Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder Edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal

I loved reading Pioneer Girl two years ago and was excited to pick up Perspectives while I was in De Smet this summer.  Pioneer Girl Perspectives is a collection of essays about Wilder’s life and works. It is a fascinating collection and very interesting to me.  I learned a lot and have a lot of favorite quotes – pretty much the entire book!  The essays included how Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane worked together to create the Little House series, why the Little House books have a lasting appeal, how Pioneer Girl finally came to print, childhood myths explored, etc.  

Interesting Tidbits from the book:

“Leaning on her daughter’s apprenticeship in yellow journalism, Laura Ingalls Wilder felt free to meld genres, molding fact into fiction in ways that she did not acknowledge even to herself, attending to her novels’ ‘truth’ while providing the succor of a fictitious happy ending.  That was a feature, she said, of ‘all good novels.’ It is a testament to the moral complexity of her art that we are still wrestling, decades after the fact, to separate truth from fiction.”

Laura and Rose had a tenuis working relationship.  Rose’s two most famous books were based on Laura’s autobiography that she helped to work get published.  After it didn’t get published as an adult novel, Rose reworked episodes of it for her adult fiction while Laura wrote her children’s books from the source material.

“She never glamorized anything; yet she saw the loveliness in everything.”  Illustrator Garth Williams on Laura Ingalls.  I was interested to read how his research for illustrating the books helped to solve a lot of the mysteries about place and settings for the books.  For example Walnut Grove Minnesota didn’t know it was the setting for On the Banks of Plum Creek until Williams visited.

I read that an author I enjoy, Louise Erdrich started a series with the Birchbark House to tell the Native American side of the story with a little Native American girl growing up in the big woods of Wisconsin and getting displaced by white settlers.  I’m reading this book now!  It is interesting how the Little House books always describe the land as empty when it was in fact, inhabited by Native American tribes.

“Wilder’s most devoted fans do not simply identify with Laura or want to read about her, they want to be Laura.  They attend conferences based on Wilder’s work.  They research the lives of her friends, family, and acquaintances.  They buy tickets to Wilder museums, pageants, and plays.  They go on literary pilgrimages to the prairie towns and home sites associated with the books.  They throw back their sunbonnets, kick off their shoes, and go wading on the banks of Plum Creek.”  Hmmm... I have done everything in this paragraph except for attending a Little House conference.  It felt strange to be so accurately described.  Am I a Little house superfan?

Overall, Pioneer Girl Perspectives is a riveting collection of essays that delve into the many depths of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her classic series of books.  This is a must read for any fan of the Little House series.

Book Source:  Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Homes, De Smet, South Dakota

Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life by Pamela Smith Hill

I love the cover of this biography.  I had never seen this image before, Laura looks lovely and quite stylish.  I purchased this biography while vacationing in De Smet, South Dakota this past June.  It seemed a perfect read for our trip into the land of Laura.

This biography is not an in depth look at the details of Laura’s life, but more a look at what shaped Laura as a writer.  I was very interested that she had the idea jotted down for writing children’s’ book about her pioneer childhood back in 1902 after Pa’s death.  She saved her first foray into literature with a poem that she wrote in school.  It seems that becoming an author was a lifelong dream of Wilder’s.

Laura earned extra income as an adult writing articles on farm life for the Missouri Ruralist and other papers.  I found it interesting that she also was published in a major magazine, McCall’s, as well due to urging from her daughter Rose.

Laura and Rose had a unique relationship.  They actually both became established authors at the same time, but Rose was known on the national level, while Laura was local.  Rose pushed Laura to write and helped her when she first tried to publish her autobiography, Pioneer Girl.  Rose also helped herself to using Laura’s story from Pioneer Girl in her own adult fiction.  This caused understandable fiction in the family.  It was interesting that the biography noted that if they wouldn’t have been mother and daughter, Rose would have ended up in court due to plagiarism charges.

With Rose’s help, Laura crafted children’s books from Pioneer Girl.  Laura was a gifted writer and Rose was a gifted editor.  It was very interesting how they took a true story and fictionalized it to tell a tale.  There has been much debate about this through the years as well as on the true authorship of the books, but research has shown that Laura wrote the novels with Rose’s editorial guidance.  They had a great partnership.

