Do you ever play the “what if” game in regards to the Ingalls and Wilders? I sure do. What if the Ingalls had stayed in the Big Woods, mightn’t they have been better off? It seems like their most prosperous time was in that snug little cabin in Wisconsin. Things kind of went downhill from there. Oh sure, there were moments when prosperity seemed right around the corner, until the grasshoppers or hail or something.
Or what if Pa had been able to sweet talk Ma into one more move west? I’ve often speculated that if they’d moved away from the drought conditions of South Dakota to the greener pastures of Oregon or California, Pa might have been able to finally have the farm of his dreams. I’ve always wondered if there was a sting of defeat when he left the homestead and made that one last move into town.
But my biggest “what if” is this – what if Rose had succeeded in convincing her parents to leave Missouri and move to the Santa Clara valley of California? I imagine most of you have never thought about this but, living just a few miles down the highway from the Santa Clara valley, I sure do! Now the valley is better known as Silicon Valley and there isn’t an orchard in sight but back in the early 20th century it was known for its agricultural rather than technical value. Laura toured it in September of 1915, the tail end of the dry season, so although she liked the look of the farms and thought the mountains beautiful, she thought it might be too hot and dusty. If only she had been there in March, in the heart of the rainy season when everything is lush and green. She might not have thought $500 an acre was too much to pay. It would have been the perfect compromise for their health problems, never too hot nor too cold. She was also afraid that buying land in the Santa Clara valley might not be as good an investment as buying more land in Missouri. Maybe she was wrong about that. 
Most importantly, in my life at least, if she and Almanzo had settled in Santa Clara, the Laura Ingalls Wilder House and Museum would be just miles away from me today and I could drive up there anytime I wished, immersing myself in Lauraness.
Ah, if only.
I live in the Bay Area, too, and I have occasionally thought the same thing: What if the Wilders had moved the Valley of Hearts Delight (which, as I am sure you know, was its name before the “Silicon Valley” moniker was applied. I made a long trip to visit the Ingalls homestead in South Dakota last summer, and I loved it, but know it will be some time before I can return there. It would indeed have been so much easier had Laura lived here!
Hello from Germany
There must be something in the air: Just last night I had such a LIW-related “What if…?”-moment when a good old friend gave me a telephone call. He is a historian and somehow our conversation lead us to Albania and it’s historical development. When my friend mentioned the time of unrest in the 1920s, Ahmet Zogu came in my mind. You know that it’s said that once Rose Wilder Lane refused his proposal of marriage.
So we ended up discussing the question: What if Rose and the future King Zog would have been married?
Living in Albania, would Rose ever have written something like “The Discovery of Freedom”? Would her influence on Ahmet Zogu have changed Albania’s history? Perhaps there never would have been a kingdom of Albania, as it was later established by Zogu, but an Albanian democracy. Resulting from that, perhaps Albania never had lost its sovereignty to Mussolini’s Italy…
Or just the opposite: Imagine Rose as Queen of Albania… Would LIW’s books ever have been published under these circumstances? (What a dreadful thought!)
No, we didn’t come to any solution, but after all Rose and King Zog and the “What if…?”-game brought us an hour of pleasant conversation and red ears from the telephone handset.
My what if comes from a different perspective. I live 1 hour from Pepin, Burr Oak, Spring Valley. 4 hours from Walnut Grove and 6 from De Smet. Your article got me to thinking of the what if. I have been very fortunate to live where I do and have most of the sites easily in driving distance. I started taking my first grand-daughter with me to the homesites when she was 3 years old. She is now 11. My second grand-daughter is now 6 and she joins us on our trips. We don’t go every year but 2 years ago we took an amazing trip starting at Pepin then on to Spring Valley, next stop was Walnut Grove, then to De Smet. Our last stop was Burr Oak as my one grand-daughter lives 5 miles from there.
My oldest grand-daughter still remembers the first trip to De Smet when she was 3. I have also taken the oldest to Mansfield and Kansas, just the two of us about 5 years ago.
I am very appreciative of living where I do which has enabled me to forge a wonderful bond with my grand-daughters. For that I thank Laura and all of the wonderful people at the homesites for the excellant jobs they all do.