Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Laura Elizabeth Ingals Wilder

Laura Elizabeth Ingals Wilder was born in the big woods of Wisconsin on February 7, 1867, she died on February 10, 1957, living to be 90 years old. Laura is buried in Mansfield, Missouri, with her husband Almanzo and daughter Rose Wilder Lane.

Most of the schools houses when Laura was young were one room, students of all ages attended. The students had to buy their own supplies and books which was purchased at the General store for a few cents. Students brought their lunch in a small pail. Male teachers was paid more than female teachers

Laura taught three terms of teaching but she had never attended a college. Although Laura never kept a diary she did write constantly throughout her whole life and saved nearly every scrap of paper that she wrote on. Laura wrote down her thoughts on life, her famuly and the people and places around her and her little house.

Laura's first book "Little House Big Woods" was published in 1932 and she next wrote "Farmer Boy". Girls and Boys wrote to her asking what happened to the little girl in big woods, so Laura continued writing her series of books, her last book was published in 1943. After her death a manuscript of her first four years of marrage was found among her belongings she was writing when Almanzo passed away but she did not have the heart to finish it.

Almanzo Wilder was born in Malone, New York on February 13, 1857. Almanzo and brother Royal decided to try and homestead in the Dakato territory and this is where he met Laura Ingals. They were married on August 25, 1885, they moved to Mansfield, Missouri in 1894. This would be the last home of Almanzo, he had been weakened from diphtheria when he was young but it was his heart he had trouble with later in life, he died on October 23, 1949 at the age of 92.

After they lost their crops and their home burnt they moved to Minnesota with his parents, both Laura and Almanzo were sick with diphtheria . Almanzo had a sister whose name was Laura so to not cause confusion Almanzo nicknamed his wife "Bess", short for Laura Elizabeth, this nickname followed her all the rest of her life.

You can go here http://discoverlaura.org/discover.html#q28 it will be the first one at the top_" Discover",there is a lot of information there.

13 comments:

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

Thanks Margaret most interesting and thanks for the link.

Take care.
Yvonne.

Linda said...

I'm a lifelong Laura Ingalls Wilder fan - have every book written about her and by her and have visited two of her family's homesites. She was an amazing woman. As a fellow writer, I've always found great encouragement in the fact that she did not write/publish her first book until she was age 65! Goes to show that we are never too old to be creating! :)

Loved this post of course,
Linda♥

Irene said...

Oh Margaret, thank you for sharing this. I have grown up with the TV series (and The Waltons)and hoped for a large family in the woods, just like Laura's. I happened to have my hair styled in two plaids, too, which made the resemblence all the more interesting:)

Arti said...

What an amazing women, Laura...
Really inspirational, Thanks for sharing this wonderful post with us...
Have a fabulous weekend:)

My Unfinished Life said...

hi margaret...here after long time..actually was not connected to internet most of last month due to travel and house shifting..

interesting post you have got!!....

caspersmom said...

This was very interesting. I really enjoyed the series that was on TV. It's to bad the manuscript on her four years of marriage wasn't published. The did live to a quite an old age with having diptheria.

DeniseinVA said...

Wonderful and interesting post Margaret. Thank you, and thanks also for stopping by my mushroom post. I was very interested about your story of mushroom picking at the farm.

romance-of-roses said...

Thank you for sharing this wonderful story. It amused me that you say they bought books and school supplies for a few cents, can even imagine. Thank you also for stopping by my blog, yes that marketplace was so interesting. Hope to go again sometime. This is my youngest daughter, think I told you her husband was killed while driving his bike at the beach by a woman talking on her cell phone. Now a young widow. Hugs...Lu

Merle said...

Hi Margaret ~~ Wonderful post about Laura and a very long time ago I went to a one room school with all grades up to 6th year and one teacher. I also enjoyed the previous post about Johnny and June Cash. I enjoyed the film "Walk the Line" also.
Thanks for your comments and I am glad you enjoyed the jokes esp. the Elephant One. The elephant had the better memory than the man. Take care my friend and have a lovely weekend. Love, Merle.

Arti said...

Hope you are having a wonderful week Margaret:)

Anonymous said...

very interesting post Margaret. I loved that show and the Waltons too. We watch reruns of the Waltons every evening at supper time. A lot of the shows I don't remember after the children had grown up. Wonder why? No, I haven't sent any seeds out yet. I have all the flower heads hanging upside down to dry out real well, then I will send. Probably not for a couple of weeks yet. We have the wedding next weekend. xoxo

Heidrun Khokhar, KleinsteMotte said...

I used to teach about her. Her life story is a fun one to work with in the classroom of 9 and 10 year olds. In later years studying her hard way of life in detail becomes intriguing.
Lovely post

Joseph Pulikotil said...

Hello Margaret,

Very interesting information about the past lives of people who did not enjoy the various benefits we have. In those days money had value and over a period of time there is so much erosion in value that many of the coins we used in the past have been withdrawn from circulation and not accepted as legal tender.

I enjoyed reading this post. Best wishes,
Joseph

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