Favorite quotes:           

                          

“I began to think what a wonderful childhood I had had.  I had seen the whole frontier, the woods, the Indian country of the Great Plains, the frontier towns, the building of railroads in wild, unsettled country, homesteading and farmers coming in to take possession. . . Then I understood that in my own life I represented a whole period of American history.”  - Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Did Wilder’s adolescence, spent describing people, places, and scenes for Mary, contribute to her development as first a storyteller and later a writer? “ – I’ve always wondered this myself.

“The snow was scudding low over the drifts of the white world outside the little claim shanty.  It was blowing thru the cracks in its walls and forming little piles and miniature drifts on the floor and even on the desks before which several children sat, trying to study, for this abandoned claim shanty that had served as the summer home of a homesteader on the Dakota prairies was being used a s a schoolhouse during the winter.”  - This was from a column Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in 1924.  She already had perfected her vivid descriptions that she used in her later fiction.

“Nevertheless, she struggled with the idea that her worked lacked artistry, that she wrote what sold rather than what would endure.”  Rose Wilder Lane.  I’ll admit, I’ve only read her fiction because of her mother and it lacks the artistry and enduring quality of her mother’s work.

Overall, Laura Ingalls Wilder:  A Writer’s Life is a great work on the process Wilder went through to create her classic works and the great partnership that Wilder and Lane had that allowed this work to flourish.  This is a must read for Laura Ingalls Wilder fans.

Book Source:  Purchased at the Ingalls Family Homestead in de Smet, South Dakota

Top 10 Pioneer Books

Pioneers – those hardy souls who left behind family and all that was known to them to explore unknown reaches and try for a chance at a better life.  I have been intrigued by pioneers and explorers since I was a child.  The following are my top pioneer picks in no particular order.

1. The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck – Two modern day brothers decide to travel the Oregon Trail with an old fashioned schooner and team. This was a hilarious road trip tales as well as including a great history on the original pioneers who took the Oregon Trail.  I loved it!
2. Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon – The first three books of the Outlander series are about Scotland and its history; book four changes to the frontier life as the Frasiers’ settle in the United States in the 18^th century.  Jamie and Claire arrive in the United States via shipwreck.  Jamie eventually decides to start a settlement, Frasier’s Ridge in North Carolina.  Building a cabin, settlement, and the hardships of making it all work are all described in vivid detail.  I especially love how Claire uses her 20^th century doctor knowledge to become a skilled 18^th century healer.  Overall, this is the story of Jamie and Claire carving out a life on the frontier.
3. Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati – Into the Wilderness is a continuation of Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper.  It is the story of Nathaniel Bonner (Hawkeye and Cora’s son) and Elizabeth Middleton, a 29-year old English spinster who has moved to a remove New York mountain village to join her family in 1792.  Will her refined English ways be able to handle the trials of living on the frontier?
4.  Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder – Lyrical series that explores the
   
   many moves and lives of the Ingalls family from Wisconsin to Kansas to Minnesota to South Dakota.  The Little House Series is descriptive and wonderfully told from a child’s point of view.  It describes the lives of pioneers in great detail thinking that kids won’t know what is meant otherwise.  This is perfect for us that are so far removed from the time to teach us how pioneers lived and did their tasks.  The love of the Ingalls family helps them through trials and tribulations.  They lived during changing times and Wilder was able to immortalize family, friends, and a way of life.
5. Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder – Pioneer Girl was Laura’s original book written for adults that eventually was turned into the Little House series for children (and her daughter Rose’s books for adults).  This publication has pictures, maps, and notes that meticulously detail the real journey of the Ingalls and answered many burning questions I’ve had since childhood.  This is a grittier tale than the Little House series.
   
6. Free Land by Rose Wilder Lane – As I discovered in Pioneer Girl, Rose Wilder Lane helped her mother by editing her original adult novel, Pioneer Girl, and then helped her edit them to children’s books.  Lane then used the stories to write her own adult novels.  Rose Wilder Lane was a very famous author in her day, but has been eclipsed in modern times by her mother.  Lane’s pioneer books are worth a read, especially for lovers of pioneer tales.  Mary and David Beaton are newlyweds that travel to the Dakota Territory to homestead 300 acres.  Isolation, blizzards, and cyclones are just some of the trials they face.  Their story is very similar to the real life stories of Almanzo and Laura Wilder and Charles and Caroline Ingalls.
7. Young Pioneers by Rose Wilder Lane – This novel was originally published as Let the Hurricane Roar.  It tells the story of David and Molly.  They are newly married and just 18 and 16 when they head west with the blessing of their families.  They have a rough time in the newly settled west when a grasshopper plague hits.  You can think of this book as an adult version of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s On the Bank of Plum Creek.
8. My Antonia by Willa Cather – Willa Cather perfecting captured the pioneering spirit in two of her most famous works, My Antonia and O Pioneers.  In My Antonia, Jim Burden is raised by his pioneering grandparents in Nebraska.  His nearest neighbors are the Bohemian Shimerda family and their daughter, Antonia.  Antonia and Jim have many adventures together and experience the trials and joys of the pioneer life.
   
