Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" Series

[ramble]

I'm biased because I like buckwheat in general. If it makes you feel better, it's not a wheat or a grass. It's gluten free and more related to rhubarb. I find the bread or pancakes when done well is lighter than solid whole wheat food.

We have a creperie in town that makes magnificent buckwheat crepes, both sweet & savory. Delicious.

We need to start a Little House Translation Guide.

As you put it----

Ma says something in her gentle way=buzzkill

Pa says "We'll live like kings!" = scraped up just enough food to keep from passing out on the street.

Pa says "Sometimes my wandering foot gets to itching"=skips town one step ahead of the bill collector.

Pa says "Yes sir! We're free and independent!" = the kids aren't so starving that it's conspicuous to the neighbors

"Carrie's peaked little face" = Ma didn't get enough folic acid during pregnancy and Carrie looks like a cretin.

Hahahaha! I love this! I can't tell you how many times, when reading the books out loud to my kids, I'd have to stop myself from voicing my opinion on Pa's wandering ways.

[BatmanBeatles]

 

What drove me crazy about Pa moving from the Big Woods is that he didn't do it for any other reason than his feeling that the woods were getting "too crowded".  Yeah, dude, just take your wife and your three girls who were under the age of seven and go wandering around to Kansas to a place where you heard that the government would probably let people settle in at some point in time.  It's lucky they didn't die of malaria or anything else while there.

It made me sad that they didn't see most of their relatives ever again. The sugar dance (or whatever it was called) sounded like so much fun.

[Stine]

I remember a couple of summers ago, I got on a Little House kick and did some digging around. I thought I knew all about Laura from the books and the Anderson biography, but I was stunned at how much had been left out or altered. I hope somebody will get around to publishing the Prairie Girl manuscript (I'm surprised it hasn't happened already). Here's a question: are the books still popular with kids or have they fallen out of fashion? Are they studied in schools (I live in Canada, and wasn't introduced to the books through school here)?

[kikismom]

The really rude part of Prairie Girl was

finding out---after being moved to tears by the chapter in By The Shores of Silver Lake where Jack dies---that in real life Pa TRADED JACK with Pet and Patty and Bunny the mule colt and the wagon cover to Mr. Hanson to get 2 oxen at the Plum Creek dug-out farm. (Gilbert Gottfreid voice: SONOVABITCH!!)

Publishers turned down Prairie Girl but told Laura they would take a rewritten version that was happier and more suitable for children. Instead of Little House the original stories would have been called The Gathering Bummer.

[BatmanBeatles]

I thought it was because

 

Jack wanted to go with the horses.

[kathyk24]

I loved the Little House books when I was younger. I hated the later years of the tv show because I knew Albert didn't exist. Nellie Olson was a composite character of three girls that Laura knew in real life. I wonder if the malnutrition that the Ingalls suffered contributed to the fact the Ingalls girls didn't have children later in life? I think Rose was the only Ingalls grandchild. Contrary to the show Mary never married and lost a son.

[kikismom]

Laura had a son that died in infancy, as did Grace, and supposedly Rose. Possibly a genetic problem with the boys. I do think the malnutrion messed them up as well; as an adult Laura stood only 4'8" (but Almanzo was only 5'4").

[Pickles Aplenty]

Really?  I thought Laura was 4'11", not 4'8".  Damn, that's tiny.

 

Anyway, I'm simultaneously re-reading Farmer Boy and Wendy McClure's The Wilder Life, which is interesting.  This thread has made me interested in the series again, and I want to know more about what really happened, as opposed to what the books say.

 

Question: How do you pronounce Almanzo's name?  I've heard it was al-MAN-zo, but some people say al-MON-zo.  Which is it?

[fishcakes]

I remember a couple of summers ago, I got on a Little House kick and did some digging around. I thought I knew all about Laura from the books and the Anderson biography, but I was stunned at how much had been left out or altered. I hope somebody will get around to publishing the Prairie Girl manuscript (I'm surprised it hasn't happened already).

 

It looks like it's going to be coming out shortly. A few people on Goodreads have seen pre-publication copies and Amazon has it available for pre-order. Not sure about the release date, though. It looks like it was pushed back from September to November, and Amazon lists no date at all, making me think it's been delayed again.

