The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Page 33
It is all very interesting. I am glad to know about them all but will not write for I have more mail than I can answer now.
My 87 years old hand grows tired soon when writing. Again thanking you and with kindest regards,
Sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
You will especially like “Farmer Boy”
AUGUST 16, 1954
Dear Peter,
I am glad you like my books and hope you read all eight of them. You will especially like “Farmer Boy.”
I am in very good health. Thank you!
Sincerely, your friend,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
It looks good to me
A letter postmarked De Smet always pleased Laura. Alice Kirchmeier wrote lyrics for “Sing of South Dakota,” which alluded to the Little House books. She sent copies of the song to Laura and Rose. Alice Kirchmeier was a founder of De Smet’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society.
SEPTEMBER 18, 1954
Dear Mrs. Kirchmeier,
Thank you for the song about Dakota. I am no musician, so not a judge, but it looks good to me and certainly the words are fine.
I will tell Rose about it and give her one copy.
Again thanking you, I am
Yours sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Doing as little writing as possible
Harmon Tyler, a bookseller at Jordan Marsh Department Store in Boston, wrote Laura of her Hurricane Carol experience. “I was in the middle of The Long Winter, and you and your mother saved me from misery . . . if I can’t read I am miserable. With no electricity I was reading your description of a button lamp your mother made. I took the top of a spice shaker and soaked a dust rag in cooking fat. I lit it and it worked! It was four days before the lights came on again, and it was you [who] saved me from darkness and misery.” Harper created a press release from the incident; Ursula Nordstrom invited Miss Tyler to submit her own story ideas.
NOVEMBER 16, 1954
Dear Miss Russell,
Today I am mailing you the two sets of books autographed.
The writing of the autographs is not very good for my hands are so lame it is hard for me to write.
Because of that I am not answering fan letters anymore and am doing as little writing as possible.
Miss Tyler’s letter was pleasant reading. Thank you for sending it and also for the Chinese editions of books. I am returning the letter [Miss Tyler’s] with this.
Sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I will be glad to see you
Docia Holland, the Wright County librarian, became a close friend of Laura’s. One of Mrs. Holland’s duties was to drive the library bookmobile to outlying areas. Often Laura joined her on the runs. The route delighted her as the bookmobile swooped up and down the hilly roads. “I enjoy a drive as much as I ever did,” she said. Finally, those trips became past pleasures.
MAY 6, 1955
Dear Mrs. Holland,
I appreciate the interest people take in me and thank them for the friendship they express. But I can no longer receive strangers nor answer their letters. I have done this as long as I can. My 88 years have caught up with me. . . .
So glad to have your letter and the books you sent. I may not be able to get in touch with Virginia [Hartley] before Wednesday but I will not want any more books then. I’m behind in my reading because my eyes got tired and I have plenty of books on hand now.
Ralph Watters gave me a picture of us in the library and I sent it to Rose. I have never had a picture painted by an artist. The one Harpers sends is the largest. I suppose it could be enlarged, but as you say, I don’t want any taken now.
Enclosed are autographs for whoever you want them for. My writing isn’t what it used to be but I hope you can read it.
I will be glad to see you whenever you can come and I do appreciate your friendship.
With kindest regards and all good wishes,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
The poems are lovely
Martha Corlett taught in rural schools surrounding De Smet.
MAY 9, 1955
Dear Miss Corlett,
Thank you for your little book of poems.
I would have written you sooner but have been very ill and only able to be up part of the time now. The poems are lovely and so is the little book.
I am glad you and your pupils love my stories. Please give them my love. I must stop writing now.
With many thanks and kindest regards,
Yours sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
In June 1955 Aubrey Sherwood invited Laura to De Smet’s seventy-fifth-anniversary celebration and a local stage production of The Long Winter. She replied that she would love to be present, but her health would not permit it. Later that year a St. Louis television station honored her during Children’s Book Week. Television’s popularity prompted Ursula Nordstrom to query, “Why doesn’t that foxy George Bye sell the Little House books for a television program?” Laura gave her agent permission to market her books as a possible television show.
I was glad to see you all
Dorothy lived on Sunny Slope Farm near Mansfield.
JULY 21, 1955
Dear Dorothy,
I am pleased that you and your friends enjoyed your visit here. I was glad to see you all and especially you. It makes me happy that I should seem like your own and your love is returned. It is wonderful that you will pray for me. I need it. I will remember you in my prayers every night.
Please come whenever you can. Your letter did me lots of good. Thank you!
With love,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Another note to Dorothy was undated.
Dear Dorothy,
I thank you for your sweet note and shall remember you when I say my prayers. I hope you will do the same for me. One needs the prayers of their friends.
With love,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I thank you for your many kindnesses
JANUARY 23, 1956
Dear Mrs. Holland,
I am sorry that circumstances were such that you thought it best to resign as county librarian. You were doing a good work and I am sure library patrons appreciate it.
