89. See Leonard S. Marcus, Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of American Children’s Literature (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008), p. 159.
90. Ursula Nordstrom, quoted in the introduction to Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, collected and edited by Leonard S. Marcus (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), p. xxii.
91. Ursula Nordstrom, “Re-Issuing the Wilder Books,” Top of the News, American Library Association newsletter (April 1967), unpaginated reprint.
92. Ibid.
93. William T. Anderson, Introduction to The Horn Book’s Laura Ingalls Wilder (Boston: Horn Book, 1987), p. 4.
94. Ibid.
95. Garth Williams, “Illustrating the Little House Books,” in Anderson, Horn Book, p. 27.
96. Ibid., p. 28.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. Ibid., p. 34.
100. LIW to Bye, June 10, 1944.
101. Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1964), p. 312.
102. John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), pp. 93, 103.
103. Ibid., p. 91.
104. For details about the Gift Book Program, see Tsuyoshi Ishihara, Mark Twain in Japan: The Cultural Reception of an American Icon (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 2005), p. 63.
105. See Noriko Suzuki, “Japanese Democratization and the Little House Books: The Relation between General Head Quarters and The Long Winter in Japan after World War II,” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 1 (Spring 2006), p. 66.
106. Ibid., p. 67.
107. Ibid., p. 71.
108. Ibid.
109. Ibid., p. 72.
110. Eiko Matsunawa to LIW, May 27, 1949. HHPL.
111. Ibid., May 8, 1949, HHPL, and July 1, 1949. De Smet Collection.
112. Suzuki, p83n41.
113. Ibid., p. 76.
114. Just as The Long Winter was distributed in Japan in the aftermath of the war, so copies of Little House on the Prairie, translated into Persian, were distributed to newly reinstated women members of a literary society in Herat, Afghanistan, after the Taliban fled the region in 2001. See Amy Waldman, “A Nation Challenged: Culture; Afghan Poets Revive a Literary Tradition,” New York Times, December 16, 2001.
115. See the recollections of Rev. and Mrs. Carleton Knight in Hines, “I Remember Laura,” p. 224.
116. See Anderson, Laura Wilder of Mansfield, pp. 34–35.
117. Ralph Ulveling, quoted in Chester Bradley, “Mansfield Woman’s Books Favored Both by Children and Grown-Ups,” Kansas City Star, April 10, 1949.
118. LIW to Bye, July 16, 1949.
119. LIW to Ralph A. Ulveling, Director, Detroit Public Library, May 3, 1949, reprinted in “Detroit Honors Laura,” Top of the News (American Library Association newsletter), April 1967.
120. LIW, Letter sent to be read at the May 12, 1949, dedication of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Branch of the Detroit Public Library. Reprinted in Top of the News, April 1967.
121. Neta Seal, diary, quoted in Burkhiser, p. 22.
122. Ibid.
123. Interview with Neta Seal in Dan L. White and Robert F. White, Laura’s Friends Remember: Close Friends Recall Laura Ingalls Wilder (Hartville, MO: Ashley-Preston, 1992), p. 30.
124. Autograph book, circa 1880s. Wright County Library Collection, Mansfield, MO.
125. Thomas Moore, “The Fire-Worshippers,” Lalla Rookh: An Oriental Romance (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1888), p. 196.
126. Almanzo Wilder’s shoes and the tools he used to craft them are on display in the Mansfield Collection.
127. William Anderson, interview with Helen Boylston, August 4, 1981. Transcript, HHPL, WHC.
128. The original “Resolutions of Respect” is held at the Mansfield Collection; it is reproduced in Teresa Lynn, Little Lodges on the Prairie: Freemasonry and Laura Ingalls Wilder (Austin: Tranquility Press, 2014), p. 267.
129. LIW to an unnamed “friend,” November 19, 1949. Mansfield Collection.
130. LIW to Mrs. E. F. Green, November 18, 1949. De Smet Collection.
131. Almanzo Wilder’s Last Will and Testament, dated October 21, 1944. De Smet Collection.
132. RWL to LIW, July 9, 1951. De Smet Collection.
133. Roscoe Jones, as quoted in Hines, “I Remember Laura,” p. 145.
134. Holtz, Ghost, p. 337.
135. LIW to Ida Carson, February 1, 1950, in SL LIW, pp. 316–17. Carson, who had taught in South Dakota and Iowa, kept up a correspondence with Wilder in the 1940s; see ibid., p. 275.
136. Sheldon Jones and Roscoe Jones in Hines, “I Remember Laura,” pp. 139, 144.
137. Roscoe Jones, ibid., p. 144.
138. Sheldon Jones, ibid., p. 142.
139. Iola Jones, ibid., p. 135.
140. LIW, Letter sent to be read at the May 1, 1950, dedication of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Room. Pomona Collection.
141. LIW to Clara J. Webber, May 20, 1950. Wilder’s exchange of letters with Webber is reproduced at the end of the microfilm copy of LTOP. Pomona Collection.
142. “Mrs. Peggy Brown Tells of Meeting Famous Writer, Laura Ingalls Wilder,” undated clipping. Private Collection.
