Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" Series

[BatmanBeatles]

One thing that always baffled me is when Laura said she was too big to cry. At the ripe old age of eight. But that's what happens when you look at these books through modern eyes.

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

One thing that always baffled me is when Laura said she was too big to cry. At the ripe old age of eight. But that's what happens when you look at these books through modern eyes.

Hell, Laura was "too big to cry" in the first book, when she was four.  After all, children should be seen and not heard (and how many times do we hear THAT throughout the course of the series?).

[ElderPrice]

I always thought Ma was a bit of a controlling bitch, the way she insisted on everyone following all rules of etiquette all the time, even on the damn prairie when they were the only ones for a hundred miles. I felt so bad for the kids in OTBOPC, when during a brutal heat wave she still made them dress in petticoats, stockings and long sleeve dresses buttoned up to the neck. That must have been brutal. But now after discovering more about Pa, how much of Ma's bitchiness was motivated by trying to preserve a sense of normalcy while he dragged them hither and yon. I'd be a bitch too.

 

But no way would I let my kids swelter like that. Have a heart and let them take off some layers.

[Snow Apple]

She even had to control the color hair ribbons the girls wore.

[sgittinger]

It'll never be noticed on a trotting horse, snow apple.

[BatmanBeatles]

Hell, Laura was "too big to cry" in the first book, when she was four.  After all, children should be seen and not heard (and how many times do we hear THAT throughout the course of the series?).

Sometimes that rule seems like a good idea when I see how kids talk back to their parents or other adults.

[nodorothyparker]

To be fair, the girls each only had an everyday dress and their Sunday/going to town dress at this point in the books.  Ma assigned them each a color she thought was best for them and matched up accordingly.

 

Amazon will have Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography available Nov. 15.  It's almost 40 bucks though so I guess we'll see how devoted I really am to this topic.

[Pickles Aplenty]

I started my re-read ahead of the official readalong, so I'm up to By the Shores of Silver Lake, now.  I never understood why Mary's hair had to be cut.  They say it's because of the scarlet fever, but I'm just not getting the connection.  Maybe they mean it was easier for her to have short hair after going blind, since she wouldn't have to braid it/style it, then?  I don't know.

[Snow Apple]

Maybe it's a combination of long hair causing a fevered body to be even warmer, and she also won't be able to wash her hair which will make it very gross and uncomfortable (and maybe they were concerned it will make a nice home for lice?)

 

There's also an old wives tale about hair sapping your strength.

[PrincessLuceval]

I read where hair was cut to "cool the head" thinking it would keep the fever down.

[kikismom]

Maybe it's a combination of long hair causing a fevered body to be even warmer, and she also won't be able to wash her hair which will make it very gross and uncomfortable (and maybe they were concerned it will make a nice home for lice?)

 

There's also an old wives tale about hair sapping your strength.

Whenever I said I was tired, my mother and grandmother would say it was because of my long hair; they said "All your energy is being sucked up by your scalp to use for growing hair." They also used to look for fairy rings in cemeteries where the fairies dance in the night etc etc.

So I know from old wives.

 

Just getting back to Laura crying, I really dislike the part in TLW where Grace whimpers "My feet's cold" and Laura goes off on her :"For shame Grace!" and says how a "great girl of 3" years old is too big to do that. The kid is THREE---not to mention the house is about 20 degrees at that point.

I wouldn't have lasted a week in that household.

And how Ma doesn't want them to laugh because a lady never shows her feelings...even when they're just home at the table with their own family.

[smittykins]

Just getting back to Laura crying, I really dislike the part in TLW where Grace whimpers "My feet's cold" and Laura goes off on her :"For shame Grace!" and says how a "great girl of 3" years old is too big to do that. The kid is THREE---not to mention the house is about 20 degrees at that point.

I wouldn't have lasted a week in that household

Not to mention after Mary goes away to college, Laura starts in again on Grace when she starts blubbering: "For shame, Grace! A great big girl like you, crying! FOR SHAME!" Then, when Carrie's lip starts quivering, Laura gets the bright idea to do the fall housecleaning while Ma and Pa are gone.

[BatmanBeatles]

Ma would have hated Julia Robert's braying laugh.

