses. And if high fiving was a tradition, he would have high fived her. He really admired her for the fact that she was brave enough to get behind these horses. She even learned how to drive that them. It was not long after these horses were finally gentle and on a drive under the stars that Almanzo proposed to Laura and they had their first kiss. That's how Laura writes it. They've been alone a long time.
- [106:41]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [106:43]
B
In assorted places of beauty. I don't know. Yes.
- [106:47]
A
But there is another story out there that he shows up at her house to give her a gift of a gold bar pin, like a pin, and kisses her in front of her family, and that's kind of sealing the deal.
- [107:01]
B
That could be the first public kiss, maybe.
- [107:06]
A
Yeah. I just was under the impression that they were doing a little bit of smooching on their rides, and I don't think that was, you know, modern day. Susan, I don't know where I get this from. Sorry. I know you want fact, you want supporting documents. I don't got him.
- [107:19]
B
Human nature is what you're basing it on. But I'm just saying. Yeah. You can write in your book that that was your first kiss, but you guys have been dating for three years.
- [107:28]
A
Three years. Yes. Now, I can't even imagine that any courtship at this era would have been this long, you know?
- [107:35]
B
Well, I do believe that, Pa. And you know what? Actually, I think it was probably Ma wanted her to wait till she was 18 to get married.
- [107:42]
A
Yes. Oh, no, I can see that, too.
- [107:45]
B
Yeah. Almanzo gave her a garnet and pearl ring, which you can still buy replicas of at the Walnut Grove, Minnesota, the Laura Ingalls Walter Museum. By the way, looks like he got it at Montgomery Ward or someone got it at Montgomery Ward. And he bought it in town because in the ad, it says, like, one ring, $1.40, and it's like a lot of 15 is blah, blah, blah. Like, why would you need 15 rings? But I guess if you were a store, you'd order it in bulk. Like, Montgomery Ward was the Costco. Also now when Ma saw her ring, she's like, Pa and I aren't blind. You know, this was coming. You know. You know what, Susan? I do believe that Laura's actual engagement ring is in the collection of the Mansfield, Missouri Historic Home, which I think you and I are going to go visit. I don't know if it's always on display, but it would be cool if it was. We'll have to look. I do know Pa's fiddle is there.
- [108:40]
A
I know, I know.
- [108:41]
B
That's a rock star. Also one of Michael Landon's white shirts.
- [108:45]
A
Ha.
- [108:45]
B
Cha cha.
- [108:46]
A
Kind of like Colin first at Jane Austen's house.
- [108:49]
B
I know. And you know, for a while, they had the costumes from Clueless at Jane Austen's house. I think they're gone now. Oh, I love that. But I love the modern day inclusion in the historic sites. I think that's pretty cool.
- [109:01]
A
Yeah. I'm so excited to go because after we did the. Covered her the last time, you went by yourself, which I think was a perfect pilgrimage for you because these books meant so much to you. But when we decided to do this again, and you're like, we should go, and I'm like, yes, let's go. Road trip.
- [109:18]
B
I know. We'll have to find.
- [109:20]
A
We said it. We actually have to do it.
- [109:22]
B
I know. I think we should. I think we should do it. I do. And I. I think there's somewhere just across. I don't know how far Independence, Kansas is. I mean, if you're going to win on a road trip. And we might be able to hit Independence, Kansas, too. We'll have to see.
- [109:36]
A
All right, I'll pack the Bugles.
- [109:39]
B
What's my road snack? I don't know. It used to be salt and vinegar Pringles.
- [109:44]
A
Ooh. Also good.
- [109:45]
B
Yeah, they kind of make the car stinky, though. Not as bad as Kris Graham's teriyaki beef jerky, which, like. Oh, my God. I mean, I know we talked about turnips being farty before, but, like, if you would like the car to smell like the latrine at a boy scout camp, you just bring out those jack links, teriyaki beef jerky strips or whatever.
- [110:05]
A
I think I should probably cut this out.
- [110:07]
B
Roll the window down? No, I don't think so.
- [110:09]
A
Oh, okay then.
- [110:11]
B
I don't know.
- [110:11]
A
Leaving it in.
- [110:12]
B
Laura went back to school after she was engaged. Hilariously, her friend who shared the seat with her, also engaged. It must be like, that's what one does the last year of high school. Speaking of that, they went to the new two story high school in town that had just been built. And then Almanzo and Royal went on a business road trip. I have a question mark. Maybe even as the local gossip said that they were going to the 1884 World's Fair in New Orleans.
- [110:42]
A
Oh, right.
