I was an admittedly strange little girl. Growing up in Brooklyn surrounded by concrete and tall buildings and asphalt streets that rarely stopped bustling with traffic, I dreamt of wide-open prairies, covered wagons and log cabins. While other girls my age longed for leggings, puff-painted off-the-shoulder Flashdance sweatshirts, and scrunch socks, I imagined myself in ankle length skirts and high buttoned boots. I blame all of this on Laura Ingalls Wilder, my original literary kindred spirit.
When I was in the first grade, my dad and I took The Little House in the Big Woods out of the library. I fell hard for Laura, becoming completely enamored with her world of homemade molasses candy, fiddle-playing relatives, whole pig roasts, and calico dresses. When it came time to return the book to the library, I hid it in my bedroom underneath piles of winter clothes and told my parents that I had lost it. I couldn’t bear the idea of leaving Laura and hated the idea of anyone else reading what had become, over the course of those two weeks, MY book! After discovering my contraband (and forcibly returning the illicit material to the Kings Highway branch of the Brooklyn Public Library), my parents surprised me with a box set of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, all of which I read and re-read and re-read constantly throughout my childhood.
I loved Laura for many of the same reasons I loved my other childhood literary kindred spirits. Smart and spunky? Check. Often spoke her mind even if it landed her in trouble? Check. Socially awkward? Check. Economically disadvantaged? Check. Not the prettiest girl in the room? Check. She not only measured up to the bar I’d established for my female heroines to live up to, she created it for me. In being the awkward, less pretty sister who was nonetheless greatly loved and depended upon by all those around her, Laura made it possible for me to recognize myself in the pages of a book. That she transported me back in time, far away from Brooklyn and my family’s dysfunction was a happy bonus!
I can’t think of a better way to end our Kindred Spirit Fridays than by honoring my very first literary kindred spirit: Here’s looking at you, Half-pint.
Kindred Spirit #3: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Belongs to: author and protagonist of The Little House on the Prairie young adult book series
Little House in the Big Woods (1932), Farmer Boy (1933), Little House on the Prairie (1935), On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939), The Long Winter (1940), Little Town on the Prairie (1941), These Happy Golden Years (1943), The First Four Years (1971, published posthumously)
Background:
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born in 1867 to Charles and Caroline Ingalls in the “Big Woods” of Wisconsin popularized by Ingalls in the first book in the Little House series, Little House in the Big Woods. The Ingalls had five children, of whom Laura was the second. Born first was Mary Amelia, whose battle with Scarlet Fever and resulting blindness was chronicled in On the Shores of Silver Lake. After Laura, came Caroline Celestia, Charles Frederick, and Grace Pearl. Sadly, Charles Frederick died in infancy.
Laura’s early childhood involved much traveling, thanks in large part to her father’s well-documented wanderlust. As a very young child, the family settled on land that had not yet been made available for homesteading on what was still recognized legally as Indian Territory. The resulting experiences were chronicled in Laura’s Little House on the Prairie. Over the course of the next few years, the Ingalls family lived in various parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas as Charles found work running a hotel, serving as a Justice of the Peace, working for a railroad, as a butcher, and finally as a farmer.
Once the family was (relatively) settled in DeSmet, Wilder attended school, worked several part-time jobs and made many friends, perhaps most importantly Almanzo Wilder, whom she later married, despite an age difference of 10 years. This time in her life is documented in the book The First Four Years. Laura and Almanzo had one daughter, Rose Wilder. Laura gave birth to a second child, a son, who died shortly after birth.
(Interestingly enough, there has been a considerable amount of speculation regarding infertility and Laura’s family. None of Laura’s sisters, Mary, Grace, or Carrie, bore children. Laura and Almanzo themselves did not have any biological children after the death of their son. Rose Wilder-Lane, Laura and Almanzo’s daughter, sadly lost a son soon after his birth - though some believe he was stillborn. Rose was unable to carry more children due to complications from subsequent surgery.)
Memorable Quotes:
"There's no great loss without some small gain."
— Little House on the Prairie
"Home is the nicest word there is."
— Laura Ingalls Wilder
"The only stupid thing about words is the spelling of them. "
— Laura Ingalls Wilder
"Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds would make it flicker because it would not give up.”
- The Long Winter
"Remember well, and bear in mind, a constant friend is hard to find."
— Laura Ingalls Wilder
"It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all"
— Laura Ingalls Wilder
"Vices are simply overworked virtues, anyway.”
- Laura Ingalls Wilder
"There is no comfort anywhere for anyone who dreads to go home."
—Little Town on the Prairie
Would be friends with: Anne Shirley, Kirsten Larson (original American Girl doll)