 

I don't know if I'll read it. I rather like the fictional version of Laura's life and think of it as part of my own childhood. Reading the Little House books as an adult is enough of a disillusionment, I think, especially in terms of Charles, who you get the definite sense is less a builder of America than he is an aimless drifter. If I can't have Pa as he's portrayed in the Little House books, then I'd even take Michael Landon sobbing his way through every episode of the TV series over a deadbeat who runs out on his creditors and sells the family dog.

[BatmanBeatles]

Laura had a son that died in infancy, as did Grace, and supposedly Rose. Possibly a genetic problem with the boys. I do think the malnutrion messed them up as well; as an adult Laura stood only 4'8" (but Almanzo was only 5'4").

Ma had a son that died in infancy too.

[kikismom]

Really?  I thought Laura was 4'11", not 4'8".  Damn, that's tiny.

 

Anyway, I'm simultaneously re-reading Farmer Boy and Wendy McClure's The Wilder Life, which is interesting.  This thread has made me interested in the series again, and I want to know more about what really happened, as opposed to what the books say.

 

Question: How do you pronounce Almanzo's name?  I've heard it was al-MAN-zo, but some people say al-MON-zo.  Which is it?

I think it's supposed to be Al-MAN-zo, because Laura's pet name for him was Manly.

If his name was pronounced Al-MON-zo, she would have nicknamed him Mongo.

[Stine]

 

I rather like the fictional version of Laura's life and think of it as part of my own childhood. Reading the Little House books as an adult is enough of a disillusionment, I think, especially in terms of Charles, who you get the definite sense is less a builder of America than he is an aimless drifter.

This is true. I certainly bought into Laura's idealized version of Pa when I was a kid--somehow in spite of all the objectively terrible things that the family had to go through, I thought that Laura's life on the prairies sounded pretty amazing. Hence all the hours of "playing pioneers", trying to gather enough food to last the winter (winter was always imminent), etc...it is a bit of a jolt to come to the stories as an adult and have that idealized vision shattered. 

[Pickles Aplenty]

I'm the opposite- I love digging and finding out what these people were really like.  I still love fictional Pa, but hearing that real life Pa was a king-sized loser is fascinating to me.  I think it's because these characters were so saintly in the books and TV series, it's nice to hear they had flaws, just like any human being.

[BatmanBeatles]

I went to a pioneer museum and saw button strings. They were beautiful.

[kikismom]

Pa's father lost their family farm when he borrowed a large sum of money and couldn't pay it back.

 

Remember Uncle George, the wild drummer who danced with Laura at the sugaring-off dance? He got arrested for stealing a cow. In Pioneer Girl, Laura tells how Pa just said well in the army he lived off the land for 3 years, they just took whatever they wanted, so what do you expect he isn't going to change."

 

When the railroad camp breaks up in BTSOSL, Aunt Docia and Uncle HI "were going away before sun-up because they were getting away with three big wagonloads of goods from the company's stores" and Pa says "Oh come on Caroline! It wasn't stealing!"

 

Then in The Long Winter, Pa tells how the emigrant car was broken into, "We told Woodworth to open that car or we'd do it! He tried to argue that there'll be another train tomorrow but we didn't feel like waiting"...Pa scores free salt pork, potatoes, and flour from that one.

 

so I sometimes wonder about the time Pa went hunting and brought back a pig, with the expanation that a bear was carrying it and Pa said there was no way to know who it belonged to "so I brought home the bacon". Possibly...but considering he went "exploring" through other folk's claim shanties when they were gone just makes me think Caroline learned fast not to ask too many questions about Pa's "lucky discoveries">

[Pickles Aplenty]

What drew Caroline to Charles, anyway?  It sounds like he was a rough, morally ambiguous person, and Caroline came from a good family (or at least a better one than Charles'.)  She didn't seem to like moving, but Charles hauled her and the kids all over the country for a "fresh start", like, fifty times.  Maybe it was an opposites attract sort of thing, but I just don't get it.

 

Reading more about Bastard Real Life Pa makes me appreciate James Wilder more.  By contrast, James seemed to know what he was doing and didn't uproot his family a million times.  He was successful in Malone and had the respect of the townspeople.  But, maybe he was an idiot in his own way, and I just don't know about it yet.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Billina

[BatmanBeatles]

 

What drew Caroline to Charles, anyway?

