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Laura Ingalls Wilder Season 2013 Ends

Posted on by Sarah Uthoff

October usually is about the end of the main Laura Ingalls Wilder season for the year. If you plan a Laura trip during or after October, make sure you call ahead. They may or may not be able to accommodate you by opening the museum, etc. or giving lists of what there is to see. On the plus side you get autumn foliage and then snow photos. I called around to find out when the Laura museums were officially closing for the year.

 

Lake Pepin Beach

 

 

Pepin, WI – Closed October 15, 2013 and re-open weekends only for next two weeks. Closing for the season Oct. 27th. They should re-open for the town of Pepin celebration, Hometown Holidays, December 6, 2013 – December 8, 2013 (all-day).
http://pepinwisconsin.com/hometown-holidays

Independence, KS – Closed October 31, 2013 – Watch for their event schedule for next year to be published on their website in January 2014. They aren’t doing Christmas shopping this year, but Director Michelle Martin says “we will be doing special pledge drive online, donors receive gift shop items as thank yous for donations.” So watch for that.

Walnut Grove, MN – Museum grounds closed for the season October 31, 2013, but their Gift Shop/Visitor Center will remain open during November and December from 10 am – 4 pm, Monday – Saturday. After Christmas it will be open Monday –  Friday, same hours, until April 2014.

Burr Oak, IA – Closed October 21, 2013.

De Smet, SD –
Memorial Society open all year with slightly reduced hours during winter. They will close December 24-27 for Christmas and December 31-January 1 for New Years.

Ingalls Homestead – Closed October 31, 2013, Office remains open for making reservations, etc. Call and leave a message if they don’t pick up.

Mansfield, MO – Season ends November 15, 2013. Winter hours are November 16 – December 15 by appointment only (call ahead). They are having a one day Christmas event December 7, 2013.

Malone, NY – Closed October 14, 2013, Re-opens for Christmas With Almanzo event (1 Day) December 7th, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm.

Spring Valley, MN – Closed October 31, 2013. Director Julie Mlinar shared about their annual Christmas teas: “The teas are actually a luncheon hosted at the historical Washburn Zittleman house museum on Sat and Sun, Dec 14 &15 with sitting at 1 pm. Reservations must be in by Dec. 9th and it is best to call early as the spots fill up fast. The luncheon includes choice of 3 soups, a chicken salad croissant with dessert and tea or coffee. Tickets are $10 and other days and times can be set for groups.  We will do mail orders for the gift shop but will have to be by cashier check as our credit card machine has been down and we won’t get a different one till next spring.”

Keystone, SD – Closed September 15, 2013

Vinton, IA – Continues on limited access due to roof construction

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Facebook, Twitter , YouTube,  Blog Talk Radio, Google+, LinkedIn, and Academia.edu Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Acting President

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Hide and Seek aka Where to Find Us Online

Posted on by Sarah Uthoff

Sometimes don’t you wish that tracking people’s communication today was as easy as watching those telegraph lines Laura described swoop by the train windows? There is just so much out there online and off that it can be hard to track so this is a reminder of all the places you can find us. Everyone is so busy that while we don’t mean to play hide and seek, sometimes it seems that we do.

Welcome Gate at De Smet Memorial Site

First, don’t forget to check this blog. It was set up originally as our first string of communication and while communication opportunities have expanded, we still try to keep our blog readers informed with the most in-depth information.

Second, you can find us on Facebook as both a Page (Beyond Little House) and as a group (LauraPalooza). The BLH page is our go to for sharing news and information so please make sure you’ve liked it. The LauraPalooza Facebook group was started to help share and communicate about the conference (anyone who is a Laura fan can join whether you’ve made it to one of the conferences or not, but realize a lot of conference talk takes place there). We set up one group for the first conference calling it LauraPalooza 2010 then when the second conference promotion began we started a new group. After this conference though we realized rather than start over we could just rename the group, so the conference group is LauraPalooza. LauraPalooza 2010 is largely abandoned so make sure you’ve joined the current one, if you are interested in anything conference related.

