The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder

by William Anderson

  MARCH 25, 1937

  Dear Rose,

  A horse with colic bloats. As we were driving along I noticed she was bloating and pulled them down to a walk and in a few minutes large drops of sweat came out all over and I sed to Roy Cate is sick and said Whoa and she commenced to lay down so I started them up to keep them from lying down, hitched up and Roy got out and unhitched the other horse and the sick one rolled and wood get up and lye down at once and roll again. In about 10 minutes she lade down and stratined out dead.

  On the way home from Yankton we stade over nite with a man who used to drive the pony express for the government carrying mail to California and he told us that if we had had a little pulverized alum and gave the horse a spoon full when we furst noticed her bloting we could have drove rite on all right he said all the teamsters on the Pony express had to carry alum in case of colic.

  How I hapened to be at Marshall, Minn. was this way. Sister Alice married a man that lived at Marshall on a farm and there was a 160 acre farm join[ing] them that could be got for a thousand dollars and I wanted it so mother bought it because the man had to have the cash and mother sold it to me on time. Then the next year when we could get homestead land I went and took land as I have already told you and I let mother have the Marshall land back and throde in the improve[ments]. I had broken up 4 acres and dug a well put up a small barn and set some trees for shade and she sold it in a year or to for fifteen hundred. We drove across to Yankton because we could go quicker across by team and cheaper. To go by train from Marshall you would have to go east as far as Winona, Minn. then south to some point in Iowa then west to Yankton. You see even now take a map showing the railroads. They run east and west not many crossroads north & s. The Missouri River is south of Yankton. We did not cross the river. When you and I crossed the Missouri at Yankton [1894] we crossed on a steam ferry.

  Yours truly

  Bessie will ans. the rest.

  Again, Manly provided data for Rose’s Free Land.

  Dear Rose,

  You don’t seem to think there is a lot of overhead expense in living. The first year, 1880, I worked on the railroad till the middle of July. When I quit the railroad I hired five acres broke on the homestead and five on the tree claim. Had to have that much to hold it.

  When I quit the railroad I went down to Marshall, Minn. to harvest 25 acres of wheat. Help was scarce so I changed works with a neighbor to cut and bind my wheat, also to stack and thresh it. I had to pay 6 cents a bushel for threshing. I got 18 bushels per acre. It was 50 cents a bushel. I got 5 bushels ground into graham flour and changed 8 bushels into white flour and took 50 bushels to Dakota for seed.

  That left 237 bushels to sell but they always dock off some for dirt and weed seed, so I got about $200. By that time I had left railroad work and was gone.

  In 1881 I only had 5 acres for wheat. Had to put trees out on the tree claim. Had to get a breaking plow, $28. I traded my horses for a yoke of oxen so I could break more land, and broke about 50 acres before it got too dry.

  I broke for O’Connell at $3 per acres to help out.

  I had to hire my hay cut as I did not have a mowing machine.

  I also hired my 5 acres of wheat cut. I got 175 bushels (35 bushels an acre) Kept 80 bushels for seed and sold the rest. Came to a little over $40 to live on for another year.

  For some time we have planned a western trip

  Aubrey Sherwood inquired about visiting the Wilders at Rocky Ridge. The western trip Laura alluded to was postponed until 1938. At that time, Laura and Manly visited Sherwood at the De Smet News.

  APRIL 22, 1937

  Dear Mr. Sherwood,

  I am sorry, but neither Rose nor I will be at home to visitors this summer.

  For some time we have planned a western trip, that will take most of the summer to make, and intend leaving here the last of this month, or sooner if we can get ready.

  Yours truly,

  Mrs. A. J. Wilder

  Thank you for the box of candy

  AUGUST 19, 1937

  Rose Dearest,

  In each letter I have written you lately, I have intended to thank you for the box of candy. And each letter has been sent without my doing so. Oh well, I would think after mailing one, I’ll tell her next letter how much we enjoy it.

  In the meantime we eat and eat on it and soon it will be too late to mention.

  It is good and so nice of you to think of us. Many thanks my dear.

  I have just discovered some notes I made years ago, thinking I would use them some time. I never will, I am sure, but perhaps you can use them as anecdotes or in some way, so I have copied them and here they are.

  They were written when Wilson was president and are true. I saw the Mt. Zion and Mt. Pleasant meetings myself. Mrs. Frink told of the woman who wouldn’t look in the glass. She knew of her and said it actually happened that way. [Laura’s notes refer to stories of extreme fundamentalist religionists who lived deep in the isolated Ozark hills.]

  I do hope you are resting better now. We have both had a summer flu, or cold that is going around but are recovering. Our winter’s coal is in the basement. We think enough to last through. Corinne’s stove is gone. She has not been able to get the dray or anyone to come for it. So when the dray was hauling coal, I called and asked her if I should send it in. And so I did.

  Much love,

  Mama Bess

  How delightfully you would illustrate the verses

  During Rose’s San Francisco Bulletin days, she assisted with the children’s page. Rose and Laura collaborated on verses for “The Tuck ’Em In Corner.” Years later, Laura thought of recycling those 1915 poems, together with Berta Hader’s illustrations. The verses were mediocre; the project never came to fruition.