Edited August 14, 2014 by BatmanBeatles

[nodorothyparker]

I really dislike the part in TLW where Grace whimpers "My feet's cold" and Laura goes off on her :"For shame Grace!" and says how a "great girl of 3" years old is too big to do that. The kid is THREE---not to mention the house is about 20 degrees at that point.

 

That always bothered me too.  They're basically sleeping in an unheated house at night, huddled around a barely sputtering fire in the day, and just eking by on a couple of slices of plain brown bread and tea.  Heaven forbid a child who's little more than a toddler or really any of them should have a less than cheerful moment.

 

It was always interesting to me how Mrs. Brewster in Happy Golden Years was portrayed in contrast to Ma's always forced good manners and maturity.  The real Mrs. Bouchie on whom she was based was supposedly was having some kind of breakdown at the time, but  Laura writes her as bitchy and slovenly.  Because of course no one could have just had enough of freezing their ass off and boarding a stranger in what was a two-room uninsulated shack in the middle of an empty prairie.

[Snow Apple]

Mrs. Brewster was scary to a child reader, but I felt sorry for her reading as an adult. I often wonder if she was bipolar or suffers from the Winter blues. I get sad in the Winter and I can’t imagine going through it with no neighbors, stores, or electronics to feel like you’re part of society. Just stuck in the gloom with a baby (postpartum depression?) She was probably not much older than Laura and felt so trapped.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Snow Apple

[PrincessLuceval]

She may have possibly had post-partum depression. Along with actually hating being in the cold, barren prairie in a one room hovel with only her family and a stranger.

[Pickles Aplenty]

I feel sorry for Mrs. Brewster, too, but I have to remind myself that these books were written at a time when people knew next to nothing about mental disorders/depression.  To Laura, born just two years after the Civil War ended, Mrs. Brewster was just plain crazy and weird. 

[Snow Apple]

Yes, that's why I feel sorry for her. Mrs. Brewster herself probably don't know why she's feeling and acting that way herself. She's and others like her are labled and looked down upon as crazy when it's a medical condition except nobody knew it. Maybe even abused since that's not the "proper" way to behave.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Snow Apple

[stillshimpy]

I feel sorry for Mrs. Brewster, too, but I have to remind myself that these books were written at a time when people knew next to nothing about mental disorders/depression.  To Laura, born just two years after the Civil War ended, Mrs. Brewster was just plain crazy and weird.

 

True, but in all fairness, Rose Wilder Lane struggled with mental health issues and was committed for a fairly significant amount of time, so by the time LIW was writing The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years she'd already seen her daughter's struggles with mental illness.  

 

So she wasn't entirely ignorant on the subject of mental illness.  Rose also collaborated on the books, so I think the treatment of Mrs. Brewster might also reflect some unresolved issues surrounding Rose's illness on both the part of her mother and Rose Wilder Lane.  That's just a guess though.  

 

Also, reading that passage as an adult, I had a different reaction to it than I did as a child -- as a kid Mrs. Brewster scared the hell out of me -- as an adult I couldn't help but notice how many details were included that made Mrs. Brewster's madness far more understandable, like her isolation and the endlessly fussy baby.  The howling wind and the things she said about the conditions under which they were living. 

 

I think the stuff about Mrs Brewster reflects both LIW's reaction as a teenager and then also a more adult perspective.  It's kind of a neat passage, you have to be older to get that LIW's pretty strongly hints at all of the things that contributed to her breakdown, but stays true to the POV of a terrified teen at the same time. 

Edited August 14, 2014 by stillshimpy

[kikismom]

Think of that, then think of Laura after she has the baby boy. She doesn't name him, she goes against the hired girl caring for Rose, she says she's proud of her son but not anything about feelings of love, she just wants Rose. The baby dies, then Laura is numb, then the fire that burned down the house. There are so many versions; in the book, dried grass is laid by the stove by Almanzo, Rose says she did it putting grass in the stove, there are some accounts that Laura told Rose to do it from her bed because she withdrew to her room and wasn't taking care of things. Then she stays at her parents but at the end of a week "Almanzo came and got her". They go to a board shack he put up and Mr. Sheldon brings over a sack of romance novels and Laura keeps her mind in the books for weeks.

It's possible she had post-partum depression, or that she just got tired of being married and being a farm wife and the failures and was clinically depressed?