Third, find us on Twitter. We’re not the chattiest people there, but in addition to giving heads up about blog posts (which we also do on the BLH Facebook page) we also seek out tweets that mention Laura and have stumbled upon and shared some interesting things that way. We hope you’ll join the conversation.

Fourth, find us on LinkedIn. Although Laura is fun, there is also a serious side and this group gives Laura fans on LinkedIn a place to discuss and to find one another (you can connect to each other when you have a group in common).  So far it’s still a fairly small group, but we’d welcome your participation.

Fifth, coming out of the last conference one of the things that was glaringly apparent was that we needed to improve communication. That our efforts (designed to be low cost) were putting too much of an expectation that members would check the blog for information they needed. Also, we wanted to create a communication that would be members only as an additional benefit of actually joining. We’re still experimenting on that front, but members have gotten several e-mail newsletters this year.

Thanks for finding us online and we hope to see more of you.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Facebook, Twitter , YouTube,  Blog Talk Radio, Google+, LinkedIn, and Academia.edu Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Acting President

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What’s that 1.40 Worth Today? | Beyond Little House

Posted on by Sarah Uthoff
Wearing my replica ring

Wearing my replica ring

A lot of times people ask about the engagement ring that is generally accepted as the one Laura received from Almanzo as pictured in the 1885 Montgomery Ward Catalog. It’s given a list price of $1.40, I decided to see just how much that was. Many people don’t understand or haven’t thought about how much the value of money changes over time. It’s a bit like trying to measure something using a measuring tape made of elastic that stretches or shrinks, so to get the best idea possible I consulted my favorite money calculator which gives a range of how you can interpret the changing purchasing power of money.  I’ve included their answers for all the ways you calculate the value of money over time and then sum up down below. Basically the ways depend on comparing what that initial amount of money could have gotten you in the year you start, in this case 1884. Then you convert back to how much money it would take to get the same amount of the thing today. However, not all prices raise or fall the same and few products are exactly the same over time so you have to make allowances and you can come up with different answers. Also, there is a time lag do the time necessary to collect data and enter it into the system, so today we’ll be comparing the value of $1.40 between 1884 and 2011.

In 2011, the relative value of $1.40 from 1884 ranges from $30.90 to $1,790.00 depending on the system used.

A simple Purchasing Power Calculator would say the relative value is $33.10. This answer is obtained by multiplying $1.40 by the percentage increase in the CPI from 1884 to 2011. This is the most common measure and if you use a different online system to calculate the difference this is the system they most likely use although the numbers might not come out exactly the same due to weighting and rounding.

This may not be the best answer.

The best measure of the relative value over time depends on if you are interested in comparing the cost or value of a Commodity , Income or Wealth , or a Project . For more discussion on how to pick the best measure, read the essay “Explaining the Measures of Worth.”

If you want to compare the value of a $1.40 Commodity in 1884 there are three choices. In 2011 the relative:

  • real price of that commodity is $33.10
  • labor value of that commodity is $183.00(using the unskilled wage) or $324.00(using production worker compensation)
  • income value of that commodity is $321.00

If you want to compare the value of a $1.40 Income or Wealth , in 1884 there are three choices. In 2011 the relative:

  • historic standard of living value of that income or wealth is $33.10
  • economic status value of that income or wealth is $321.00
  • economic power value of that income or wealth is $1,790.00

If you want to compare the value of a $1.40 Project in 1884 there are four choices. In 2011 the relative:

  • historic opportunity cost of that project is $30.90
  • labor cost of that project is $183.00(using the unskilled wage) or
  • $324.00(using production worker compensation)
  • economy cost of that project is $1,790.00

So, using the most basic calculations, it’s as if the ring cost $33.10 and using the labor cost (which is the one Father Wilder uses to explain the value of 50 cents to Almanzo when he asks for a lemonade) it would be closer to $183.00, so maybe it wasn’t that bad a ring after all.