  SEPTEMBER 11, 1937

  My Dear Berta,

  Looking over some old keep-sakes, I found the note you sent me when I was leaving San Francisco during the world’s fair.

  You wouldn’t remember it but the weeping little girl you drew and the sweet note you wrote beneath her, have been among my treasures all these years.

  Rose writes me that she has seen you and that you and your husband are very busy with your lovely work.

  I am still writing my little books. The fourth in the series is out this fall and I have just completed the first draft of the next, which is already being asked for by the publishers.

  Some time ago Rose sent you some of my children’s verses and some of hers which were to be signed with my name if used.

  Has anything been done about this book of children’s verse? And do you intend to carry on with it when your season’s rush is over?

  I have a large field of readers because, as of course you know, my books have a large and increasing sale. I feel sure that my name will guarantee a good sale for the book of which some would undoubtedly be to readers unacquainted with your work. Your name would do as much for me. So I think a children’s book carrying both our names will be sure of a satisfactory sale at least, and be valuable to us both in increasing sales of your other books and my other books.

  What is your opinion of its probable publication?

  Since finding your San Francisco note, I have been thinking how delightfully you would illustrate the verses of the fairies.

  With kindest regards,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  I shall be very glad to make your acquaintance

  Laura spoke at the Detroit Book Fair, held at J. L. Hudson Department Store in October 1937. Silas Seal, a Mansfield friend, drove Laura and Manly to Detroit in their new Chrysler. Rose was full of suggestions, plying Ida Louise Raymond with ideas for Plum Creek advertising posters. She coached Laura on author-editor protocol. She telegraphed: “Go at once to Springfield and have good photograph made. Send 6 glossy prints to J. L. Hudson Company. Love, Rose.” She assured her mother, saying, “You will make a lovely lion.”

  Laura’s letter to Miss Raymond was somewhat disingenuous. She had experienced large ci
ties before and never considered herself a “hillbilly.”

  OCTOBER 8, 1937

  Dear Miss Raymond,

  Copies of “On the Banks of Plum Creek” have arrived and I am pleased with their appearance.

  Glad you like the book so well and think you will like the next one “The Shores of Silver Lake” even better.

  I expect to arrive at the Statler [Hotel] in Detroit on the morning of the 16th and hope to meet you soon after.

  Being unused to large hotels I feel rather timid about it all.

  You see, after all, I am just a hillbilly and cities are places where I am not used to wandering.

  I shall be very glad to make your acquaintance.

  Sincerely,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Almanzo seems to have made quite a hit

  Laura’s speech, describing her book series, was well received. In the audience was Alice Adams of Central State Teacher’s College in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Her students at the laboratory school were enthusiastic about the Little House books. When Miss Adams described meeting the actual Laura to her classroom, the children wrote letters to both Laura and Manly.

  NOVEMBER 2, 1937

  Dear Miss Adams,

  Indeed I am pleased with the letters from your school children and thank you for sending them just as they were written.

  Almanzo seems to have made quite a hit with them. He was surprised and pleased that they wrote to him.

  I am happy that you have all enjoyed my books and hope the later ones will please you as well.

  Did I meet you in Detroit? I met so many pleasant people that of course I didn’t remember any of their names.

  Being so unused to crowds made me even dumber than usual that way.

  With kindest regards, I am

  Yours sincerely,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Rose is in New York

  Helen Stratte, a librarian at the School of the Ozarks, met Rose in 1935. Miss Stratte and her nephew Owen, a School of the Ozarks student, were entertained at Rocky Ridge. Owen and the Turner boys bonded. Helen Stratte later wrote from Macalester College to inquire about the Wilders and the Turners—and to request an autograph in On the Banks of Plum Creek. Laura’s response was found among Stratte family papers in 1992.

  DECEMBER 22, 1937

  Dear Helen Stratte,

  The copy of Plum Creek for my autograph arrived today. It will go to Sallie and Halle on the first mail out, which will be tomorrow.

  I am glad to autograph it for them.

  Rose is in New York and we are living in the old house where she was when you were here. I do not know how long Rose will stay in New York, but I think for some time. She is very busy there and enjoying her contacts with editors, publishers and writers, old friends and new.

  I am sorry you were not able to call when you were in the Ozarks and hope for better luck next time.

  Your work must be very interesting. How I would love to know more of Scandinavian history and literature, especially that of Medieval times.

  I shall be happy for you if you can make your trip to Norway next summer.

  I will send your letter to Rose, for I know she will like to have news of you.

  The boys are scattered. John is in Paris with a tutor. Al is in St. Louis working with radios.

  Mr. Wilder remembers you with pleasure and sends his regards.

  We are well and as busy as ever.

  Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year I am

  Sincerely your friend,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  A story for grown-ups about the times I am writing of

  After their Detroit meeting, Laura relaxed her letters to her editor in tone. Miss Raymond was addressed as Louise. The allusion to an adult novel was “The First Three Years and a Year of Grace.” It was an account of Laura and Manly’s early marriage. It remained unfinished, but it was posthumously published as The First Four Years (Harper & Row, 1971). “As to your doing a novel,” Rose wrote, “there is no reason you shouldn’t if you want to, but unless by wild chance it became a best seller, there is much more money in juveniles.”