Good girls like bad boys I guess.

 

 

Reading more about Bastard Real Life Pa makes me appreciate James Wilder more.  By contrast, James seemed to know what he was doing and didn't uproot his family a million times.  He was successful in Malone and had the respect of the townspeople.  But, maybe he was an idiot in his own way, and I just don't know about it yet.

It depresses me that Almanzo wasn't as successful in farming.

[kikismom]

What drew Caroline to Charles, anyway?  It sounds like he was a rough, morally ambiguous person, and Caroline came from a good family (or at least a better one than Charles'.)  She didn't seem to like moving, but Charles hauled her and the kids all over the country for a "fresh start", like, fifty times.  Maybe it was an opposites attract sort of thing, but I just don't get it.

 

Reading more about Bastard Real Life Pa makes me appreciate James Wilder more.  By contrast, James seemed to know what he was doing and didn't uproot his family a million times.  He was successful in Malone and had the respect of the townspeople.  But, maybe he was an idiot in his own way, and I just don't know about it yet.

Well, this is awkward....James WIlder was successful in NY, lost his farm in Malone somehow, succeeded greatly in Minnesota, until an adult Eliza Jane harangued him into putting his life savings into rice farming in Louisiana. He lost everything, took to his bed in depression, and died a month later.

 

Then Laura and Almanzo let Rose go to live with Eliza as a teenager;she gets in a bit a fooling around with boys, then goes to Caifornia and...harangues Laura and Almanzo into putting the life savings they had finally acquired, after decades of struggle, into a stock market investment. It goes down the tubes quickly and Laura and Almanzo lose all their money. It was what really drove Laura to writing after years of procrastination and dabbling. So we got the Little House books because of a family that would have been perfect for a Dr. Phil show.

Did I mention what drew Caroline to Charles was that the two families intermarried? Hi and Docia were Charles brother and Ma's sister, and Uncle Henry and Polly, and on and on. The Ingalls and Quiners intermarried and I'll say no more of what I think of that.

[BatmanBeatles]

 

Then Laura and Almanzo let Rose go to live with Eliza as a teenager;she gets in a bit a fooling around with boys, then goes to Caifornia and...harangues Laura and Almanzo into putting the life savings they had finally acquired, after decades of struggle, into a stock market investment. It goes down the tubes quickly and Laura and Almanzo lose all their money. It was what really drove Laura to writing after years of procrastination and dabbling.

Did they lose it during the Great Depression?

 

 

Did I mention what drew Caroline to Charles was that the two families intermarried? Hi and Docia were Charles brother and Ma's sister, and Uncle Henry and Polly, and on and on. The Ingalls and Quiners intermarried and I'll say no more of what I think of that.

They wanted their kingdoms to unite.

[Pickles Aplenty]

The number of stupid decisions within this family is astounding.  Why were they so risky with their money?

[kikismom]

Did they lose it during the Great Depression?

 

They wanted their kingdoms to unite.

Yes, the ironic part is that they never had anything to do with investing in stocks until right before the worst time possible.

 

The number of stupid decisions within this family is astounding.  Why were they so risky with their money?

I don't know but for Almanzo, I honestly think the parents were too indulgent...yes, they made him do farm work, but think of all the times they said he could skip school in Farmer Boy---it's astounding. He grew up bad at math and couldn't understand contracts he signed.

And like Charles Ingalls, all this distaste for working for another man and wanting to be his own boss really meant he wanted to do what he felt like when he felt like it. Or if he felt like it.

The Wilders also had a family that stretched over many years, so Almanzo just got to see what it looks like when it is successful, not all the years it took to get there. He wanted a farm and house like he remembered, but he wanted it right away. He spends wildly, on credit, and I think Laura married a man like her dad.

 

As far as Charles Ingalls, his father borrowed and couldn't repay, his brothers quite frankly were thieves, and Charles never served in the Army though his brothers did at 19 and 20 and Charles was 24 and should have gone. But a paper says that Charles "managed to avoid service by always being on the edge of the frontier and keeping on the move."

