<p>In “The First Four Years,” Laura recounts how her and Almanzo’s second child, a boy, died not long after birth from unspecified causes. She does not dwell much on it and goes on to describe daughter Rose’s childhood in much detail. But losing a son is evidently something she had in common with her parents. Unfortunately child death was not all that uncommon in those days. I don’t know how old Freddie was when he died, though.</p>
<p>Loved the Little House books also. I think it may have been my fifth grade teacher that read some of them aloud to our class. </p>
<p>Wow. That makes me feel sad that Laura did not visit her mom. Wonder why?</p>
<p>As a child my mom and I read the entire series. As a librarian I had one of the largest collections of books about Laura & her family. One of my biggest thrills was visiting her final home on Missouri. Greatest memories of childhood, may have to pull those books out.</p>
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<p>^^^^^I think about 9 months old?</p>
<p>Ironically, Laura and Almanzo’s daughter Rose also had a son who died as an infant. Unfortunately, she never had any other children, in contrast to her mother and grandmother. And she got divorced, which I imagine was a first in that family.</p>
<p>Yes Laura seems pretty ambivalent about Almanzo. After they are engaged, Pa asks Laura if she loves Almanzo’s horses more than their owner and she says “I can’t have one without the other” or something to that effect.</p>
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<p>What was it like? I read it was roughly 10 rooms, a veritable mansion in comparison to the homes in which she lived while growing up with her family.</p>
<p>I loved those books too. Not that long ago I read an article about how it is now thought that Mary didn’t go blind from Scarlet Fever it was from some other disease. All my life anytime I heard about Scarlet Fever I always thought of Mary.</p>
<p>I loved the Judy Bolton books. My mother had a few of them and she used to find others in thrift stores (along with old Nancy Drews) so I was able to read them growing up. They are now available in paperback as reprints of the originals so I bought the whole set.</p>
<p>I loved three series of books: Laura Ingells Wilder (I too bought my daughters the set), All of a Kind Girls…and Bobbsey Twins, Cherry Ames and Nancy Drew (which were in essence the same writers.)</p>
<p>My personal favorite was the All of A Kind. Oh…and the shoe series. (Noel Stretford?). I have most of these series. And someday…when I have grandchildren I will read them the stories…</p>
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<p>It may be just because transportation was hard in the early 1900s and Missouri is 600 miles from South Dakota. But it’s also easy to see that she felt closer to her Pa in the books. He was the one who understood her and seemed to realize the fears she had of not being a “good girl” and conventionally pretty like the blond-ringleted Mary. In “Little House in the Big Woods,” he comforts her about her brown hair, saying that it’s like his and he likes brown hair just fine. He also gives her the nicknames (“strong as a little French horse”) that emphasize her strength and competence.</p>
<p>I saw the following in a message forum dedicated to the Ingalls family and Little House books. Food for thought…</p>
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<p>In reading biographies of the real Ingalls family, it does appear that Caroline did step up and work outside the home on many occasions. She and Pa actually managed a hotel for a while in Iowa for a year, a year which is conspicuously absent from the Little House books. But the poster above may have a point-it seems that perhaps Laura’s relationship with Ma may have been more complicated than revealed in the books. I mean, I understand that she may have felt more connected to Pa by virtue of their personalities, but to NEVER visit her mother again for ***22 years ***after she attends her father’s funeral?! She doesn’t show up for her own mother’s funeral?! </p>
<p>I’ll give you that travel was a little more difficult than now, but for a girl who traveled all over the blessed country in a covered wagon it doesn’t seem like 22 years should have crept by with nary a visit to her own mother and sisters. That really makes me wonder what the deal was…</p>
<p>During the time frame of the books, Mary becomes disabled, Carrie is described as sickly and weak (possibly the result of malnutrition, as is hinted in “The Long Winter”, and Grace is too little to do much. So Laura, Pa and Ma do most of the work supporting and maintaining the household. I can see why Laura would want to get out of that set-up ASAP. Maybe that’s why she decided to marry Almanzo even though she clearly wasn’t head over heels at the time. She later came to love him deeply.</p>
<p>My grandfather left home in southeastern Ohio in perhaps 1903 as a teen, headed for Nebraska, where he made his life. He never went home again either. When I visited that area in the 1990s for a family reunion, I realized we were the first of the Nebraska based family to return to the area. It has been almost 100 years! Rural people just didn’t travel for pleasure much in those hard days. </p>
<p>Interesting about Laura certainly not being treated well by Ma.</p>
<p>Little House fans - You may like “Anne of Green Gables” series. I didn’t read the first book until my D was reading it in school. I continued through the whole series, where Anne grows up, goes to college, has children of her own. As a mother it was all very touching, especially the later books.</p>
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<p>Yes, I think that is true. But true to Laura, her natural competitiveness shows through (remember how she loved to play and win athletic games during recess in direct opposition to the “young lady” image to which she was expected to conform) when she tells an acquaintance that she wants to make it to 90 years old because Almanzo did? She in fact lived only a few days after her 90th birthday. Typical Laura. :)</p>
<p>Maybe I shouldnt have let D read so many books without screening them first.
[Beyond</a> Little House | The World According to Rose Wilder Lane](<a href=“http://beyondlittlehouse.com/2009/05/13/the-world-according-to-rose-wilder-lane/]Beyond”>http://beyondlittlehouse.com/2009/05/13/the-world-according-to-rose-wilder-lane/)</p>
<p>If you think about it, the books don’t make mention of the family seeing their Wisconsin relatives ever again after leaving Pepin. </p>
<p>One set of my great grandparents married in Illinois in the 1880s, moved to Kansas, and never saw their birth families again either. They wrote letters. For one thing, you couldn’t leave your farm and livestock that long to travel. Farming doesn’t allow for vacations (at least at that time it didn’t).</p>
<p>^^^In reading various biographies about the Ingalls family, Charles’ parents stayed involved more than indicated in the books. They did reconnect many times, and when Charles needed help, he gave his Dad POA to act in his interest with regard to the various properties he had purchased and then sold to people who didn’t always make their payments on said properties. Seems that Grandpa had to foreclose on one or two of them while Charles was out trying to make a new life on the prairies…</p>
<p>I’ve never seen any mention of Caroline maintaining contact with anyone in her family other than her brother…maybe her parents died early in her life, don’t know.</p>
<p>It’s said that Charles had “the wanderlust.” But given his many failures in many different ventures, maybe he was simply “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence” type of personality. He was always looking “West” to a better life, never happy with where he was. Kind of interesting to think of him in adult terms rather than from the perspective of an adoring daughter.</p>
<p>Yes, and he probably wasn’t all that easy to be married to; no matter how many times he told Caroline she was “a wonder”!</p>
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<p>That’s one explanation which has been offered up as to why Laura didn’t visit her family. She didn’t write the Little House books until later in her life and certainly didn’t become “wealthy” until quite late in her life. So maybe she felt the farm couldn’t spare her. Admittedly Alamanzo had many health problems which began early in their marriage (a stroke at a young age as a complication of diptheria soon after their marriage) which resulted in his being cane-dependent from early on, no matter that he was fairly hearty considering. Perhaps she kept thinking she would visit once the farm got more self sufficient-often never happens, and time got away from her.</p>
<p>Or not.</p>
<p>Yes, loved the Anne of Green Gables books too.</p>