  DECEMBER 13, 1937

  My Dear Louise,

  It is pleasant news to hear the Plum Creek is going so well and I am looking forward to seeing the reviews.

  Perhaps I can find something to loan for a window display with the next book. I will look around for something that may be interesting.

  For some time I have had in mind to try a story for grown-ups about the times I am writing of in the Little House books.

  I have the idea, but do not know if it will jell. If it does I shall be glad to let your Mr. Saxton see it.

  Will try what I can do as soon as I get the next two books for you a little farther along. But you know I am slow and it will be some time.

  With best regards and sincere wishes that you may have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year I remain your

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Thanks for your good wishes

  DECEMBER 24, 1937

  Dear Mr. Bye,

  “On the Banks of Plum Creek” seems to be going very well indeed. Thanks for your good wishes on its behalf.

  Rose has written me how much she enjoyed a visit at your home and I am glad she has such pleasant friends.

  Wishing you a merry holiday season and a very happy New Year I am

  Yours sincerely,

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  We had a very nice Christmas

  DECEMBER 29, 1937

  Rose Dearest,

  I am so glad about Al. He seemed so nice when he was here. It was so good to see him and I liked him so much that it made me wild to think I had been so mistaken in anyone. That he should take what didn’t belong to him and fool me so completely. [Laura refers to the tire theft mentioned in her letter of June 25, 1936.]

  I will write him and send him some little something for a late Christmas gift.

  But I will mail the letter in Mountain Grove [a town eighteen miles from Mansfield] so no one here will get the address. When he was here I promised not to tell anyone he came or where he was. People ask me and no one seems to know. I will let someone else tell me before I admit I know. I don’t know what his reason was and he may have told someone here by now. Thought maybe it was Dorothy Sue [his former girlfriend]. It is fine for him to send you the lovely gift and I am so glad he is making a start. Don’t worry that I will write him anything but a nice letter.

  Gee! I’m glad. Al is a brick [a slang term for a solid, trustworthy individual].

  I hope John changes his mind back again. Anybody can be a lawyer.

  I think he will do you credit someday. But of course he can’t be expected to be settled in his mind at eighteen.

  It has been more than a year that I have been trying to get Corinne’s things moved out of my way. Still I ought not to be impatient, I suppose. And I should not have written boiling over a little. Sorry! [Corinne and Jack Murray occupied the farmhouse when Rose left the farm. The Wilders were eager to move back into their old home. Until they were resettled in the farmhouse, relationships were tense.] But surely you know I would not burn a good book, if it belonged to the old Nick himself. [“Old Nick” is a slang term for the devil.] It was just my temper boiling over a little. Sorry!

  I am happy that the Christmas things came in so handy. What luck! Do you remember when you were in Crowley [Louisiana] and wanted a green dress? And how I made it for you for a surprise? [Rose spent the school year of 1903–1904 living with her aunt Eliza Jane Wilder when the dress was sent.] I seem to be fortunate that way. “Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore and coming events” told me you wanted those things [a quote from the Scottish writer Thomas Campbell].

  The little dish I sent you for your birthday can be a pin tray or an ash tray. It is silver (?) and I found it in Linn Creek [Missouri] (Oh the town, You silly!) when we stayed there Christmas Eve on our way home from seeing you in Columbia a
year ago. I got it just because I thought it was pretty.

  The weather here is warm and foggy all the time. We have only had a couple of days of sunshine for three weeks now. Fog so thick it is dangerous to drive even with lights on for they don’t penetrate it. There is no moisture and it is awfully dry here. Have you seen that the Mississippi River is lower than at any time since weather records have been kept in St. Louis, in 1861?

  It is sweet of you to offer to pay for fixing the furnace but it is not necessary now. The furnace is working perfectly. I like the heat and there is nothing wrong except the expense. It is expensive to run. We will have the furnace overhauled and put in shape for winter, so it will keep through the summer.

  I know the basement should be waterproofed and other things should be done on the place but we don’t feel like putting any more money into it.

  We spent our time fixing up the other place so we could leave it [a reference to the Rock House, occupied from 1928 to 1936]. All last winter and summer we worked and fretted and spent $ getting moved over and we are not settled yet.

  Well, I’ll be darned if we are going to spend next summer fixing up this place. I have gone on strike and called Manly out. We will spend our money for gasoline and our time burning it.

  Now is the time to snort.

  We can’t go away and leave workmen to do things for they would do nothing right and would just put in their time doing nothing. It is almost impossible to get anything done. You have no idea what it is like. So as I said, we have gone on strike ourselves. I am glad 30,000 of the darned General Motors men are let out and I hope Roosevelt may enjoy the mess he has on his hands. [The famous 1937 sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, was headline news. President Roosevelt rejected federal intervention. The aftermath of the strike was massive unionization; membership in the United Auto Workers soared to five hundred thousand.]