Laura Ingalls Wilder was an influential author that has inspired many children around the world. Her books have told the tales of her remarkable story and have shown what it is like to be an American Pioneer.
She was born on February 7, 1867, in a small log cabin in the Big Woods, on a farm, near Pepin, Wisconsin. Her father, Charles Phillip Ingalls, and her mother, Caroline Quiner Ingalls, had four girls in which Laura was the second, and one son. Her older sister Mary had been born on January 10, 1865.
Laura and her family left the Big Woods in 1869, and headed to the Osage Indian Reserve in Kansas where they stayed for just one year. There, ...view middle of the document...
Besides school, there were many chores on the farm, including, milking the cows and making cheese and butter from the milk, planting and tending to the garden, butchering and smoking the hogs, making sugar from the maple sap, gathering wild honey, and making skins from deer and other animal hides. Besides this, Charles farmed the land, shot wild game, fished, and trapped animals for their pelts. Caroline did the cleaning, sewing, cooking, and gardening.
The winters in Dakota Territory were very severe. Many times the girls had to stay home from school because of the blizzards. During the second winter, the blizzards were so fierce that the town ran out of food. A man named Almanzo Wilder made a daring trip through the blizzard and brought back wheat for the whole town.
When Laura was fifteen years old, she became a teacher and taught in a small schoolhouse twelve miles from DeSmet. She lived with a family nearby the school but was always homesick for her own family. So, every Friday, Almanzo would come with his sled and drive her home for the weekend and then he would take her back. When she was done teaching at the school, Almanzo would still give her rides and take her to dances and picnics. He proposed to her, and they were married on August 25, 1885, when Laura was eighteen years old.
In 1886 they had a baby girl and named her Rose. Soon after the happy birth of their baby, hard times came. First, their crop dried up. Then, Laura and Almanzo became ill with diphtheria and Almanzo’s right leg was paralyzed. Later, their baby boy died soon after his birth. And lastly, their house burned down. Still, Laura stayed strong through these rough times.
After two short moves to Minnesota and Florida, Laura, Almanzo, and Rose, moved back to DeSmet. Here, Laura earned some money working as a dressmaker, and Almanzo as carpenter.
One day, Laura saw an advertisement proclaiming that Missouri was “The Land of the Big Red Apples”. So, in 1894, Laura and her family left DeSmet for good, and headed to a town called Mansfield, in Missouri. There, they bought a farm for one hundred dollars that Laura saved from her sewing job. It took forty-five days to make the long journey in the covered wagon, and Laura kept a journal of each day.
After finally arriving at their new home, Laura decided to name it, Rocky Ridge Farm. Soon after they moved into the tiny, one-room log cabin, they started to cut down trees, clear away stones, and plant their new apple orchard. While waiting for their land to grow good crops, the Wilder’s moved into a house closer to Rose’s school. Rose was a terrific student, just as Laura had been. To bring in some money, Almanzo delivered oil and gas in a...