For more on the ring, check out Jonni Craven’s quest for the ring and the replica (out of much nicer materials than the original one was) that’s available to purchase from the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Walnut Grove.

UPDATE: I realized I should have linked to the ring in the Walnut Grove Museum giftshop as well. Find it here. Then scroll down.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Facebook, Twitter , YouTube,  Blog Talk Radio, Google+, LinkedIn, and Academia.edu Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Acting President

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A Scream in the Night

Posted on by Laura Welser

I never sleep through the night anymore and last night was no different. So when I woke up at 3am, my first thought was actually relief that it would be another three hours till my alarm went off signaling the start of another busy day.

Then I heard it.

A scream in the night.

It woke our dog up, but he didn’t seem too concerned as he resituated himself and started snoring again. My husband didn’t stir a smidge even though I nudged him hoping he would wake up.

Was it a real scream? Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Could it have been tires squealing as someone sped away? Or maybe brakes screeching to a stop. If it wasn’t October I’d have considered the possibility that it was the whistle of fireworks (it wouldn’t be the first time that happened in the middle of the night). Perhaps it was an animal in distress. We live in a rural area and have woods around us.

As I tried unsuccessfully to drift off to sleep again, I thought that there were two things for sure I knew it wasn’t –
Mrs. Scott or a panther in the night.

Yep, even in the middle of the night I can make a Little House connection. And I’m betting I’m not the only one.

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Walnut Grove Pageant FAQs

Posted on by Sarah Uthoff

The Ingalls Family Take a Portrait During the Fragments of a Dream Pageant

I’m sharing with permission the FAQs listed on the back of the pageant program. I think they may be of use for people planning their trip. I’ve added a few notes of my own as Ed. note, moved the Emergency Weather to the top, added a couple of questions based on the website, and added links.  Find more information on the Wilder Pageant website.

Q: What do I tune in for Emergency Weather Information?

A: For emergency information concerning the pageant, listen to KLGR (97.7 FM).

Q: Where is the Wilder Pageant Site?

A: The Pageant Site is located one mile west and half a mile south of Walnut Grove. (Ed. note:  Off Highway 14, turn south on the road to the museum and take the first right. There is a huge sign. It’s a straight shot once you make the turn. – SSU)

Q: Is there camping nearby?

A: Plum Creek Park is a half mile sought of the Wilder Pageant site.

Q: How long does the Pageant lasts?

A: The Pageant starts at 9:00 pm and finishes about 11:00 pm. It starts late to enhance the lightning and special effects in the show. If you need assistance during the show, go to the concession stand. (Ed. note: Just plan on it being late and prepare accordingly. It’s worth it to stay to the end and don’t try to rush out afterward, there is a traffic jam as everybody tries to leave at once. – SSU)

Q: Do we need to get tickets in advance?

A: We recommend purchasing tickets in advance to get the best seating available. Reserved seating may sell out, depending on the date. General admission tickets are always available at the gate. Reserved seating consists of 1,000 numbered chairs that are directly in front of the stage, see chart. General admission is the hillside area surrounding the reserved seats. Bring your own chair or blanket for general admission. Check out the website for additional information.  (Ed. note: Definitely go for the reserved seats. Consider buying an extra seat for the space because the chairs are welded together and don’t have a lot of wiggle room. Get your tickets as early as possible. It’s worth it to be close to the stage. But on a normal night you can still get chairs near the back at the last minute. While I would say pre-ordering tickets for the Walnut Grove pageant is near essential, at the Mansfield and De Smet pageants pre-ordering tickets isn’t nearly as important, doesn’t really give you an advantage, and you can just pick tickets up at gate on your way in. – SSU)

Q: How do we order tickets?

A: Tickets may be ordered by phone at 888-859-3102 or online. There is a handling charge of $2.00 per order.