- [110:43]
B
They were taking what they called Royal's peddler wagon on a road trip. And then they were gonna swing by and see some family. So quite a trip. It is quite a trip. They're gone, they're out of town. And for some reason, as the school year was coming to an end, the teacher, Mr. Owen, who otherwise we like, he was the one that saw her potential, who always praised her like she's the top one in his school. He even let her teach downstairs when the teacher was sick a couple days. Although let, I don't think he paid her, so that wasn't maybe as good. But anyway, it's like, let, I'm gonna let you clean these erasers.
- [111:18]
A
Yeah, right, right.
- [111:19]
B
Oh yeah, thanks. Yeah. Anyway, so Mr. Owens sort of in passing said that he didn't plan to hold a graduation this year because Laura's the only one that even had a chance in heck of passing the exam. So he was just not going to proceed and he'll just do it the next year. And Laura was boggled a little, but she had to move on with her plans. She took a three month school term as a teacher at the Wilkins School for $30 a month. And that was more than she'd ever made. And so she told Mr. Owen she'd be leaving her own education in April. Now she'd done that before. So Mr. Owen didn't take on board what she was meaning. He's like, okay, well we'll see in the fall. No sir, I, I'm, I'm going to be married in the fall. I'm not going to be coming back to school. Yeah, well, Mr. Owen was devastated. He, he's like, please stay. I'm so sorry. Please don't go to that school. I'll hold your own graduation. I'll walk you through the exams. Please like. She's like, I've already signed the contract. And he's like, I would have. I'm so sorry. If I'd known, I would have graduated. You. And that was the end of Laura's education.
- [112:25]
A
Isn't that weird? She was a teacher at so many schools and she never graduated herself. I mean, on a technicality. I mean, she did the work.
- [112:33]
B
Right.
- [112:34]
A
Mary did graduate from the Iowa School for the Blind. Took a long time. I want to say 1889, it was
- [112:42]
B
a five year program and then she skipped a year, I think, because she was ill. So it took like six years. Yeah. Yep.
- [112:47]
A
And that summer, on August 25, 1885, 18 year old Laura and 28 question mark year old Amanzo were married in a small ceremony at a friend's house. His sister wanted to put on a bigger wedding. Neither one of them wanted to, so they kind of. It wasn't exactly an elopement, but they just kind of went off and did their own thing. And in going with their own thing, she asked for and received that the pastor did not put to obey in her vows.
- [113:20]
B
Hilariously, I don't know that this man would have. He was a known proponent of suffrage for women, and I think he was not a fan of putting that in there in the first place. So hilariously, she encountered the one pastor who. Who would be like, oh, no problem, I'll just leave it out. So she did not promise to obey against her better judgment is how she put it.
- [113:42]
A
In the background of this, Almanzo had been working on a house for them to live in. A beautiful house. And that's where they moved as their first place. It was very thoughtfully designed. She always said that it was her favorite. It was her own, of course, which made it special. It's the first place they got to live together. Later she wrote, it was a very bright and shiny little house and it was really ours.
- [114:09]
B
He had built this house on his tree claim. So it's kind of like a homestead, which he already had. He already had a homestead that was fully proved up, meaning it was his. But this tree claim was new, and it was also 160 acres. But instead of living on it, you had to plant 10 acres of trees, though honestly, it didn't matter if the trees survived or not, which is a hilarious loophole to me. Yeah, you had to prove you planted them, you had to prove you tried to save them, but if they died, you still got the land.
- [114:36]
A
Yeah.
- [114:37]
B
And he thought it would be nice for Laura to live among them elm trees and cottonwoods mostly. He thought it would make a nice shady place and picturesque and she would really like it. And I am obsessed with her Pantry, her kitchen cabinets. He had found a German immigrant that was super good at cabinetry and paid him to make this whole wall of little drawers for different purposes and doors. And I have never forgotten it. It's almost like a Hoosier cabinet, but wall to wall, ceiling to floor with all these little attributes. A built in sifter and all kinds of drawers for potatoes that had holes and oh my gosh, it was the best. I've been on a never ending quest for that cabinet my whole life. Someday.
- [115:22]
A
Is your husband a woodworker at all?
- [115:24]
B
No, but you know, we have the power.
- [115:26]
A
He knows a guy, I'm sure he probably does.
- [115:29]
B
And so Laura was established as a married woman in her own house. She could direct her own destiny. And she wrote, I was a little awed by my new estate, but I felt very much at home and very, very happy. And among the other causes for happiness was the thought that I would not again have to go and live with strangers. I had a house and a home of my very own. And that here in her new house is where we're going to leave Laura. In this part one, we were thinking of it as if part one will be the life behind the Laura you thought you knew. And then in part two, we're going to take you into uncharted territory. You don't know what's going to happen because it wasn't in her books that you read as a child, the process of her becoming the famous author that she was. And that's all ahead in part two.
- [116:22]
A
I have nothing to add to that. So we will see you in two weeks.
