Charles Ingalls was a staunch prohibitionist; he did not drink alcohol and was known in DeSmet (to others' chagrin), in zealously enforcing the state prohibition laws in place at the time when he was the town justice of the peace. As for him being a "loser" that's hogwash. People in the 21st century need to understand and remember the context of the times. I read somewhere else that someone wondered why Caroline didn't divorce Charles. Charles wasn't a deadbeat; he didn't have any money. MOST people at that time had very little or no money. As Rose Wilder Lane said correctly later, "Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to any of us Ingallses, we're pretty much the same as everyone else." As for the divorce thing, the only grounds for that in the 19th century would be desertion owing to incarceration, like what happened with Charles' sister, Laura' Aunt Docia, whose first husband August Waldvogel shot and killed a man trying to break-and-enter their house and was sentenced to 8 years in prison. The Ingalls family were entirely typical of that era, which is why they are such good subjects for historical study. EVERYONE who traveled West had to endure bitter blizzards in winter, scorching droughts in summer, prairie fires, floods, horse thieves, hail storms, (understandably) hostile Native Americans, etc.