Q: What time do we need to be at the Pageant?

A: If you have reserved seats, you can arrive anytime between 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm. the seats are numbered, and the ushers will show you to your chairs. General admission is first-come, first-served, so it would be to your advantage to arrive between 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm to get your first choice of spot on the hill. (Ed. note: If you do come once the Pageant Singers have started preforming and are not handicapped, please be courteous and walk around behind the chairs and down instead of across the sidewalk right in front of them, blocking everybody’s view. – SSU)

Q: Is there a special price for children?

A: Children ages 5 and under are free in general admission. Reserved seats are $14.00 per chair for all ages.

Q: What if it rains?

A: Refunds are available if Act One is not completed. You may return your tickets for a refund or exchange them for a later date. We make every effort to complete the show, and we ask the audience to prepare for all kinds of weather. To get a refund, send ticket stub and self-addressed envelope within 30 days of the performance to :
Wilder Pageant Committee
P.O. Box 313
Walnut Grove MN 56180
There have only been three rainouts since the Pageant started in 1978.

Q: Are the reserved seats handicapped-accessible?

A: Yes. There is a sidewalk that leads from the Pageant entrance to the front row of reserved seating. We reserve the front row of the yellow section for handicapped seating.

Q: Where is lost and found?

A: Check the Concession Stand or the Control Booth for lost or found items.

Q: How many people attend the pageant?

A: Here is a chart showing attendance from first year through last year.

Q: Are there special group rates?

A: Yes, learn more here.

Q: How can I keep up to date with pageant news?

A: Connect with the Pageant on Facebook.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Facebook, Twitter , YouTube,  Blog Talk Radio, Google+, LinkedIn, and Academia.edu Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Acting President

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Status Update

Posted on by Sarah Uthoff

A couple of questions came in from various channels after the post about our donation went live and as they taught me in my Teaching Methods classes, if one person asks a question there are at least a few more out there with the same type of question, so I wanted to clarify.

It has always been the intention of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association to become a non-profit, but despite the use of the term non-profit in our mission statement we have not yet attained our goal. Our focus in the first couple of years was on the conferences and a few more organizational things fell through the cracks, plus there are expenses associated with the non-profit process that we weren’t able to meet at first. After the 2012 Laura conference a committee was formed of Dr. Laura McLemore and the late Daniel Rabe to write an initial set of bylaws. The board was presented the bylaws in July 2013. We’ve been having board meetings every other week and working on polishing them and making a few changes. After we finish our draft we will present it to a consultant, make any necessary changes, and then we will post it for members and take comments. The bylaws is just one step in the organizational process, but if things go the way we hope we’re on track to everything in place organizationally by near the end of the year. We appreciate your patience with us and are glad to finally have some organizational progress. Hopefully, we’ll be able to deserve the term non-profit in 2014.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Facebook, Twitter , YouTube,  Blog Talk Radio, Google+, LinkedIn, and Academia.edu Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Acting President

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LIWLRA’s First Donation!

Posted on by Sandra Hume

Something fabulous is going on.

Remember last year? Summer 2012? The Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Assocation organized an amazing Silent Auction at LauraPalooza. Up for bid were all kinds of Little House-related goodies.

Thanks to you all—every last one of you who attended and bid—our fundraiser was a success.

LIWLRA members learned this last week in the member newsletter. This past weekend, the LIWLRA made its first official donation of $1,000 to a Laura Ingalls Wilder site. And here’s the letter that went along with it.

Thank you so very much to everyone who helped make this happen. We will be holding another Silent Auction in 2015, and we’re already talking about some of the items. You won’t want to miss it!

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The First Four Years: After-the-Flood Edition

Posted on by Beyond Little House

guest post by  Erin Blakemore and Sandra Hume


So we had this whole dialogue planned out for this section. Fire, devastation, uplift. The End. Easy, right?