- [116:27]
B
Thanks for listening.
- [116:28]
A
Bye.
- [116:29]
B
If you liked what you heard today, please tell a few friends about us or leave a review for us on your favorite podcatcher. We wish you would join the lounge to tell us what your favorite Little House on the Prairie book is. Or a passage that stuck with you or a story that you recreated like making snow candy.
- [116:50]
A
Ooh, I would love to see some bonnets.
- [116:53]
B
Or if you too wore a sunbonnet to be somebody's flower girl in the 1970s. I'm about that life. Please send that along. I also had a. I mean, Holly Hobby is clearly, don't you think, 100% related to.
- [117:07]
A
Yeah, Little House.
- [117:09]
B
I had a Holly Hobby owned what didn't I? Color forms, school box, T shirts. Like, I had everything. Holly Hobby was the jam. Anything you have to offer with regard to Little House on the Prairie or frankly, Holly Hobby or, you know, Strawberry Shortcake listeners, this is really not for you, but she was the descendant. So go ahead, send us strawberry shortcake stuff.
- [117:32]
A
Whatever you got, send it along.
- [117:34]
B
So what you do is go to our Facebook page, the History Chicks, and there's a button in the center that says join group. That's a place where everyone can start topics. You can share photos there. And it's kind of a more open forum than the Facebook page, which requires us to start every topic. And that's not the way we want to live. So we look forward to seeing you there. You will find many, many friends there. In addition, I do believe there are still a couple of spots left for our tour of Italy in October. So if you would like to join us there, talk about making friends.
- [118:07]
A
Woo. Yes.
- [118:09]
B
Go to likemindstravel.com and check into the itinerary and then sign up. So media will be in our second episode. That's what we normally do is attach it to the second part. But I just wanted to give you one link because this whole time I've been wondering, like, what did Ma think? Ma's like not in these books to the extent where PA is, you know, so wouldn't it be great, I thought, to read this story from the perspective of Ma and somebody already did it. There is a book called Caroline Little House Revisited, and the book is by Sarah Miller. And it's fictional, obviously. But wouldn't it be cool if you've already read all the Little House books and who among us has a. If you could go there and read the story from Ma's perspective? This lady, Sarah Miller, and I have not read this and so I can't even speak to it. She has another book called Marmee. Oh, a novel of Little Women. So she tells Little Women from the perspective of Marmee. I love this whole concept. That's the concept behind the. I am currently obsessed with the other Bennett sister, where they tell Pride and Prejudice in the perspective of the middle daughter, Mary, who was always very dismissed in the original work. And I'm just. I don't even know what to call this genre, but they've sucked me in. I'm there.
- [119:36]
A
That author is a guest on a podcast that I have been binging. It's called Land of Laura, the podcast. And it's. Here's the tagline. The irreverent yet scholarly podcast about all things Laura Ingalls Wilder. So the host is an expert and she interviews experts in the Laura Ingalls Wilder world. Yeah, it's a great. It's great. I strongly recommend this. So we'll link you up to that too.
- [120:02]
B
And the song at the end is the song Almanzo and Laura were singing the night he proposed while they were driving in his carriage. One of the best selling songs in sheet music form of the 1880s and a song they learned together while they were going to singing school. It's called in the Starlight. Recorded in 1904 by Harry McDonough and S.H. dudley.
- [120:40]
A
I hear like a voice.
- [120:43]
B
Do you know who that is? Yes. Is it.
- [120:48]
A
Oh, yeah. Is that your cats snoring? Oh, my God.
- [120:52]
B
Oh, no. What am I gonna do?
- [120:54]
A
I'm like, is there some, like, reverb going on? Oh, my gosh.
- [120:58]
B
I don't know what to do. I don't know.
- [121:02]
A
I don't know.
- [121:03]
B
Wheeze, Wheezy, Wheeze, Wheezy. Wait up, honey. You snoring? I don't likes it. I know. I love you. She opened her eyes and she's back asleep. Okay, talk fast. Okay.
- [121:25]
A
Let us wander gay and free.
- [121:39]
B
Will wander
- [121:42]
A
in the starlight in the
- [121:46]
B
starlight
- [121:49]
A
we will wander day and free.
- [122:12]
B
In the starlight in the starlight Let us wander again free for there's nothing
- [122:24]
A
in the daylight that's so dear to
- [122:28]
B
you and me like the bellies in the shadow of the woods we see the dawn and the sweet and rains we wallow for the night was made for storms when all our fight or
- [122:58]
A
to guide us for our bliss in the starlight in the starlight Let us wander gay and free
- [123:16]
B
in the starlight in the sunlight we will wonder we will wander
- [123:27]
A
in the starlight in the
- [123:31]
B
starlight
- [123:34]
A
we will wander again
- [123:39]
B
Free.