143. Florence G. Williams, Librarian, Mansfield Branch, to General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief, Far East Command, November 16, 1950. MacArthur Memorial, Norfolk, Virginia.
144. D. R. Nugent, Lt. Col., USMC, Chief, CIE Section to Florence G. Williams, January 29, 1951. MacArthur Memorial.
145. The rumor was passed along by William Anderson; see his LIW: A Biography, p. 224. Noriko Suzuki repeated it in her essay on “Japanese Democratization,” adding that “MacArthur and Wilder knew each other, and MacArthur sent Wilder a congratulatory cablegram for her birthday in 1951”; see Suzuki, “Japanese Democratization,” p. 69, and p. 80n18. Suzuki also suggested that Jean MacArthur, the general’s wife, “loved the Little House books” and encouraged her husband to select the series for publication; Suzuki gave as her source Jean Coday, the longtime head of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum in Mansfield, who recalled hearing the anecdote; see Suzuki, pp. 67 and 78n8. Archivists at the MacArthur Memorial have found no evidence of a cablegram from MacArthur to Wilder. To date, their only findings are the two letters cited above. Personal communication, James W. Zobel, MacArthur Memorial, to author, October 14, 2015.
146. LIW to RWL, July 30, 1952.
147. See commentary by William Anderson, The Laura Ingalls Wilder Country Cookbook (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 126; the Haviland china is pictured on p. 58.
148. Lane’s 1931 gift set is on display at the Rocky Ridge Farmhouse and is often pointed out by tour guides, who remark on the oddity of a daughter giving a set of pink dishes to her father.
149. For the woodcut comparison, I am indebted to Sallie Ketcham, “Fairy Tale, Folklore, and the Little House in the Deep Dark Woods,” Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder (Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2017), p. 228.
150. The lead of a carbon pencil is a combination of graphite and carbon, producing more intense blacks than a standard graphite pencil.
151. Elizabeth K. Wallace and James D. Wallace, Garth Williams, American Illustrator: A Life (New York: Beaufort Books, 2016), p. 85. It should be noted that the uniform edition would not be entirely uniform. In later volumes, Gentry and Williams apparently hit upon the idea of using miniature
embellishments to set off the enlarged capital letter at the beginning of chapters, introducing a gorgeous panoply of snowflakes, plum boughs, milking stools, lamps, stoves, tools, trees, grasses, and flowers, each unique. Some volumes developed a theme for these miniatures: Plum Creek favored tree limbs; The Long Winter, garlands of snowflakes; and Little Town, a succession of storefronts and buildings. Early volumes—Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy, and Little House on the Prairie—lack these. So does Silver Lake, which in many ways appears to be the least adorned of the 1953 volumes, perhaps reflecting an adaptation to older readers. These Happy Golden Years includes tiny drawings at the beginnings and ends of chapters, but the placement differs.
152. See LIW to Ursula Nordstrom, November 24, 1947, in SL LIW, p. 292. See also LIW to Aubrey Sherwood, November 18, 1939, in ibid., pp. 210–11.
153. RWL to LIW, undated, late 1937.
154. LHOP, p. 1.
155. Ursula Nordstrom to unidentified reader, October 14, 1952, in Marcus, Dear Genius, p. 55.
156. Ibid., p. 54.
157. Ibid.
158. LHOP in LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 1, p. 2.
159. See LIW, LTOP, 1941 edition, p. 243. The passage deleted was this: “With the left foot first, / The right foot following, / The HEEL down MIGHTy HARD, / It’s ten platoons of dandy coons, / March in the Skidamore Guard!” For the other minstrel song, “Old Zip Coon,” see PG, p. 35.
160. LIW to Ursula Nordstrom, May 21, 1953, in SL LIW, p. 352.
161. Frederick Douglass, “The Hutchinson Family.—Hunkerism,” North Star, October 27, 1848.
162. LIW to the children of Santiam School, Lebanon, Oregon, March 8, 1951. De Smet Collection.
163. LIW to Mrs. Helmboldt, April 25, 1952. De Smet Collection.
164. See the recollections of Peggy Dennis in Hines, “I Remember Laura,” p. 221.
165. See the Brown Brothers Book Store advertisement in the Springfield Leader and Press, November 14, 1952, and “Ozarks Author Meets Admirer,” Springfield Daily News, November 16, 1952.
166. Romines, p. ix.
167. Ibid., p. 3.
168. “Mrs. Wilder’s Day,” Springfield Leader and Press, November 17, 1952.
169. LIW to Ursula Nordstrom, June 6, 1953, in SL LIW, p. 353.
170. Ibid., August 13, 1953. The telegram is reproduced in Anderson, The Horn Book, p. 7.
171. Anderson, The Horn Book, pp. 19–20.
172. LIW to Dr. Irvin Kerlan, May 31, 1954, in SL LIW, p. 364.
173. Versions of Harper’s composite letter are included in Dear Laura, pp. 149–51; and LIW: The Little House Books, vol. 2, pp. 801–802.
