“Love and service, with a belief in the future and expectation of better things in the tomorrow of the world, is a good working philosophy.”
~Laura Ingalls Wilder
Every so often, an author comes along who can make a piece of fiction seem so real that readers mistake it for unvarnished truth. Laura Ingalls Wilder was such an author. Her prose was so vivid and her tales so relate-able that even now, fifty-six years after her death, her tales are still beloved around the world. I’ve read the eight books of her children’s series (plus her unfinished adult novel, published posthumously as The First Four Years) several times, as well as a number of biographies* on both Laura and her daughter and collaborator, Rose Wilder Lane.
For my most recent time reading through, I decided to set up a timeline of Laura’s real life (see my work at the end of this post) to juxtapose against the events of her novels. The end result was a deeper appreciation of Laura’s skills as a writer. Her life, even as a young girl, was a lot harder than her stories would ever let on. A big part of why Laura’s stories have been so popular for so long is the timeless morals embedded in them – hard work, perseverance, love of family, courage to start over, taking joy in the little things that life brings us instead of wallowing in the sorrows. She imparts lessons on how to live life well, in the guise of children’s tales about “when Grandma was a little girl.”
The most important thing I gleaned: how good storytelling lies in making common things interesting. At the end of the day, it’s not fancy words or intricate plot lines that make a work endure. Instead, it’s how the reader can relate to the ordinary and yet make it more than ordinary, like Almanzo’s mother bartering with Nick the tin-dealer in Farmer Boy, or Laura helping Pa bring in the hay at the beginning of The Long Winter. The old adage “simplicity is the key to good design” works well here, because in writing, simplicity means it’s easier for the readers to relate.
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The Real Laura’s timeline:
February 7, 1867 – Laura Elizabeth Ingalls is born in a cabin outside of Pepin, Wisconsin. She is the second daughter of Charles and Caroline Quiner Ingalls. The couple also have an older daughter, Mary, who was born in January 1865.
September 1869 – The Ingalls family moves to Kansas and illegally sets up a home on land reserved for the Osage tribe. Laura is two years old at the time.
August 1870 – A third Ingalls child, daughter Carrie, is born while the family is in Kansas. Shortly after, government agents force the family off of the reservation and they return to Pepin.
February 1874 – Shortly after Laura’s fifth birthday, the family sets off for the prairies of southwest Minnesota, settling on a homestead on the banks of Plum Creek outside of Walnut Station (later Walnut Grove), MN.
Fall 1875 – The Ingallses move into town to await the birth of their fourth child and only son, Charles Frederick (known as Freddie). The boy is born November 1.
Summer 1876 – After locusts destroy their harvest for the second year in a row, the family moves to Burr Oak, Iowa to help some friends run a hotel. While waiting for the hotel to be ready, the family stays with Uncle Peter (Charles’ brother) and his wife, Aunt Eliza (Caroline’s sister). Nine month old Freddie takes ill and dies on August 27. Soon after, the family continues on to Burr Oak to enter their partnership in the hotel.
January 1877 – Worried about the influence the hotel’s rough boarders have on their girls, the family moves into an apartment in town.
May 23, 1877 – Baby Grace, the last of the Ingalls daughters, is born.
Fall 1877 – The family returns to Walnut Grove and a warm welcome from friends.
Summer 1878 – Laura, now 11, begins working in the Walnut Grove hotel for 50 cents a week to help support her family.
Winter 1878 – Charles Ingalls elected the town’s first Justice of the Peace.
Spring 1879 – Laura’s older sister, Mary, gets very ill and has a stroke which renders her blind.
1879 – Receiving a promising offer from his sister, Charles takes a job as a book and time-keeper for the Dakota Central Railroad and the family pushes west into Dakota Territory. Caroline makes him promise this will be their last move.
February 19, 1880 – After spending a mild winter in the supply house owned by the railroad, the family takes out claims on land for a homestead. Shortly after, they purchase two business lots which will be part of the new town.
Spring 1880 – Town of DeSmet is platted in Dakota Territory (later South Dakota).
October 1880 – Beginning of the Hard Winter. A young couple, George and Maggie Masters, lived with the family through the winter in the store building the Ingallses owned in town. The couple’s selfish nature contrasted completely with the resourcefulness of the Ingallses and with the real-life bravery of Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland, who risked their lives to bring back wheat to the starving town after the blizzards blocked all trains from getting through. While writing her novelization later on, Laura completely left the Masters’ existence out of the tale and insisted to her daughter Rose that to include the couple at all “would spoil the story.”
December 1882 – Laura gets her first teaching certificate, even though she’s not yet 16. She accepts her first teaching job at the Bouche school, and absolutely hates it. Fortunately, Almanzo Wilder is willing to make the trek to take her home to DeSmet for the weekends until the term is over.
Early 1883 – Almanzo starts courting Laura, who is ten years his junior. She calls him “Manly;” his name for her is “Bessie.”
