If you could go back and meet someone from Laura’s world, who would you visit? What would you talk about? Share your thoughts in the comment section and be entered in a drawing for a copy of my book Rose Wilder Lane’s San Francisco. In approximately two weeks I will let the computer at random.org pick the winners. This is the last opportunity this summer to win a copy but it’s always available for sale on PrairieMania.com. Feel free to enter the drawing, even if you already have a copy of the book. Win one for a friend or for your local library. Most of all have fun! (For more information on Rose Wilder Lane’s San Francisco visit www.PrairieMania.com.)
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It’s really hard to choose only one person. If time travels were possible, most of all I’d like to go back to the early years of De Smet and meet all the people from the books: the Ingallses – of course – and the Wilders, the Boasts, the Fullers, the Powers, Florence Bell, the Browns, Jake Hopp, the Garlands, the Masters, the Gilberts…
But as there has to be only one person to talk to, perhaps it should be Almanzo Wilder, because I’d like to know his version of what LIW described in her books: When did he fell in love with Laura? Did he and Cap Garland really make that dangerous trip for wheat during the “Long Winter”? Things like that…
Additionally I’d like to ask him what he thought about his wife’s books. In general I’d like to know what kind of a person he was. I’ve read somewhere that he had a great humour but could swear vilely as well. Well, I’d just like to find out.
But I’ve read as well that Almanzo didn’t talk much. Didn’t LIW refer to him as an Oyster in a letter to Rose? So perhaps I wouldn’t get the answers I’d like when I’d meet him…
Perhaps I should rather chose Eliza Jane to ask her what it was like to teach school in De Smet. It was also interesting to know what she was thinking when she learned that Laura would become her sister in law.
Just in case EJ wouldn’t like to talk with me, my third choice would be Minnie Johnson in her later years. I would like to know what her life was like after the time covered by the books.
I would choose Laura’s cousin Lena whom she wrote about in On The Shores of Silver Lake.
I think she was a fascinating character, so free spirited and smart as a whip. I would love to know what happened in her life as her family traveled further west.
Roberta and Shelley make very good points for their choices and I’d go along with any of them and be happy I did so, but the first person that came to my mind was “Pa.” What was his point of view? We know what the books say it was – but that is filtered through time and a young person’s memories. He was the “driving” force – both literally and figuratively – in the family’s life. He couldn’t have been some kind of yokel; he kept books, and payrolls and was on the school board (in later years). I’d pick him. Maybe we could share a pipe and swap some stories.
I would love to sit down with Ma Ingalls. I would love talk with her about the joys and difficulties of making a home and raising children.
I’d be at the other end of the family…Mother Wilder. I love all the descriptions of her in Farmer Boy, and because I love to cook too, and have a fairly large family (4 kids) it would be interesting to find out how she did it all!
Oooh, this is a toughie.
I guess I would choose George Tann, the doctor who served the Osage reservation and cared for the Ingalls when they fell to malaria in Kansas.
Why did he leave his first family in Pennsylvania? It almost certainly couldn’t have been easy to become a physician, being black in the 1800s. There could be a whole book in the stories of his lifetime.
Cap Garland – to see if he was really as cute as Laura described him!
But seriously, I think I would like to sit down with Alice Wilder. I’m sure she’d have some interesting stories about her siblings. And even though, she died before Rose went to live with Eliza Jane, she might have some insight as to Laura and EJ’s relationship as adults.
My obvious first choice would be Laura.
My second choice would be to talk to Almonzo. After all, he spent more time with Laura than anyone else. I’d also like to hear stories from HIS childhood, how HE viewed his and Laura’s courtship, and he would be a source of knowledge on both of their families.
Third choice? Ma. No one knows a person like a mother does.
The person I would most like to meet is Charlotte Quiner-Laura’s grandmother. She lost her husband, leaving her with 6 children to raise alone. She seems to me like the tough, loving, and strong frontier woman.
I would also love to hear Pa play the fiddle.
When I started this entry, I thought it would be easy to pick someone from Laura’s inner circle. But as it turns out, it wasn’t. I think when I was younger I would have chosen Laura herself…as I grew older, and re-read the books, I have more and more questions about each of the characters. I wonder about Mr. Edwards, if anyone knows who he was and where he came from, and ultimately where he came to shore.
I too would choose Mr. Edwards. The few times we see him in the books, he’s always been somewhere different, doing something interesting. I would like to know if he ever settled down where he had been before he met up with the Ingalls family.
There’s a photo of Cap on this website. I think he looked dashing!
http://www.liwfrontiergirl.com/garland.html
I found this website about Cap Garland not too long ago:
http://capgarland.freewebspace.com/
It has a horrid lemon yellow background with blue lettering on the web page, but also some photos I had never seen before!