Yeah, not so much. The end of The First Four Years is pretty much as problematic and enigmatic as the book itself.

Sample exchange:

Erin:  This section reads like a nightmare. How on earth will we write about this?

Sandra: God, I hate this. It has always made me sad. I have no idea what the hell we are supposed to say.

And that was our conversation before the floods.

See, we both live in Colorado. On Wednesday, September 11, something went wrong. Our usually dry state started raining and kept on raining. Storm clouds parked themselves over Boulder County and the surrounding mountains, cities, and farmlands…and they didn’t leave. It kept on raining through Sunday.

Erin lives in central Boulder, where she could hear the flood sirens and ambulances. Social media became increasingly desperate. Thousands of people lost power. There was a new sound in town—the sudden rushing of a creek that’s usually a trickle. Sandra lives in Fort Collins, where the Poudre River rose and rose, closing bridges and essentially dividing the town. Farmland and stock outside city limits was ravaged by river water that had completely changed its course. People died. Cut off from civilization, fellow Coloradans had to be airlifted to safety. Their homes and their lives are irreparably destroyed.

So…back to TFFY. The clinical, pragmatic tone of the final section still reads like a nightmare. Fire. Wind. The in-case-of-flood fire list. That strangled outpouring of emotion—among the strongest emotion ever conveyed in the series. Laura screams and sobs and it’s primal. It’s scary. It’s the futile wail of someone who has been overpowered by the elements, by Mother Nature herself.

That’s only the beginning, of course. Now that there is nothing left, there’s no choice but to rebuild. More hard work. Days and nights of privation and hard labor.

Was farming a success? What can we rely on for sure? What good is hard work when it all can be washed away in an instant? What’s left?

For Laura, it’s her family and her optimism and her grit. It’s the bread plate that reminds her that they’ll never be without daily bread, somehow. It’s the decades that remain for her and Almanzo and Rose. It’s the mystery of the unresolved.

Somehow, stripped of her possessions, her meager successes, her innocence, Laura ends the book on an up note. “It would be a fight to win out in this business of farming, but strangely she felt her spirit rising for the struggle.” Could there be a better way to close out a series of struggles? We’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

 

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Wilder Days 2013 | Beyond Little House

Posted on by Sarah Uthoff

As we reported earlier, it sounds like it’s going to be a great Wilder Days in Mansfield this year.

Rocky Ridge Farmhouse

Here is the official word:

Plans are firming up for 2013’s Wilder Days in Mansfield, Missouri.
September 20-21 will bring music, vendors and entertainment to the town square in Mansfield. The Mansfield Historical Society will be open. Out at Rocky Ridge Farm, there will be mini concerts by Pa’s original fiddle, and other activities, as well as the usual Home tours. Special guest this year is Dean Butler, making his second visit to Rocky Ridge. Dean will speak, sign photos, books, and copies of his two documentaries for visitors.
September marks the centennial of the completion of the Wilder Home; it was during that month that the farmhouse was finished, just 100 years ago. Plans are going forth to proceed with the new museum building, to be built (out of sight from the historic home) on the open last just west of the house. Thank you to all who have donated or pledged to this project. We are still short of goal, so if anyone in included, the Museum is gratefully receiving
donations to this project.

Board Member Connie Neumann will be attending on behalf of Beyond Little House, please be sure to say Hi if you go and we hope that you do.

Dean Butler

It’s been a few years since I made it to a Wilder Day, so some things might have changed, but I thought I’d share some advice based on my experience. I arrived in town on Friday afternoon, but stuff really doesn’t get started full blast until Saturday morning. I did attend the Friday night performance of the pageant  and I would recommend that for a chance for a smaller crowd than the Saturday performances, of course you can go more than once if you want. They also had several festival booths and some activities featuring local school children in the town square on Friday in the early evening. In addition to the parade there are booths of various kind including several of fair food, but they really only get started on Saturday. I thought I had the square experienced covered on Friday night, but driving by on the way out of town there was a lot more action and stuff going on Saturday. The Mansfield Mirror always prints a special edition for Wilder Days, but it can be hard to get.  The grocery store was sold out and the Mansfield Mirror building was locked up without even so much as a sign telling you where to find them, calls down there later trying to get a copy informed me that they have a booth on the square, but only on Saturday.