I sometimes suspect he was a drinker. Although mention is made in the books that Caroline abhorred drinking, Pa's choices and frequent giddiness after returning from the hardware store is suspicious; who goes to the hardware store to watch a game of checkers or catch up on the news, when the town is snowed in by a blizzard. I think he went to the saloon.

Edited July 31, 2014 by kikismom

[Pickles Aplenty]

Well, maybe that explains why Caroline abhorred drinking.

 

Where did you get all this information?  Do you recommend any biographies?

[kikismom]

I've been collecting Laura Ingalls/Little House stuff forever it seems.

 

Recommend Ghost In The Little House.  (probably not for kids though, who would be very disillusioned by some of it.)

[Pickles Aplenty]

Thanks.  I looked up Ghost In the Little House, but they don't seem to have a Kindle edition.  I put it on my wishlist, though. :)

[BatmanBeatles]

I just put it on hold at the library.

[DoughGirl]

I'm loving all this inside info on the real Ingalls family, especially real life Pa. Thanks everyone!

[kikismom]

Ever wonder how the walking dead would fit in your favorite stories? No, me neither. But season five won't start till October, so we have to make our own fun.

I always love the Little House on the Prairie volume "The Long Winter"; since it is a story of isolated, starving people trying to survive, it seems like some walkers would make it even better. Or worse, if that's what you like.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Laura Ingalls shivered as she stood in the doorway of the claim shanty. "Ma!" gasped Laura, "Pa showed me the biggest herd of zombies you ever saw. He says the thicker the zombie herd, the colder the winter will be!"

In her rocker by the stove, Mary shrugged."Ma says the only good zombie is a dead zombie."

"They're all dead you idiot!" retorted Laura. "That's the whole point of being a zombie!" She heard Ma's gentle voice from the kitchen,"Laura,don't contradict." Laura slumped in her chair, hoping that Pa would return from hunting with a big jackrabbit, or a rattlesnake.

**********************************************************************************************************

Charles Ingalls was waiting in Harthorn's to pay for the salt pork he'd had to buy, when he heard a noise and saw a walker banging at the door of the general store. The other men rose up, but Pa said "Stand back, boys. He wants to do it himself!"

The zombie crashed through and headed straight for Charles Ingalls. "Grraggaack!"

Pa frowned." When? How many?"

"OOaghhisssgack!"

Pa split its skull with a garden rake, as Almazo Wilder asked: "What did it say?" Pa sighed. "Big storm, heap big snow, many moons. Crap."

***********************************************************************************************************

"What's wrong Charles?" Ma wondered as Pa took off his buffalo coat. "Nothing's wrong Caroline, but tomorrow we're moving to the funeral home in town. It's a sight warmer than this shanty."

The girls exchanged smiles as Ma brought out the secret surprise and place it on the table before Pa.

"What's this, tea?" as he sipped from the cup. "Judas Priest that's moonshine! Where'd you find moonshine out here in Dakota territory?"

Laura and Mary and even little Carrie could not be still any longer.

"Ma made it! Ma set up a still in the pantry and made white lightning!" They all laughed.

Suddenly the light at the window went dim, and a crash hit the north side of the little shanty, howling and shrieking.

"There's that blizzard I told you about Laura!" said Pa.

Ma smiled gently. "It's a zombie herd, Charles. They're breaking down the door."

Pa shook his head in wonder. "Don't that beat all? You're right Caroline, as always. I plumb forgot!"

Then they all laughed again, because they were free and independent and pretty much dead already.

[BatmanBeatles]

lol! Where did you get this?

[kikismom]

lol! Where did you get this?

I previously wrote it for the The Walking Dead forum; I just thought it might be worth throwing in here.

[nodorothyparker]

I love this thread so much.

 

As a kid I really loved these books and thought Pa was the greatest and Ma a real killjoy.  It was only reading them again as an adult and doing outside reading while contemplating whether to share them with my own kids that I realized how shiftless Charles Ingalls really was and that long-suffering Caroline must have been absolutely fed up.  Throw in minstrel shows, Ma's constant "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," kids who thought they lived like kings when they were clearly never much beyond starving, some really questionable acquisitions, and all of Rose's libertarian rants disguised as Pa just being independent and suddenly the series becomes a whole lot less charming.