174. Mary Amelia Ingalls, “My Father’s Violin,” in Reader, p. 13.
175. Edgar Allan Poe, “Eldorado,” Selected Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Modern Library, 1951), p. 45; William Benton Clulow, Sunshine and Shadows, Or, Sketches of Thought—Philosophic and Religious (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1883).
176. See Anderson, LIW: A Biography, p. 230.
177. LIW to Lydia Morgan, June 13, 1954. De Smet Collection.
178. LIW to Mrs. Ada Keating, February 26, 1951. De Smet Collection.
179. LIW to Neta Seal, undated. De Smet Collection.
180. LIW to Neta Seal, August 3, 1951. De Smet Collection.
181. Undated. De Smet Collection.
182. Nava Austin, interview with the author, April 29, 2014. See also White and White, Laura’s Friends Remember, p. 9, and Roscoe Jones in Hines, “I Remember Laura,” p. 143.
183. Fred Kiewit, “Stories That Had to Be Told: Laura Ingalls Wilder Wrote Eight Books After She Was 65, But Now, at 88 and in Poor Health, She’s Quitting,” Kansas City Star, May 22, 1955.
184. Ibid.
185. Ibid.
186. List of Bible references, Mansfield Collection; Matthew 7:24–27.
187. Neta Seal in White and White, Laura’s Friends Remember, p. 29.
188. RWL to Jasper Crane, January 20, 1957.
189. RWL to Jasper Crane, January 30, 1957, in The Lady and the Tycoon, p. 169.
190. Ibid., p. 170.
191. Carl Hartley Sr., in White and White, Laura’s Friends Remember, p. 40.
192. Program from Wilder’s funeral. Malone Collection.
193. “Laura I. Wilder, Author, Dies at 90,” New York Times, February 12, 1957.
194. LIW, “First Memories of Father,” Reader, p. 160.
195. Ibid.
196. Ibid., pp. 161–62.
14. THERE IS GOLD IN THE FARM
1. William Anderson, interview with the author, February 12, 2016. Anderson was recalling Irene Lichty’s description of Lane’s behavior in the aftermath of her mother’s death. An edited version of the interview was published as “The Wilder Women,” in Slate Book Review, March 7, 2016: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2016/03/the_selected_letters_of_laura_ingalls_wilder_interview_with_editor_william.html.
2. See Holtz, Ghost, p. 338.
3. RWL to Neta Seal, March 2, 1957. De Smet Collection.
4. Mansfield Mirror, May 2, 1957.
5. See RWL to Neta Seal, April 30, 1957. Wilder’s wishes regarding her belongings were not spelled out in her will, but she had instructed Lane to give to the Seals all of the household “furnishings” that she herself did not wish to keep. De Smet Collection.
6. RWL to Neta Seal, January 1, 1958. De Smet Collection.
7. See Bill of Sale between Mr. and Mrs. Silas Seal and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Association, August 15, 1958. De Smet Collection.
8. LIW Last Will and Testament, State of Missouri, County of Wright, February 6, 1952.
9. See James O. Brown to Roger MacBride, April 16, 1959, in which Brown explains that payments under the Wilder contracts are being made to George T. Bye and Company, “which is still in existence and functioning.” JOB.
10. See Peter Paterson, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, to James Oliver Brown, January 29, 1959. JOB.
11. See timeline in complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri, Southern Division, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon, Attorney General of Missouri, Plaintiff v. Abigail MacBride Allen, Joe B. Cox, personal representative of the estate of Roger Lea MacBride, and HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., case no. 99-3368-CV-S-3-ECF.
12. See Louis V. Haynie, Harper & Brothers, to James Oliver Brown, March 6, 1959. JOB.
13. See James Oliver Brown to Roger MacBride, April 16, 1959, in which Brown urges MacBride to consider that his actions will deny money to “the helpless and incompetent widow of a man who for years served Mrs. Wilder and Mrs. Lane faithfully and well.” JOB.
14. Memorandum of meeting between Roger MacBride and F. Richard Ford III, Esquire, Cummings & Lockwood, August 20, 1959. Ford was the attorney representing Brown; subsequent to the meeting a legal memorandum was produced by Ford’s office covering major points made by MacBride on Lane’s behalf. JOB.
15. Roger MacBride to F. Richard Ford, III, Esq., Cummings and Lockwood, September 24, 1959. JOB.
16. Memorandum of meeting between Roger MacBride and F. Richard Ford III, Esquire, August 20, 1959. JOB.
17. See James Oliver Brown to Frank S. MacGregor, Esq., Harper and Brothers, September 28, 1959; see also “Agreement Between: James Brown Associates, Inc. as Successor to George T. Bye and Company, James Oliver Brown, and Rose Wilder Lane, Relative to Certain Works of Laura Ingalls Wilder.”
JOB.
18. James Oliver Brown to Nannine Joseph, September 8, 1959. JOB.
19. See “Royalties from Wilder Books Left to Local Library,” Mansfield Mirror, February 21, 1957. HHPL.
20. See chart attached to Mary Russell to Roger MacBride, June 23, 1959. HHPL.
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