I thank you for your many kindnesses and am sorry I have not been able to be at the library to see you now and then.
Most sincerely,
Your friend,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
I really want to read it
Ursula Nordstrom sent A Hog on Ice and Other Curious Expressions by Charles Funk as a gift to Laura. After delays, it finally arrived.
FEBRUARY 4, 1956
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
The “Hog on Ice” you sent must have slipped down somewhere on these ice storms we have been having for it has not come yet. I thank you for your kind intention but am disappointed that the book has not arrived. I really want to read it.
Many thanks for taking care of so much of my mail. I am not writing letters to answer my fan mail.
With best regards,
Sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Two beautiful, large birthday cakes
FEBRUARY 6, 1956
Dear Miss Nordstrom,
My fan mail is very heavy and I am not answering it, but thought these few should receive a reply.
Your office is being so kind taking care of my mail that I am encouraged to ask you to answer these. Please!
Among the hundreds of birthday cards came two beautiful, large birthday cakes I would love to share with your office.
Best regards to you all.
Sincerely,
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Rose arrived to spend the 1956 holidays at Rocky Ridge. On Thanksgiving eve Laura fell ill, so sick that Rose rushed her to the Springfield hospital by ambulance. There she was correctly diagnosed; she suffered from diabetes. With a diabetic diet and medication she improved. Even in the hospital Laura’
s fame as an author surrounded her. Staff members brought books for her to sign, the newspaper reported on her condition, and thousands of Springfield children signed a huge scroll of good wishes. On the day after Christmas she happily returned to Rocky Ridge, with Rose in faithful attendance. Her ninetieth birthday was approaching. The house overflowed with mail—gifts and greetings poured in from all over. Laura saw the expressions of love and was pleased. On February 7, 1957, ninety years after her birth in the now-fabled little house in the big woods, she slipped into a coma. She died three days later, February 10, 1957.
Newspapers and radio stations reported the passing of the author of the Little House books. Sad-faced elementary students brought newspaper obituaries to their equally grieved teachers. The Saginaw, Michigan, public library went ahead with its birthday party honoring Laura’s ninetieth. There was fiddle music, gingerbread, and storytelling, and librarians observed groups of children savoring the Little House books in every corner of the crowded room.
Rose remained in the house on Rocky Ridge for two weeks. In her mother’s desk, she found a final letter addressed to her.
JULY 30, 1952
Rose Dearest,
When you read this I will be gone and you will have inherited all I have.
Please give to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Library in Mansfield all that is left in my private library after you have taken from it what you want for yourself. This includes the framed testimonials from Chicago, California and the Pacific Northwest.
My jewelry is unique and should not be carelessly scattered. Do with it as you wish but preserve it in some way if you can.
We were proud of my Havilland china but loved best the English made blue willow ware. Do as you please with all the china, but I wish you might use it.
The persimmon-wood chair and the cypress stand-table that Manly made belong to Silas Seal.
My love will be with you always.
Mama Bess
(Laura Ingalls Wilder)
AFTERWORD
After Laura’s death, Alfred Morgan of Danbury came to Rocky Ridge to escort Rose home. With him was Rose’s British friend Elsie Jackson, her extended houseguest. Rose was eager for their company and anxious to leave Rocky Ridge for the last time. She carried out her mother’s final wishes, donating Laura’s home library to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Library in Mansfield. As she rummaged through drawers and closets, she was amazed at the scope of American history residing with her parents’ keepsakes.
When a committee of Mansfield people called on Rose, asking to preserve the Rocky Ridge house as a memorial, the idea was not new. It had been suggested to Laura earlier; she was receptive and pleased. Rose was skeptical. Her parents had sold the farm on a life-estate contract. It was not hers to give. As Rose grasped the local committee’s sense of purpose, she eventually decided to buy back the house and several acres from its owner. She turned the place over to the newly chartered Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Association.
With volunteer help, the Association opened the Wilder home for tours. School classes visited and a steady stream of interested readers arrived each summer day. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum became the epicenter of Little House lore, as readers toured the preserved house and the nearby museum filled with artifacts dating from the pre–Civil War era through the latter days of Manly’s and Laura’s lives in the 1940s and 1950s. Pa’s fiddle, the leitmotif of the Little House books, was returned by the state museum in Pierre, South Dakota. It became a centerpiece of pilgrimages to Rocky Ridge Farm.
Also in 1957 Aubrey Sherwood founded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society in De Smet. The first of many developments was a monument placed on the old Ingalls homestead, giving visitors something tangible to see. Each of the other Little House sites followed Mansfield’s and De Smet’s lead. Memorials, restorations, and replications were developed in Pepin, Wisconsin; Independence, Kansas; Walnut Grove, Minnesota; Burr Oak, Iowa; and Malone, New York.
Rose never returned to Mansfield after her mother’s death. She remained active in conservative causes as an avid political observer, and was a major influence in the libertarian movement in America. She enlarged her Danbury home again, surrounding it with expansive gardens. She read and wrote omnivorously.