[Jamoche]

"Wooden swearing" lmao I forgot that classic!

Maybe there should be a sound component to the books; like a bell tolling everytime Pa says " I've never been beholden to any man and I never will be!"

 

Buys the Plum Creek house materials with credit. Buys the LHOTP house lumber, glass windows, plow, seeds etc.on credit. In same book has to walk to Independence to get supplies and says "I wish I hadn't borrowed that tobacco from Nelson" and Ma says "But you did." In LTOTP he "borrows" money from Laura to buy the piano for Mary.

I love when Laura tells him she wants him to take it and he's like oh well okay if you insist and snatches it from her hand and crams it into his wallet so fast it's a blur.

"this will really help me out of a tight spot and you can be sure I'll pay you back!" Yeah, Dad, I'm surrrre. He takes her 3 months wages, $75, we never hear of it again, when she marries he gives her a yearling heifer worth $12. Which takes care of payback and the cost of a wedding present. No flies on Charles Ingalls!

So when we cast the honest biography, we should get Craig T “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No.” Nelson to play him?

[nodorothyparker]

Wasn't it in The Long Winter where Charles mentions to Mary that they may have to spend her "college money" that various people have given the family to send her to the blind school (despite knowing that it was a free school) to buy food and supplies?  But oh, he'll pay her back.

[kikismom]

Wasn't it in The Long Winter where Charles mentions to Mary that they may have to spend her "college money" that various people have given the family to send her to the blind school (despite knowing that it was a free school) to buy food and supplies?  But oh, he'll pay her back.

Yes! Then in Little Town On the Prairie, Ma says to Laura--not to Pa, but to Laura:

"I am a little worried about how we are going to find the money for the new summer clothes she needs, and we must manage to send her a little spending money. She should have a Braille slate of her own, too. They are expensive."

Laura says " I'll be sixteen, two monthes from now. Maybe I can get a (teaching) certificate next summer."

And Ma says,  "If you can teach a term next year, we may be able to have Mary come home for a summer vacation. It would only cost the railroad fare. But we must not count our chickens before they are hatched."

 

Whoa. Stop. Summer clothes and spending money and an expensive Braille slate. did I mention train fare, Laura? Jeez Ma as long as you're dropping hints, anything else...oh wait we haven't got to the piano yet.

 

Why isn't Ma telling Charles this? Well, we really know why, don't we?

 

This went right over my head as a child reader; but now it's just plain offensive. Laura is the main breadwinner, and what's worse is that it really was not her idea...it was her parent's idea and she gets some pretty heavy pressure to work and "volunteer" her wages to pay for their obligations.

 

Earlier in the same book, the first chapter, Pa says "How would you like to work in town Laura?"  Laura thinks she does not want to work in town but she "could not refuse a chance to earn $15, or 10, or 5 to help send Mary to college."

Again, as nodorothyparker points out,  Mary had money ("thirty five dollars and twenty-five cents" as Mary keeps reminding them), Laura gives her sewing-in-town money, her teaching money, AND THE SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND WAS FREE!!!

 

They were writing Laura's experiences, but they needed another reason for Laura working, so they made up an excuse that Mary needed to pay for the College for the Blind...which sounded more noble and uplifting than admitting she worked because Pa was an irresponsible layabout.

Not so noble to rail about "big government interference" and libertarian ideals when you take free govt. schooling and free homesteads etc etc.

 

BTW: In The Long Winter, Ma says at Christmas that "Pa hasn't been able to get any work for wages this year". Okay, fair enough, that's possible.

But info of that time says that one man need 3 days to plow one acre of sod for planting. That's how hard it was, but still...when they "harvest" their crops, they get a bit less than one bushel of beans, 5 bushels of potatoes, and 10 shocks of corn.

 

Back then they could get 50 to 100 bushels of potatoes per acre. Reduce it even by half just to be generous. For old-school no-irrigation no pesticide farming, you would get 20 to 25 bushels of beans for 1 acre, and 20-25 bushels of corn.

 

Even if plowing sod was so hard, and I recognize it was, if he just plowed 1 freaking acre for each crop---3 days each acre would be 9 total days---he should have had a lot more. (I also recognize they ate during the summer, but that is not counted as harvest crop but "kitchen garden". God knows Laura's parents had been around long enough to know that you grow some for winter food; they did it in the Big Woods.

