10. Mansfield Farm Loan Association minutes, February 25, 1928.
11. “Famous Writer Back to Live in Ozarks,” Springfield Leader, May 23, 1928.
12. RWL to Fremont Older, October 31, 1928.
13. The Rock House was built on what the Wilders called “the Newell forty,” part of the acreage that had been added to their farm in years past. See RWL Diary, 1926–30, entry for August 1, 1928. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #25.
14. Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl, Houses by Mail: A Guide to Houses from Sears, Roebuck and Company (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1986), p. 212.
15. See RWL Diary, 1926–30, October 11, 1928. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #25.
16. Ibid., April 17, 1928.
17. See Holtz, Ghost, p. 244. Holtz provides no source for this information, but Lane’s sporadic financial accounts, kept in a notebook, record the ongoing debt to her mother, calculated as $900 in 1924, $2,700 in 1929, and $2,800 in 1931. See RWL Notebook 1921–36, entries for multiple dates. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #12 (pp. 30, 59, 62, 78).
18. RWL to Mr. Briggs, October 15, 1928.
19. Lane’s meeting with Anderson is recorded in RWL Diary and accounts—Europe, 1921, entry for May 26, 1921. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #7. See also RWL to Sherwood Anderson, May 11, 1929.
20. Holtz, “Sherwood Anderson and Rose Wilder Lane,” pp. 131–52.
21. Sherwood Anderson, Dark Laughter (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925), p. 183.
22. RWL to Sherwood Anderson, May 11, 1929, labeled by Lane, “Not Sent.”
23. Ibid.
24. See Garet Garrett, “Hoover of Iowa and California,” Saturday Evening Post, June 2, 1928, p. 18. Queried about the contretemps, Garrett told a Post editor that his source for the anecdote had been Hoover himself; see Bruce Ramsay, Unsanctioned Voice: Garet Garrett, Journalist of the Old Right (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Press, 2008), p. 181.
25. See RWL to Herbert Hoover, April 12, 1936; Herbert Hoover to RWL, April 16, 1936.
26. Unsent letter from RWL to Dorothy Thompson, July 11, 1928, in Holtz, Dorothy Thompson and Rose Wilder Lane, p. 84.
27. Ibid., p. 82.
28. Ibid., RWL to Dorothy Thompson, July 13, 1928, pp. 87–88.
29. RWL to Clarence Day, July 19, 1928, labeled by Lane, “Not sent.”
30. Ibid., July 20, 1928.
31. Ibid., undated, beginning “Dear C.D. I know.”
32. Ibid., undated letter beginning, “My dear Clarence Day, Floyd Dell is bringing out a new book this spring.”
33. RWL Diary, 1926–30, entry for May 16, 1928. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #25.
34. LIW to Aubrey Sherwood, January 15, 1934.
35. In a series of letters, Lane had recommended that Guy Moyston see a psychiatrist Boylston had once worked for, Dr. Foster Kennedy. See RWL to Moyston, March 10 and March 23, 1925.
36. The sequence of events was laid out in Mary Ingalls’s obituary; see “Mary Ingalls Was a Real Pioneer,” De Smet News, October 26, 1928, reprinted in The Ingalls Family of De Smet (De Smet: Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, 2001), p. 16.
37. Caroline Ingalls Swanzey to LIW, undated, beginning “Saturday morning.” Mansfield Collection.
38. “Rose Wilder Lane Builds Fine Home for Her Parents,” Springfield Leader, January 4, 1929.
39. RWL to Fremont Older, January 23, 1929.
40. RWL to Rexh Meta, October 24 and July 19, 1928.
41. Rexh Meta to RWL, January 11, 1929.
42. RWL to Rexh Meta, February 11, 1929.
43. Ibid., July 19, 1928.
44. RWL Diary, 1926–30, entry for October 21, 1929. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #25.
45. RWL Notebook 1921–36, multiple dates. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #12 (p. 62).
46. Ibid. (p. 78), page headed August 15, 1929.
47. See the first page of Wilder’s manuscript, “Pioneer Girl,” HHPL; LIW, PG, p. 1.
48. PG, p. 32.
49. Ibid., p. 8. The passage occurs on page 5 of the original manuscript.
50. See Theodore Roosevelt, “Nature Fakers,” Everybody’s Magazine, vol. 17 (September 1907), pp. 427–30. As Roosevelt noted, naturalist John Burroughs originated the charge of “yellow journalism of the woods” in “Real and Sham Natural History,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 91, no. 545 (March 1903), pp. 298–310. See also Sue Walsh, “Nature Faking and the Problem of the ‘Real,’” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 22, no. 1 (Winter 2015), pp. 132–53.