Laura’s diary, kept during the 1894 move from De Smet to Mansfield, was found at Rocky Ridge. Harper & Row (as Harper & Brothers had come to be called) was avid for its publication. Rose edited the diary and wrote a setting for the book, which was published in 1962 as On the Way Home. She dutifully answered letters from her mother’s fans, which still poured in. In 1963 Rose’s Woman’s Day Book of American Needlework was published. Two years later, Woman’s Day sent Rose to Vietnam for six weeks, to investigate the escalating U.S. involvement there. At seventy-eight, Rose found the State Department reluctant to send “a little old lady” into a war zone, but she was dauntless. Her resulting article appeared in Woman’s Day in December 1965.
By then Rose was finally retired. She established a second home in Harlingen, Texas. There she observed the ever-increasing reputation of the Little House books, and advised the Rocky Ridge Farm project. At eighty-one, Rose, inspired by her innate curiosity, planned a trip around the world. Like her pioneer ancestors, she felt the lure of unseen lands beckon. But the trip was not to be. Rose Wilder Lane died suddenly in her Danbury home on October 30, 1968, just days before embarking on a last great adventure.
Rose left the responsibility of her mother’s literary oeuvre, and her own, to her “honorary grandson,” Roger Lea MacBride. As Roger had pondered the collision of increasing government control and individualism, Rose had become his philosophical mentor. Their mutual passion for personal liberty matched that of the pioneering Ingallses and Wilders. Under Roger’s direction, the final Wilder manuscript, The First Four Years, was published by Harper & Row in 1971. Then came the Little House on the Prairie television series, which ran from 1974 to 1983. The weekly network broadcasts resulted in an immense groundswell of new fans. Roger MacBride carried on his duties as the final connecting link to the Wilder family until his death in 1995. Now the Little House Heritage Trust continues to nurture the legacy.
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name and fame continue to resonate around the world. She remains one of America’s best-selling, best-known, best-loved authors.
INDEX
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.
NOTE: Page numbers in italics indicate a photograph.
Adams, Alice, 135
agriculture
in Colorado, 39
hog breeds, 143
and homesteading, 148–49
in Kansas, 37
Manly as a young man, 130–31
planting potatoes, 28
Rocky Ridge Farm as example of success, 9–10
shipping pears to Carrie, 64
in South Dakota, 118
threshing, 157, 171
wet spring in Missouri, 273
Alden, Rev. E. H., 57, 158, 167, 169
Allen, Alfarata, 69–70
Amati violin. See violin/fiddle of Charles Ingalls
American Printing House for the Blind, 210, 212
“American propaganda,” 256–57
Anderson, Florence, 333
Anderson, Mrs., 321
Anderson, William, note on editing, xxviii
Andrews, Meroe, 30–31
“As a Farm Woman Thinks” column (Ruralist), 22–23
Athenian Club of Hartville, 159, 163, 179
atom bomb test (nuclear weapons testing), 278, 279
Axtel, Millicent Carpenter (cousin), 294–95
Baker, George, 84–85
Berkeley, California, 16
Bessie. See Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Bible quote, 342
Black Hills, South Dakota, 62
blizzards, 88–89, 94–96, 164–66
; “Blue Juniata, The” (song), 107
Boast, Robert and Ella, 56–57, 158, 165–66, 176, 297
book study clubs, 81–82
book titles, 178–79
boy under ether, 215
Boylston, Helen
with Laura and Rose on drive to California, 35, 40, 44
medical books left at Rocky Ridge, 202–3
traveling with Rose, 26, 33
“Boys of Rocky Ridge, The,” 82–83
Bracket, Miss, 233–34
Brentlinger, John, 48
Bricker, Mr. Harry C., 226
Brody, Catherine, 202
Brooks, B., 347–48
Brown, Rev. Edward, 164
Brown’s Book Store, Children’s Book Week, Springfield, Missouri, 344
Burr Oak, Iowa, 120–21, 146, 285–87, 334
button lamp, 369–70
By the Shores of Silver Lake
characters in, 175–77, 181, 182–84
deadline extension, 198–99
format different from first books, 208–9, 211–12
homesteading theme, 148–49, 156
Laura growing up in, 151–53
Laura’s collaboration with Rose, xv
Laura’s temper in, 147–48, 158
letters about, 146–49, 151–54, 155–56, 158, 160–61, 173–77, 180–83
money shortage, 174–75
railroad labor disputes, 152, 153
royalty rates, 203–4, 209
spelling errors in, 210, 292
title selection, 200
topography, 180–81
typed copies missing, 208
Bye, George T.
as agent for Laura, 65
and chapter reprints from Little House series, 213
and Columbia Broadcasting System, 263–64
and excerpts used by others, 226
and foreign edition rights, 228
Harper payment due, 234–35
Laura assigning 10% of her royalties to Rose, 310–11