I really hope a lot of you will be able to make it.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Twitter and YouTube and Blog Talk Radio
Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Acting President

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Little House in Simi Valley Part 2

Posted on by Sarah Uthoff

One of the questions we often get is “how can I visit the movie ranch where the Little House on the Prairie NBC series was filmed?” We’ve gotten it enough that I pursued it to get the full scoop. As a proviso, this is second hand information. I haven’t been there and frankly if I was taking a Laura trip to California it would be to Pomona and then San Francisco before I even thought about going to see Simi Valley, but since there seems to be interest from other people, I checked things out and this is what I found.

What’s There To See?

There used to be many movie ranches around Hollywood where rural scenes were filmed. Now Big Sky  (located in Simi Valley, California where the regular exteriors of the TV show were filmed) is about the last one left. It rents out land to movie and TV production companies to use in filming. Sometimes it’s to recreate the Old West, sometimes it’s just a modern ranch, and sometimes it’s just a good place to have a car chase away from people and sometimes it’s something else entirely. When a TV show rents ground for this it’s usually with the agreement they can build semi-permanent sets for the duration that they rent the land. These are NOT finished houses. They aren’t built to last, just to look good so they are mainly exterior walls, unfinished on the inside, and dressed to look like somebody really uses them with props. So it isn’t like these were finished houses that you saw during the LHoP episodes. Interior and some exterior sequences were shot in studios. Some specialty bits were shot elsewhere (for example much of the episode where Albert dreams they are in a classic western was shot at Old Tuscon and the Ernest Borgnine is an angel episode was shot at Donnell’s Vista), but the main farm and town exterior sequences and some of the extra exterior stuff was shot here. The production company built these shells of houses. Landon didn’t want anyone else using his creation and intended to destroy them before he left anyway so he wrote blowing up the town into the finale. So most of the sets were destroyed then. Since then wildfires have swept through the area and destroyed much of what was left. So now really it’s mostly just the bare land. Also other productions have probably used part of the land in the meantime further disrupting things. Little House in Simi Valley Part 1 includes a video that gives a good notion of what there is to see.

NOT a Tourist Attraction

Now remember that the ranch is a business, but one that makes its money renting out to film companies, NOT one that makes money through tourists. That means there is NO access at all if it’s rented out for filming on any particular day. HOWEVER, they will sometimes let you visit if you contact them ahead of time and ask and they have a day where they don’t have it rented. That set up also means that there are literally NO amenities. If they provided stuff on the land that would just mean things that the film crews would be inconvenienced to  shoot around it and extra expense for the owners. That means no picnic tables, no bathrooms, no food stands, no level walkways, and no nearby medical help.

Can I Go?

It’s really up to the owners who they let in. They are under no obligation to let you in and you are under an obligation to respect private property. They really are doing you a favor if they do let you in and they reasonably expect to be paid to help cover extra staff time to be there and let you in. Since this really isn’t a regular thing they do, there don’t seem to be any set rates, you’ll have to negotiate with them. I would recommend getting all that settled before you make a trip and remember they are doing you a FAVOR and act according.

Advice

If you do get permission to go in, be prepared to be self-sufficient. Take along water, wear heavy, long pants (work pants or jeans) and hiking boots are a good idea. Be careful where you step the ground is uneven and I’ve been told by multiple people that there are rattlesnakes there.

Still interested?

Then contact the Big Sky Movie Ranch.

UPDATE: Be sure to check out the comment sections for some further advice and tips from people who have been there.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Twitter and YouTube and Blog Talk Radio
Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Acting President

 

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