9.  O Pioneers by Willa Cather - O Pioneers is the story of Alexandra Bergson.  She is strong woman who takes over the family farm after her father’s death and makes it a success in Nebraska during pioneer times.
10. A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich – A Lantern in Her Hand is the story of a mother, Abbie McKenzie Deal.  As a young woman, Abbie dreams of a singing career, but instead marries a neighbor boy and Civil War vet, Will Deal.  Newly married Will and Abbie Deal move to Nebraska to start a family.  It’s a hard life starting a new farm and family while living in a soddie.  Abbie lives live sacrificing all for the sake of her children.  All of Abbie’s life is packed in this one novel, but I love her reflections as an old lady on her life and decisions.

What is your favorite pioneer book?  What elements of a pioneer’s tale draws you to the story?

For a travelogue of my visit to two pioneering sites – the settings for Little House in the Big Woods and On the Banks of Plum Creek, check out this post.

Young Pioneers by Rose Wilder Lane

Young Pioneers is the tale of a brave young couple, Molly and David, who travel west to find a homestead of their home after their marriage.  They are only 18 and 16 years old at the time.  Molly in particular is a brave young woman who not only gives birth on the prairie with only her husband in attendance, but also manages to live alone and keep the homestead when David has to get work out east after a grasshopper plague.  “In the daylight she saw the devastated country more clearly.  There was nothing but bare earth to the rim of the sky.”    I was amazed by her pluck and determination against all odds.

Lane gives great characterization and setting.  You feel through Molly’s eyes what it would be like to be alone on the prairie and the courage required by pioneers. I loved this description:

“This was a cloud ineffably beautiful, soft as moonbeams, iridescent as mother of pearl.  It covered the sun, and the sun shone through it gently with kindness.”

Lane also talks a lot about the gumption of the pioneers.  The pioneers who made it were tough and had that gumption, those that didn’t make it, lacked it.

“Suddenly she was happy, because she understood why he hadn’t come to her for comfort.  It was his pride- his pride in taking care of her and the baby.  She would love him just as much if he couldn’t take care of her.  But she wouldn’t love him at all without the pride; he wouldn’t be David without it.”

This was about a neighbor of Molly and David:

“It was not only this quarter section of land that Mr. Svenson was giving up; it was a year of his life, a year’s work and hope.  Molly doubted that Mr. Svenson would ever be more than a hired man.”

Rose Wilder Lane was a famous author before her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder.  She greatly helped her mother with her works, but also took the material to write her own stories including this novel.  It had many elements similar to On the Banks of Plum Creek and The Long Winter.

I wonder how Rose Wilder Lane would feel now that her books are marketed as “by Rose Wilder Lane, The Daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder.”  I know the two had an at times contentious relationship.  Fame is fickle; it’s hard to believe that the once famous writer, Rose Wilder Lane, is now only remembered for her association with her mother.  Personally I think this is because Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories were written from the heart and of her own experiences, while Rose Wilder Lane’s books that I’ve read are mining the same material without the personal touch.  The name of this novel was also changed from the original “Let the Hurricane Roar” to Young Pioneers probably to market to the Laura Ingalls Wilder crowd. 

Young Pioneers was a bit scattered at the beginning and not as detailed as I would have like to really set up the story. It got much better with more description as the book went on until it got to the point that I was enthralled by the story and read through it quickly to see how it ended.  Overall, it is a good story for those interested in history, especially of the pioneer era.  It is also an interesting book for Little House fans to read as well.

Can you see yourself able to live alone on the prairie with only an infant through a winter of blizzards?

Book Source:  I purchased this novel at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove Minnesota.  Stay tuned for a blog post about my journey!