[ElderPrice]

I recall that he brought over the bag of books while she was pregnant, and reading them was a diversion from the fatigue/nausea of her second pregnancy. It seems that LIW had very difficult pregnancies, she describes constant nausea and fainting. She couldn't tend her house properly because she was so exhausted and sick far beyond what sounds normal. And she had the doctor when she delivered, something unusual in those days.

[Pickles Aplenty]

Probably both.  However, Ma's constant finger-wagging at any show of emotion likely forced Laura into a teeny, tiny box where she couldn't express herself properly and just kept on living.  That's a depressing thought.

[nodorothyparker]

Didn't the second pregnancy happen not that long after they both suffered from the diphtheria that they thought caused the stroke that left Almanzo nearly crippled?  I know I've read somewhere (although don't remember where) that Laura always blamed that for their general ill health, the baby's death, and why she never had any more children.  I don't really know enough about diphtheria to have an opinion on the validity of that beyond that we vaccinate for it now because it did used to routinely kill people.

 

First Four Years is such a damn depressing book, but I've always thought it was probably the closest of all of them to the unvarnished truth.  Interestingly, we get very little of Ma and Pa's bullshit about how they should or shouldn't be in that book.

Edited August 14, 2014 by nodorothyparker

[smittykins]

I recall that he brought over the bag of books while she was pregnant, and reading them was a diversion from the fatigue/nausea of her second pregnancy. It seems that LIW had very difficult pregnancies, she describes constant nausea and fainting. She couldn't tend her house properly because she was so exhausted and sick far beyond what sounds normal. And she had the doctor when she delivered, something unusual in those days.

I also remember that she couldn't keep her food down, so she probably had hyperemesis. The TFFY readalong on beyondlittlehouse.com(http://beyondlittlehouse.com/2013/06/24/the-first-four-years-chapter-2-section-7/) also suggests that she may have had gestational diabetes, since Rose was eight pounds at birth and Laura was not a big woman, and she developed type 2 diabetes later in life.

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

First Four Years is such a damn depressing book, but I've always thought it was probably the closest of all of them to the unvarnished truth.  Interestingly, we get very little of Ma and Pa's bullshit about how they should or shouldn't be in that book.

It will be interesting to re-read it as an adult, knowing what I know now about Rose's contributions.  The tone is completely different, in an almost unsettling way.

[Mybrainhurts]

It will be interesting to re-read it as an adult, knowing what I know now about Rose's contributions.  The tone is completely different, in an almost unsettling way.

 

After suffering through Rose's "contribution" in the Fourth of July chapter in LTOTP--the one where Laura reflects on how God is America's king and how Americans are all free and independent, I'm looking forward to the change in tone.  That chapter was almost unreadable.

[Pickles Aplenty]

 

After suffering through Rose's "contribution" in the Fourth of July chapter in LTOTP--the one where Laura reflects on how God is America's king and how Americans are all free and independent, I'm looking forward to the change in tone.  That chapter was almost unreadable.

Oh, god...I had forgotten about that chapter.  That wasn't the same one where Pa performed in the minstrel show, is it?

[nodorothyparker]

This is the chapter in LTOTP where someone read the entire Declaration of Independence at the town 4th of July celebration and she goes off on a whole libertarian tangent about Americans being free and independent and how no one can tell them what to do except maybe God.  It grinds the entire story of the chapter about a small town celebration and horse race to a halt as those moments always seem to in the later books.

 

The minstrel show that Pa performs in is one of the chapters about the various town socials.  I couldn't make heads or tails of what that was supposed to be about until I was an adult.  I remember as a kid being fascinated that these people could be enthralled by a town spelling bee.

Edited August 15, 2014 by nodorothyparker

[Snow Apple]

I hated that part in the 4th of July chapter too. It was nice reading about Pa taking his two girls into town, Ma's bread and butter, saving the firecrackers to take home to Grace, Carrie's first lemonade, and then......that. Even if you don't know the background, it was just boring.

[Pickles Aplenty]

Ma definitely seems happier when they're closer to family, but I think Laura being so young also has something to do with it.

[ElderPrice]

Oh that part of LTOTP is such a clunker. From a nice description of a small town celebration to pages of moralizing and annotation of the Declaration of Independence (in its entirety!) I skim right past.   