 

What the F*@k did Charles Ingalls do all that summer?

[nodorothyparker]

I'm adoring your posts, kikismom. 

 

I think it was also in Little Town on the Prairie that Laura thinks about how if she can manage to teach school, even though she really really really doesn't want to, she can pay back Ma and Pa for everything they had given her (um, what?)  and spent on her since she was a baby.  Even as a kid, that was a total WTF for me.  As an adult and a parent, it's downright offensive.  Yeah, it's great to help out family as needed, but where does a kid get that idea that that's even her responsibility?

 

And in that same book, the crop failure due to the crows has both Laura and Mary thinking that they won't be able to afford FREE blind school.  They're eating freaking crows even while admitting that people normally don't and fretting that Pa won't be able to afford to send her.  Charles has been working for wages in town that summer but it's a huge tragedy that he has to sell a cow for presumably train fare.   What does he do with his money?

[Pickles Aplenty]

I just finished The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure.  I had no idea that a woman wanted to adopt Laura in Burr Oak, Iowa, and tried to negotiate with Ma when Laura was standing right there.  Then Ma just smiles and declines by saying she can't do without Laura.  I know people did these kinds of things back then (the scene where the neighbors ask Laura and Manly if they can have newborn Rose comes to mind), but sweet lord, that has to do a number on your psyche.

[kikismom]

Yeah, notice this obligation to pay Ma and Pa for raising her (like you said,WTF!) doesn't apply to the rest of the children.

And at the beginning of LTOTP, Ma says "No Charles I won't have Laura working out in a hotel" and Pa says "No girl of ours'll do that, not while I'm alive and kicking!"

The truth is, the Ingalls managed a hotel for 6 months and lived above a saloon, and Laura worked in the hotel when she was 9 years old (!) fetching linens and sweeping and carrying water to people's rooms.

Needless to say, the only child who had to get a job. Again.

It was so bad that a rather well-off woman at the hotel talked to Ma and Pa about adopting Laura from them; she felt Laura was intelligent, and felt sorry for her poverty, it would reduce the Ingalls expenses and offered Laura a better life. The adult Laura Ingalls wrote later of her anxiety about whether her family would palm her off to someone. Creeped me out a bit.

 

Not to mention that in LTOTP, when Laura really doesn't want to work in town, she worries about her chores at home and Ma reassures her that Carrie can make beds and sweep floors and do dishes and Mary was a great help around the house (snort, Mary basically sits in a chair and holds Grace on her lap.) Carrie peels potatoes, unless Laura is home and she does it. Carrie and Laura do the wash, filling tubs of water and stirring the bluing and rinsing. Laura mentions in These Happy Golden Years that she hated the feel of flour on her hands, but she was so happy to be home from the psycho Brewster claim hovel that she even enjoys making the bread dough.

Which begs the question: what the hell does Ma do all day? Seriously, it doesn't take that long to slice biscuits for every meal and plop a baked potato on your plate.

Edited August 3, 2014 by kikismom

[Athena]

I really need to reread the books and read the between the lines. I'm starting to wonder if I should recommend the books to kids. As a kid, I adored Laura and my favourite bits about the book were about her just being free and happy which she wasn't for most of it. 

[kikismom]

I just finished The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure.  I had no idea that a woman wanted to adopt Laura in Burr Oak, Iowa, and tried to negotiate with Ma when Laura was standing right there.  Then Ma just smiles and declines by saying she can't do without Laura.  I know people did these kinds of things back then (the scene where the neighbors ask Laura and Manly if they can have newborn Rose comes to mind), but sweet lord, that has to do a number on your psyche.

How funny you posted right ahead of me about the same thing; must have made both of us upset!

I didn't read about it in The Wilder Life, I think it was in Pioneer Girl manuscript. (You can get that page by page you have to pay for it gets expensive. Maybe I should have had a kid to pay for it.)

Yes, the Boast incident was sorta weird, sorta sad. They could not have children. The lady who wanted Laura just wanted to get her out of that situation. Notice that Ma did not say "No, because we love her and I could never give my daughter away"...Ma says they couldn't manage without Laura; thanks for the affection Ma. Like she's a cart horse.