Spring 1884 – Laura teaches at the Perry school a short distance from her father’s homestead to earn money for an organ for Mary. This would also feature in her later novels.
August 25, 1885 – Despite her reservations about not wanting to marry a farmer, Laura and Almanzo marry.
December 6, 1886 – Daughter Rose is born
July 1887 – After storms had destroyed their crops the year before, the Wilders get a decent harvest. However, a “fire of unknown origin” burns down their barn along with all the hay and grain they had stored in it.
1887 – Charles and Caroline decide to quit farming and live in town. Charles builds them a house on 3rd Street and takes up carpentry and odd jobs for money. Over the years, he also serves in several different civic roles in the town.
1888 – Both Laura and Almanzo are struck down in the diphtheria epidemic. Laura makes a full recovery, but Almanzo has a stroke after trying to get back to work too soon after his illness. The aftereffects of this stroke will challenge him for the rest of his life.
1889 – South Dakota admitted as a state. Worst growing season yet for the Wilders.
August 1889 – Laura and Almanzo’s second child, a boy, is born. He dies suddenly less than two weeks later, without even having been given a formal name. Two weeks after the baby dies, toddler Rose accidentally sets the house on fire.
Mid-November 1889 – Wilders decide to move to Minnesota to stay with Almanzo’s parents while they decide next steps. They set off the following June, along with Laura’s cousin Peter.
October 1890 – Peter heads south with some other young men for Florida, writing to Laura that the climate may help with Almanzo’s recovery.
October 5, 1891 – On Peter’s advice, the Wilders set off for Florida. The climate makes Laura ill and she never feels comfortable there, even going so far as to taking to sleeping with a gun. The family would stay less than a year.
August 1892 – The family returns to Spring Valley, MN, then back to DeSmet.
July 17, 1894 – After doing some research, the Wilders move to Missouri to try their luck in the Ozarks. Traveling with them are friends Frank and Emma Cooley and the Cooleys’ two young sons. The journey is a difficult one, with the families not even crossing into Missouri until August 22.
September 21, 1894 – The Wilders purchase Rocky Ridge Farm outside of Mansfield, MO for $400. This will be their final home. Over the years, the Wilders become prominent members of the Mansfield community and will expand their modest house as well as their acreage.
Feb. 1911 – After the editor hears the reading of a speech Laura wrote for a womens’ organization she belonged to, he invites her to submit articles for the bimonthly farm magazine The Missouri Ruralist. She will write articles for the publication until 1923.
June 1919 – With help from Rose, Laura publishes her first article for McCall’s magazine, giving her writing national exposure. Titled “Whom Will You Marry?,” this is also the first time Laura identifies herself as “Laura Ingalls Wilder” on her byline.
1929-30 – Laura writes an early memoir about her life as a young girl up until the time she married Almanzo. Titled Pioneer Girl, it comes in at roughly 200 pages. Rose tries to sell it to be serialized in a magazine, but there are no takers. After taking some of the early bits out and reworking them into a seperate, 20-page story called “When Grandma Was A Little Girl,” Rose sends a copy to Marion Fiery in the juvenile department of the publisher Alfred A. Knopf, who expressed strong interest in its expansion to a novel.
1931- Due to the effects of the Great depression, Knopf closes its children’s division before Laura’s book can be published. Fiery helps get the manuscript to Viginia Kirkus at Harper and Brothers.
April 6, 1932 – Little House in the Big Woods officially published by Harper to glowing reviews.
Summer 1933 – Laura’s second book, Farmer Boy, is published.
September 1935 – Little House on the Prairie is published.
Fall 1937 – On The Banks of Plum Creek is published.
October 17, 1937 – Laura’s first big public appearance to promote her books takes place in Detroit.
December 1937 – Laura sends Rose the draft of By The Shores of Silver Lake along with the synopses for the next three volumes. The two women would have a steady correspondence on these novels throughout 1938. At some point in the late 1930s, Laura also starts work on an adult novel about the first four years of her married life with Almanzo. This book is not meant to be part of her children’s series, and she does not complete the book (although the manuscript will be published after her death as The First Four Years).
Fall 1939 – By The Shores of Silver Lake is published.
1940 – The Long Winter is published.
Fall 1941 – Little Town on the Prairie is published.
Spring 1943 – These Happy Golden Years is published to finish out her series. She does not intend to continue the series into the fictional Laura’s adulthood as it would require a very different approach than the child Laura, although in the late 1930s she does begin an adult-oriented novel about the first four years of her and Almanzo’s marriage. She does not finish this novel, which is published after her and Rose’s deaths as The First Four Years.
October 23, 1949 – Almanzo dies at Rocky Ridge Farm of a heart attack. Laura becomes more reclusive as she gets older, living in a few rooms of the farmhouse she and Almanzo shared.
February 10, 1957 – Laura dies a few days after her 90th birthday.
*John E. Miller’s book Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder is my top recommendation for anyone looking to explore more into the life of the “real” Laura.
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