51. See PG, p. 83, and note 65, p. 84.
52. RWL Diary, 1926–30, entry for May 17, 1930. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #25.
53. Ibid., July 11, 1930.
54. Ibid., July 16, July 28, and June 26, 1930.
55. Ibid., July 29, 1930.
56. For more on Lane and Wilder’s adaptation of the Bender legend, see Caroline Fraser, “The Strange Case of the Bloody Benders: LIW, RWL, and Yellow Journalism,” in Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring LIW, ed. by Nancy Tystad Koupal (Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2017), pp. 20–51.
57. “Governor’s Proclamation,” Atchison Daily Champion (Atchison, Kansas), May 23, 1873, p. 4. See also “Bender Knife,” Kansas Historical Society, https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/bender-knife/10106.
58. “The Benders,” Fort Scott Daily Monitor, August 7, 1877, p. 4.
59. “Pioneer Girl,” Brandt revised, p. 6a; see also, “The Benders of Kansas,” Appendix B in PG, pp. 353–55.
60. RWL Diary, 1926–30, entry for August 5, 1930. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #25.
61. Ibid., August 15, 1930.
62. Ibid., August 17, 1930.
63. Ibid., October 17, 1930.
64. Ibid., October 28, 1930.
65. RWL to LIW, November 12, 1930.
66. A page of one of Wilder’s handwritten drafts of Little House on the Prairie was written on the back of the first page of the juvenile “Pioneer Girl” bearing the return address of the Haders. See “Little House on the Prairie,” fragmentary draft, p. 77 of 217. Hader herself remembered the sequence of events differently, believing she had received the manuscript from Wilder: “One day, years after Elmer and I had been married, Laura sent me a manuscript to look at.… I read it and liked it because of the story’s simplicity and homespun quality. I showed it to my agent and to several publishers, but everyone said the same thing—‘No hope in such a story.’ One day an editor friend from Alfred A. Knopf visited with me. She told me that the company was looking for some exciting materials about early days in America, written by people who had lived it.” Lee Bennett Hopkins, Books Are by People: Interviews with 104 Authors and Illustrators of Books for Young Children (Citation Press, 1969), p. 99. Cited in William T. Anderson, “The Literary Apprenticeship of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” South Dakota History, vol. 13, no. 4 (Winter 1983), p. 323.
67. Leonard Marcus, Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shapers of Children’s Literature (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), p. 104.
68. Marion Fiery to LIW, February 12, 1931.
69. RWL to LIW, February 16, 1931.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid.
> 72. The typewritten passages do not exactly correspond to either the juvenile “Pioneer Girl” or to the finished book.
73. “The Indian Boy and the Big Fish,” in “Little House in the Woods” manuscript, unpaginated (images 170–71).
74. Antecedents of the legend are discussed in Westerman and White, pp. 73–74.
75. LIW, LHBW in LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 1, p. 95.
76. See, for example, John E. Miller, Becoming LIW: The Woman Behind the Legend (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1998), p. 184.
77. RWL to Marion Fiery, May 27, 1931. The version of this letter that survives appears to be Lane’s draft, with words crossed out, but the fact that Fiery received such a letter is documented by her reply; see Marion Fiery to RWL, September 17, 1931.
10. A RUINED COUNTRY
1. In his biography, William Anderson writes that the Wilders’ dog Nero rode on the running board of the Buick, a claim repeated in John Miller’s biography; see Anderson, LIW: A Biography, p. 197; Miller, Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder, p. 192. That may have been the Wilders’ practice near home, but a close reading of the travel diary suggests that the dog was riding inside the vehicle on this longer journey. See LIW, “The Road Back,” A Little House Traveler: Writings from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Journeys Across America (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), pp. 294, 336.
2. Ibid., p. 294.
3. “The Great Plow-Up,” part 1, The Dust Bowl, PBS documentary, directed by Ken Burns, November 18–19, 2012.
4. “Farming in the 1930s: Burning Corn for Fuel,” Wessels Living History Farm, York, Nebraska: http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/money_05.html.
5. LIW, “The Road Back,” A Little House Traveler, p. 301.
6. Ibid., p. 302.
7. Ibid., p. 304.
8. Ibid., p. 307.
9. For a detailed account of the fate of the Ingallses’ De Smet house over the years, see “Not Such a Big House,” Laura Ingalls Wilder Lore, vol. 4, no. 2 (Fall–Winter 1978), pp. 4–6.
10. LIW, “The Road Back,” A Little House Traveler, p. 310.
11. Ibid., p. 311.
12. Ibid., p. 307.
13. Ibid., p. 317.
14. Ibid., p. 320.
15. Ibid., p. 325.
16. Coolidge’s decision took place before the Twenty-Second Amendment, limiting an elected president to two terms in office, came into being. It would be passed by Congress in 1947 and ratified by the states in 1951.
17. LIW, “The Road Back,” A Little House Traveler, p. 337.
18. Lord Byron’s “Parting and Absence: Farewell to His Wife” reads “Fare thee well! and if forever, / Still forever, fare thee well; Even though unforgiving, never / ’Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.”