Edited August 3, 2014 by kikismom

[kathyk24]

Thanks for the link to the stuff you never learned in History Class podcast. Mary seemed awfully spoiled I wonder if her parents felt guilty regarding her illness? Do we know if Mary appreciated all Laura did for her?

[nodorothyparker]

In those later books, Mary mostly sits her in rocking chair.  She can't help out with anything but random sewing/craft work because she's blind.  Carrie is weak and spindly (described repeatedly as "peaked") despite LTOTP telling us that she was given the best food and let off from most house work. And of course Grace is the baby.  Laura seems to be expected to pick up the slack for all of her sisters' shortcomings in addition to whatever work Pa and Ma weren't doing.

 

I'd run off and marry at 18 too.

[kikismom]

I think Mary appreciated it later. She seemed to get her shit straightened out at school; I bet they were used to blind kids that were allowed to just sit around and they got them out of that attitude fast--Mary behaves much better after she has been away a couple years.

 

Don't know about anyone else, but yes I feel the parents had a guilt trip, probably didn't get a doctor. Or maybe they couldn't. Pa and Ma take the children out in the middle of nowhere; how they will ever get schooling is discussed, but never the fact that there will be no doctor. They are just lucky in Kansas when Dr. Tann (spelling of his real name) finds them and has quinine for their malaria. Then they all get sick at Plum Creek. (Current thinking is that it was meningitis/encephalitis--also spread by mosquitos! that is the cause of Mary's blindness.) Supposedly Laura changed it when she wrote the book because scarlet fever was less complicated for young readers (?)

So of course Pa takes a claim by the Big Slough, which is riddled with mosquitos.

 

I think it's funny that when Pa goes to file on a DeSmet homestead claim, he tells how the line is so long the first day that he can't get in. And the next morning there are people ahead of him already, and he gets in because "Mr. Edwards" fights two men so Charles can slip the door.

Pa says he picked it out over the winter, and lo and behold it's the very last one left. A triumph for Pa!

Gee, wouldn't that make you realize that it sucked? If everyone else went ahead of you for two days and took any other claim but that one, don't you suppose it wasn't very desirable?

Sometimes Laura/Rose wrote things to make it look like something good happened, but if you think it over it doesn't make sense.

In those later books, Mary mostly sits her in rocking chair.  She can't help out with anything but random sewing/craft work because she's blind.  Carrie is weak and spindly (described repeatedly as "peaked") despite LTOTP telling us that she was given the best food and let off from most house work. And of course Grace is the baby.  Laura seems to be expected to pick up the slack for all of her sisters' shortcomings in addition to whatever work Pa and Ma weren't doing.

 

I'd run off and marry at 18 too.

Freakin hilarious. Nailed it!

[Sir RaiderDuck OMS]

I think Mary appreciated it later. She seemed to get her shit straightened out at school; I bet they were used to blind kids that were allowed to just sit around and they got them out of that attitude fast--Mary behaves much better after she has been away a couple years.

The school that Mary went to was fairly strict in how it treated the students. Students were expected to learn a craft (such as sewing or bead-making) and get good at it, and were excluded from the main mess hall if they ate sloppily or strew their food everywhere. In short, what ever laxness existed at home wasn't tolerated.

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

I really need to reread the books and read the between the lines. I'm starting to wonder if I should recommend the books to kids. As a kid, I adored Laura and my favourite bits about the book were about her just being free and happy which she wasn't for most of it. 

I love hearing about the nitty-gritty now, but this stuff flew over my head as a kid, and I'm sure it still flies over kids' heads.  I think they're still "safe".

 

 

I don't know but for Almanzo, I honestly think the parents were too indulgent...yes, they made him do farm work, but think of all the times they said he could skip school in Farmer Boy---it's astounding. He grew up bad at math and couldn't understand contracts he signed.

