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Dee03

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  1. I’ve just read this book. I found it interesting that the first thing Fraser does is mention that when Ma died, Laura had not seen her for twenty years (since Pa’s funeral) and later seems to think there is nothing in this. I totally disagree. Twenty years is a lifetime and had she really wanted to, Laura could easily have visited her Mother and Mary, I have always thought that something happened or was said at the time of Pa’s death and funeral. He did die quite young (in his 60s) and I’ve long wondered whether Ma (in her grief or otherwise) took it out on Laura, blaming her. After all, when Laura left home to marry, the Ingalls family lost their hard worker and money earner. They relied on Laura for all the help, be it financial or physical. It’s very telling that after she married, Pa had to sell the Homestead, just as they had turned it into a “real home”. We know Ma didn’t like Almanzo (“I do believe he wants to break your neck and I hope he breaks his own first”). When she first sees Laura with him beside her and stands “petrified”.....well of what? Easy....of the idea of her daughter, on who they rely so heavily, being carried off by some man instead of staying home forever, teaching, sewing, doing all the chores etc. I think once Laura had left they just couldn’t cope, hence the sale of the Homestead, and when Pa died (from heart complications, probably brought on by years of poor nutrition, (they lived on a horrendously imbalanced diet at times), exhausting work, poverty, failures etc, Ma had to face a future of coping with a blind daughter and managing alone. I always wondered if she said something to Laura along the lines of ‘If you hadn’t left and married that man, and had stayed here to help, Pa wouldn’t be dead now’. I can just hear her saying it. People say stuff in grief. But whatever happened, after that funeral, Laura never saw her Mother or Mary again. Speaks volumes!! As does the fact she didn’t attend their funerals.
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