Laura
Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder
Born
February 7, 1867
Died
February 10, 1957
Long before Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books
became part of the Little House on the
Prairie television series, the Little
House books were a favorite of mine as a child, starting with the Little House in the Big Woods, published
by Harper in 1932. It was Wilder’s first book and was based on memories of her
early childhood in the big woods near Pepin, Wisconsin, in the early 1870s. It
propelled her Little House series
consisting of eight more books which recorded pioneer life late in the 19th
century based on her family’s experiences on the American frontier.
I was an avid reader of all the Little House books. I remember taking
one of them outside on my swing during the summer and devouring it as
quickly as possible. There was something magical about the big woods, the
prairie, the unsettled Dakota Territory, the farm, the banks of a Plum Creek
and life during a blizzard. 
Laura Ingalls was the second child of
five children to Charles and Caroline Ingalls. During her childhood, her father
moved the family many times, but over the winter of 1879-1880, he filed for a
formal homestead in De Smet, South Dakota, which became her parents’ and her
older sister’s (Mary) home for the remainder of their lives.
Two months before her 16th
birthday, Laura Ingalls accepted her first teaching position. In order to help
her family financially, she taught three terms in one-room school houses
between 1883 and 1885, worked for the local dressmaker, and attend high school
in De Smet, although she didn’t graduate. Her teaching career and studies ended
when Laura married 28-year-old Almanzo Wilder on August 25, 1885. She was
eighteen years old.
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| Wilder House in De Smet, SD |
Although there is much controversy over
some works, which Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, Rose, supposedly claimed to
collaborate on with her mother, the brilliance and importance of the books far outweigh second guessing what might be truthful or false claims.
Laura Ingalls Wilder is considered a
literary legend. School-age children have been enthralled with the series for
decades. I was one of them.