Rocky Ridge: A Dream Come True

I’ve loved Laura ever since I was eleven, when my sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Lazarus, started reading the Little House books to our class. It was love at first read and I was hooked. I checked the books out of the school library and read them all. I slowly collected the series and it is one of the few possessions that I still have from my childhood. I’ve read them over and over. I know my experience is similar to that of so many other “lovers of Laura.”

I knew there were homesites to visit, but it was something that wasn’t really possible when I was growing up. When I was 17, just out of high school and the only one left at home, my parents and I, along with my aunt, uncle and their four kids, rented a motor home and took a road trip to South Dakota. Our destinations were Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills and the Badlands, but during the entire trip my mind was on De Smet. Could we possibly stop there? I was a Daddy’s girl and he was willing to drive a bit out of the way to go through De Smet. Problem was, by the time we got to the town it was evening and my aunt and uncle weren’t happy about the detour. I hopped out of the motor home and took a couple of pictures with my Polaroid, in my glory if only for a moment.

Fast-forward 29 years. My son was competing nationally for SkillsUSA and it was taking place in Kansas City, Missouri. As I started planning our trip, the wheels started turning. Hmm, Kansas City was only a four-hour drive from Mansfield, where Laura lived for the majority of her adult life. We could do it, couldn’t we? We don’t get to travel very often as our business pretty much dominates our lives. I have to take every opportunity that I can. My husband and daughter, ever supportive of my obsession, were okay with the side trip so I made my plans.

We arrived in Mansfield in the evening, but it was still light so we drove out to Rocky Ridge just to see it. I still couldn’t believe we were actually there. How long I had waited for that moment. We sat in the car just looking up at the white farmhouse that, until then, I’d seen only in photos. I knew I couldn’t say a word or I would start crying. So many emotions! I had read about Rocky Ridge and had long imagined coming here, but never really thought it would happen.

The next morning couldn’t come soon enough for me. I was up way before my husband and daughter, ready to go and waiting (they weren’t even awake yet!). My daughter laughed and told me I was like a child on Christmas morning. That’s exactly how I felt. My dream of going Rocky Ridge was actually coming true!

We toured the house first. As I wandered through, almost in a daze, I kept thinking, “She was here! These were her things. She touched this.” I could picture her working in her kitchen, getting supper ready. I imagined her and Almanzo sitting near the fireplace reading in the evening after their chores were done. I stood on the porch and thought of Laura standing on that very spot. Similar thoughts just kept rolling through my mind and I welled with emotion. I think I would have taken more in had I not been so enamored of her “presence.”

Next was the museum next door. Her dress. She was so little! Pa’s fiddle. I could imagine him playing it. The lap desk, lovingly made by Almanzo, where Laura had carried the family’s $100 in savings on the long wagon ride from De Smet to Missouri in 1894. I could go on and on. I tried to read everything. I should have absorbed more but it was just so much for my heart to take in.

After visiting the museum, the next logical thing to do was to walk the trail to the Rock House, where Laura and Almanzo had lived for a time while their daughter, Rose, took over the farmhouse, and where she wrote the bulk of the Little House books. It didn’t matter that it was hot . It didn’t matter that my knee was still healing from an injury. “I came this far and I may never do this again. I’m walking the trail!” I said. Who wouldn’t?

I thought of all of the times that Laura or Rose made this journey back and forth between the two houses. It was a walk, all right. My knee was hurting, but as I walked on I didn’t feel even a tinge of regret.

I fell in love with the Rock House. I want to live there! (I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way. Maybe we could all take turns …) One thing stayed with me that I wonder about — why did Rose give her father dishes with pink flowers? That’s what we were told by our tour guide. Is it true?

My husband ended up jogging back down the trail for the car to pick up my daughter and me at the Rock House. He was saving us the long walk back, but I still wish I had gone back the same way I’d come.

On to the gift shop, of course. We spent a good amount of time there too. I did not want to leave Rocky Ridge — I felt such a connection to Laura. And so we lingered in the area. We couldn’t leave without going to the cemetery and spending a bit of time the town of Mansfield itself. Again, I was imagining them just being there. Our time went by too quickly and we had to leave. I think I left a part of myself there.

Since then I’ve said many times: “If I never get to see another homesite or go back to Rocky Ridge, I can still die happy.” I wasn’t lying. But yet, the bug had bitten me…

To top off my dream come true, my son won his competition, even competing against more than 40 other students from across the country, most of them more experienced in his field. That week couldn’t possibly have been any better.