[smittykins]

I thought it was weird that it was mentioned that Laura and Carrie knew the Declaration by heart("of course").  Doesn't everybody? :P

 

And also, when Grace throws a tantrum over not being allowed to go to the celebration in town, and Pa sits her in a chair and tells her "You heard your Ma speak."  Methinks that if Mary or Laura had tried that at her age, they would've been whipped.

[kikismom]

I stand corrected--the part about Mr. Sheldon bringing the books was in her second pregnancy!
 
How about the part where Almanzo and Laura have a chance to buy the sheep, and it goes into how the owner was a good Republican and the Democratic candidate was going to win the Presidential election and the price of wool would tank---when I was reading that I couldn't believe it was in a Little House book.

 

Which brings up when they wondered how they would get the money for the sheep, and Almanzo helpfully suggests Laura sell her colt and use her money and Peter would pay the other half? The colt she owned was of course the one she bought when she first got married and recieved her last schoolteacher's pay. She felt "rich"...for about 2 seconds ...till Almanzo helpfully suggested she buy a colt.

She really did marry a man like her Pa.

Edited August 15, 2014 by kikismom

[ElderPrice]

Actually Almanzo had the right idea. They bought a colt with Laura's last pay. They sold the grown colt for a profit and used the money to buy sheep. Then they sold the sheep for a profit and used that money to eventually buy their place in the Ozarks after a few years of drifting around.

 

I can't really blame Almanzo for not being able to make a go of farming on the prairie. Most people couldn't, it wasn't an area meant to be farmed. The prairies were pretty much desert with not much rainfall, fine for indigenous plant life but not cash crops . However, there had been several years in a row of higher than average rainfall, tricking people into believing that farming was do-able. When the "drought" came, it was just normal weather patterns coming back. This led to more erosion as farmers tried to cultivate more land to make up the loss and eventually the Dust Bowl as the topsoil blew away. LIW references dust storms in TFFY.  

[Snow Apple]

This board inspired me to read The Wilder Life (I'm not sure why I resisted for so long). All the descriptions of the various houses were very interesting. I heard they were smaller than one may think, but the book really captured it. The Surveyors’ House is described to be as big as a modern 3-car garage even though Laura made it sound so big. Having all those men there during the Spring Rush must have been terrifying and I don't blame Ma for hiding the girls upstairs with a piece of wood to jam in the doorway.

 

The book also gave us glimpses of Laura's unpublished book and now I'm dying to read it. Hopefully my library will have it when/if it eventually gets published.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Snow Apple

[Pickles Aplenty]

Wow...I never noticed how bitchy Mary became in OtSoSL.  While they're riding the train, she narcs on Laura for fidgeting, just to show that she can.  When they're out in the middle of nowhere she chastises Laura for not wearing her sunbonnet, even though there isn't anyone around to see her bare head for miles and miles.  Then, when Laura tells Pa she wants to see the railroad being made, Mary says something like, "I don't know why you'd want to see that, Laura.  It's so much nicer in the shanty, making quilt patches."  UGH.  Drop dead, Mary.  I know this sounds crazy, but some people like going outside.  Now shut up and make more of your stupid quilt patches.

 

Another interesting thing about the book is the song Pa plays on the fiddle the first night in the surveyor's house:

 

I've traveled about a bit in my time

And of troubles I've seen a few

But found it better in every clime

To paddle my own canoe

 

My wants are few.  I care not at all

If my debts are paid when due

I drive away strife in the ocean of life

When I paddle my own canoe

 

Then love your neighbor as yourself

As the world you go traveling through

And never sit down with a tear or a frown

But paddle your own canoe

 

Then Pa says, "That's what we've always done, Caroline!" and Ma says, "Yes, Charles, and we haven't always been so comfortable and so well provided for."  Hee!

[BatmanBeatles]

 

I remember as a kid being fascinated that these people could be enthralled by a town spelling bee.

I know right? Back then grown people played blind man's bluff, similes, 20 questions, or just had sing-a-longs.  These days it takes a lot more to entertain guests at a party.

[Snow Apple]

Guess what? I was browsing the book exchange shelf at the library and ran across a book called Spooky Campfire Stories. One of the stories included is called Faces at the Window by Rose Wilder Lane! I'm more excited than I should be.