19. LIW, “The Road Back,” A Little House Traveler, p. 342.
20. Ibid., p. 340.
21. Marion Fiery to RWL, September 17, 1931.
22. RWL to Marion Fiery, undated [ca. November 1931].
23. RWL Notebook 1921–36, entry for November 10, 1931. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #12 (p. 78).
24. Bye to RWL, October 1, 1931.
25. RWL to Bye, November 9, 1931. JOB.
26. Marion Fiery to RWL, December 4, 1931. Fiery says in the letter that the manuscript had been returned to George Bye and “sent to Harpers already.” Kirkus remembered it differently but may have been at pains to conceal Fiery’s role in passing the manuscript along to her, something that could have been seen as disloyal to Fiery’s soon-to-be ex-employer, Knopf. Hence, Kirkus says, “It is an odd story and one that cannot all be told.” Kirkus’s meeting with Fiery and reading of the manuscript probably took place on December 4, the same date as Fiery’s note to Lane, a Friday; Kirkus wrote to Wilder accepting the manuscript on December 8, the following Tuesday.
27. Virginia Kirkus, “The Discovery of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” The Horn Book’s Laura Ingalls Wilder, ed. William Anderson (Boston: The Horn Book, 1987), p. 39.
28. Virginia Kirkus to LIW, December 8, 1931.
29. Ibid., December 15, 1931.
30. See Virginia Kirkus to LIW, December 18, 1931. In this letter, Kirkus explained that the Junior Literary Guild would “pay for the manufacturing costs and a flat author royalty of $350.00 for the 3500 books they use.”
31. Bye to LIW, December 24, 1931.
32. See royalty statement for June 30, 1932, attached to Ida Louise Raymond to LIW, July 22, 1932. HHPL. The statement reports that 1,004 copies of LHBW had sold since the book’s publication in April.
33. Anne T. Eaton, “Books for Children,” New York Times Book Review, April 24, 1932, p. 9.
34. Marion E. Sharp, “The Bookman’s Corner,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, November 15, 1932, p. 20.
35. RWL to Clarence Day, June 26, 1928.
36. RWL Notebook 1921–36, multiple dates. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #12 (pp. 30, 64).
37. Ibid. (p. 64). Tennyson’s poem “The Lotus-Eaters” (1832) would appear in Chapter 12 of LTOP.
38. Both the Bulletin serial and the notes for “A Son of the Soil” are contained in Lane’s papers at the HHPL. See also William T. Anderson, “Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: The Continuing Collaboration,” South Dakota History, vol. 16, no. 2 (Summer 1986), pp. 121–22.
39. RWL, “A Son of the Soil,” Outline and Notes (Story of Almanzo Wilder). HHPL.
40. RWL Diary, 1926–30, entry for October 28, 1930. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #25.
41. In LHBW, Wilder most often refers to her parents as “Ma” and “Pa,” but the name “Charles” occurs nine times, “Caroline,” five.
42. Helen Boylston had published a memoir, Sister: War Diary of a Nurse, in 1927; her popular fictional series for children, Sue Barton: Student Nurse, began appearing in 1936. Reminiscent of Wilder’s work, the first books in the series were based on Boylston’s experience and employed the names of real people for several characters. An author’s note in one edition claimed that “every single incident … actually happened.”
43. RWL to Bye, May 8, 1932.
44. Lane’s attitude toward what she invariably called “juveniles” can be seen in apologetic and belittling references she made to her agent and others; see, for example, her letter to Bye on October 5, 1931, regarding Wilder’s Knopf contract: “I have known nothing about juvenile publications for thirty years or so, but imagine they don’t pay enough to bother with.… It’s really awfully decent of you to bother with this small fry … I don’t expect you really to bother.”
45. See RWL to Jane Burr, January 7, 1932. Smith College Special Collections.
46. Ibid.
47. References to this loan appear in several diary entries: See RWL Notebook 1921–36, entry for 1928. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #12 (p. 59). It reads in part, “I O Craig $2[0]60.” The notation of the amount is unclear, reading either $2060 or $2660. See also RWL Diary, 1931–35, entry for April 28, 1932. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #37. That entry records “mail notification note due at bank, $1,500.” There appears to be no record of such a loan in the Abstract and Index volumes kept in the Wright County Courthouse in Hartville, but Craig may have arranged a personal loan or promissory note.
48. RWL Diary, 1931–35, entry for
December 9, 1931. HHPL, RWL Diaries and Notes, item #37.
49. Ibid., December 10, 1931.
50. Ibid., January 15, 1932. The letter from Percival E. Jackson, addressed to creditors of Palmer & Co., dated January 21, 1932, appears in the LHOP manuscript; see Wilder’s “fragmentary draft,” microfilm image 22 or the reverse of the page Wilder numbered as p. 4.
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