I was thinking about this today (why, no, I don't have a life), and having just read the chapter in Farmer Boy where Mother and Father Wilder leave the kids for a week, I'm inclined to agree with you.  So, they tell the kids not to eat all the sugar and keep up with the chores, and what's the first thing the kids do?  Wipe out the sugar barrel making cakes and ice cream, and what-not.  Well, that's pretty normal behavior for little kids, but when the parents come back, Alice comes clean about not eating all of the sugar because there's some left at the very bottom of the barrel, and Mother Wilder hugs her and laughs and says that's all right.  I can't help but think of what Ma would do if Laura and Mary did something similar, and I don't believe she would be so forgiving/lenient.  Of course, the Wilders had more food than the Ingalls ever saw in their lives, so maybe I'm thinking too much.  Still, she told the kids not to do something, they went and did it, and they didn't get punished, so, yeah.  I can see your point. :P

 

 

I think it's funny that when Pa goes to file on a DeSmet homestead claim, he tells how the line is so long the first day that he can't get in. And the next morning there are people ahead of him already, and he gets in because "Mr. Edwards" fights two men so Charles can slip the door.

Oh, shit...I forgot about this.  The more I read this thread, the more I'm convinced Pa was just a sneaky, deadbeat asshole.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Billina

[Athena]

I love hearing about the nitty-gritty now, but this stuff flew over my head as a kid, and I'm sure it still flies over kids' heads.  I think they're still "safe".

...

Oh, shit...I forgot about this.  The more I read this thread, the more I'm convinced Pa was just a sneaky, deadbeat asshole.

 

Oh, a lot of the adult stuff flew over my head too and it'll be "safe". But now that I know what an asshole Pa was, I'm not sure I'm so keen on reading this to kids anymore. Ha.

[kikismom]

If reading to smaller children, i might skip the part where "Pa took down the strap from the wall, and he whipped Laura with the strap." (I'm pretty sure the strap must have been leather, and in the book there is a great deal about Laura just turning 5 years old, so that's not very pleasant.)

[BatmanBeatles]

 

I was thinking about this today (why, no, I don't have a life), and having just read the chapter in Farmer Boy where Mother and Father Wilder leave the kids for a week, I'm inclined to agree with you.  So, they tell the kids not to eat all the sugar and keep up with the chores, and what's the first thing the kids do?  Wipe out the sugar barrel making cakes and ice cream, and what-not.  Well, that's pretty normal behavior for little kids, but when the parents come back, Alice comes clean about not eating all of the sugar because there's some left at the very bottom of the barrel, and Mother Wilder hugs her and laughs and says that's all right.  I can't help but think of what Ma would do if Laura and Mary did something similar, and I don't believe she would be so forgiving/lenient.  Of course, the Wilders had more food than the Ingalls ever saw in their lives, so maybe I'm thinking too much.  Still, she told the kids not to do something, they went and did it, and they didn't get punished, so, yeah.  I can see your point. :P

I think they would have been punished if the house was a disaster.

 

 

Which begs the question: what the hell does Ma do all day?

Sewing perhaps.

[Athena]

Hey folks, would you be interested in group re-read? We could go one book a week and basically snark the heck out of it. Also swoon over Manly & Laura and salivate over the food in Farmer Boy. I can create a new topic for it and let the people at the LHOTP TV board know as well. 

[ramble]

Which begs the question: what the hell does Ma do all day?

Mentally dream of ways for Pa to accidentally & tragically die. Fantasize about her life being different if she'd married any other man but this restless footed, lazy, big talker. (Sorry my Pa distain is showing.)

[nodorothyparker]

Which begs the question: what the hell does Ma do all day?

 

Sewing perhaps.

 

Yet Laura tells us that Ma really hates sewing too.

 

In These Happy Golden Years Pa breaks down and buys her a sewing machine, admitting that with Laura marrying and moving out Ma won't be able to manage all the work by herself.  To be fair, it's a right bitch to have to sew by hand and I can't imagine having to do it for a family of six.  But these kids only have about two or three dresses a piece which are expected to last a season (the descriptions of making new dresses were among my favorite things as a kid because I also had a mother who made our clothes) and two of the remaining three daughters at home are teenagers who we've been told have been sewing for years.  Funny how the sewing machine was an unnecessary extravagance until Laura wouldn't be there anymore.

[BatmanBeatles]

Hey folks, would you be interested in group re-read? We could go one book a week and basically snark the heck out of it. Also swoon over Manly & Laura and salivate over the food in Farmer Boy. I can create a new topic for it and let the people at the LHOTP TV board know as well. 

I'm up for that.