[nodorothyparker]

Wow...I never noticed how bitchy Mary became in OtSoSL.  While they're riding the train, she narcs on Laura for fidgeting, just to show that she can.  When they're out in the middle of nowhere she chastises Laura for not wearing her sunbonnet, even though there isn't anyone around to see her bare head for miles and miles.  Then, when Laura tells Pa she wants to see the railroad being made, Mary says something like, "I don't know why you'd want to see that, Laura.  It's so much nicer in the shanty, making quilt patches."  UGH.  Drop dead, Mary.  I know this sounds crazy, but some people like going outside.  Now shut up and make more of your stupid quilt patches.

 

If I wanted to be charitable, I could think that she was probably anxious to prove that she wasn't completely helpless or oblivious just because she couldn't see anymore.  But Mary was always a pill like that even in the earlier books, always trying to prove that she was more ladylike and better behaved.  She pulls the same thing in the godawful Fourth of July chapter in LTOTP, saying how much nicer it would be to stay at home when they're trying to decide whether to go to the town celebration.  And she chews Laura out in Happy Golden Years for giggling in church after a stray kitten crawled up into her hoop skirt.

 

I get that it fit prevailing ladylike standards of the time to avoid the sun and anything that might expose her to the coarser elements of the world, but she might have been a lot more grateful that her younger sister wasn't quite so ladylike or they probably wouldn't have had hay to burn or what food they did during the hard winter.  She also wouldn't have had pretty clothes or train fare or a freaking organ during her college years had Laura been as equally finicky about what she was willing to expose herself to.

[sgittinger]

"Scaling yonder peak, I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow". What does that even mean? Anyone?

[kikismom]

Guess what? I was browsing the book exchange shelf at the library and ran across a book called Spooky Campfire Stories. One of the stories included is called Faces at the Window by Rose Wilder Lane! I'm more excited than I should be.

I've got a copy of Let The Hurricane Roar by Rose Wilder Lane, I also have the video version re-named "Young Pioneers" and "Young Pioneers Christmas". Michael Landon's son produced those screen versions, rewriting the story of course, of a Rose book which is basically a re-written version of The First Four Years. Pretty corny but I confess I enjoyed them all, the book and the tv movies. Linda Purl plays the female lead.

A bit funny how Rose rips off her mother, and Landon rips off Rose.

[PrincessLuceval]

 

"Scaling yonder peak, I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow". What does that even mean? Anyone?

Can't you parse a sentence, sgitt? (*Proceeds to diagram sentence with weird circles and arrows taking up a full page.*)

 

We never had to do that quite detailed in school, but we did have to go through and identify the parts of speech.

 

(And from what I interpret, it's in the unidentified first person - as I was climbing the mountain I saw an eagle circling near the top.)

[sgittinger]

Nope,princess, and to make things worse, I...can't...read!

 

And I can make no sense at all of all that "grammar parsing" junk, all we learned was the parts of speech.

[kikismom]

BRING IT ON:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2726615/Wilder-memoir-gritty-view-prairie-life.html 

[nodorothyparker]

I'm absurdly excited about this.  Like embarrassed to admit to my husband who thinks I'm crazy anyway how excited I am to finally read this.

[ElderPrice]

I'm counting down the days until November's release. AND I'm going to spring for the hardcover.

[jammaker]

Amazon has it listed for release Sept 1.   Sadly though I 'm not going to spend $35 on it and will have to wait for it to go to kindle, the library, or turn up used.

[psychoticstate]

On the one hand, I am absolutely floored that my childhood has been shattered by everything revealed in this thread.  On the other, I am strangely fascinated and obsessed and feel as though I must read this new book.

 

Carry on.

[BatmanBeatles]

This part of the article made me laugh:

 

 

The children's series never presented a romanticized version of life on the prairie - in Little House In The Big Woods, Laura and her sister Mary gleefully help dissect the family pig before bouncing its inflated bladder back and forth in the yard.

 

To be fair, Laura covered her ears when the pig got butchered.

[kikismom]

Amazon has it listed for release Sept 1.   Sadly though I 'm not going to spend $35 on it and will have to wait for it to go to kindle, the library, or turn up used.

Too bad they aren't selling stock in The South Dakota Historical Society Press---we could get rich! (We'd live like kings!)