Last winter, my two youngest
children, my recuperating mother, and I embarked
on an unforgettable journey. Vacation timing
and my mom’s temporary disability allowed
for a long road trip, one I knew might never
happen again. I’m one to seize the moment,
so I packed my mom in the car along with the
kiddies and provisions as we began a 7,000
mile cross country road trip in the middle
of winter.
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Laura
Ingalls Wilder |
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Sound crazy?
Maybe, but we have no regrets. The weather
was unusually kind to us in all 38 states we
visited in just over three weeks. With no real
commitments and time on our hands, our only
concrete plan was to visit Laura Ingalls Wilder
historic spots of interest, and to visit relatives
in New York, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and
Nevada.
The Little House on the Prairie books captivated
me as a child; I’d read all the books
by Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder and her
daughter Rose Wilder Lane, several times
over. Inspired by this American Frontier
family’s legacy, I’d written
two of my own full-length pioneer novels
by age 10.
I wouldn’t say I was a “fanatic” because
I’ve never really been fanatical about
anything but I’d have to say I was thoroughly
awestruck by the stories, often dressing up
in authentic 1800’s long dresses and
bonnets with my friends in elementary school.
As an adult, I read and appreciated adult
biographies and writings done by numerous authors
on this fascinating pioneer woman and children’s
author. I even had my Little House on the Prairie
books autographed by the cast of the TV series
at the cast reunion I attended in 1998.
So in late December we found ourselves retracing
much of the historic trail depicted in the
most loved series of children’s books
ever. Our first taste of Laura’s life
was taking the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic
Highway into the town of De Smet, South Dakota.
Little House followers know De Smet as the
Little Town on the Prairie where the Ingalls
family barely survived the Long Winter.
We explored the main street of town where “Pa” Ingalls
had his store. Amazingly, the Loftus Store
across the street still stands for visitors
to enjoy along with more than a dozen other
sites mentioned in the series. We toured the
original Surveyor’s House from the Long
Winter and the house that “Pa” built
for “Ma,” filled with family heirlooms,
along with the courthouse where “Pa” made
history as justice of the peace, after putting
De Smet on the maps and founding the church.
As the stories came alive, my mom and kids
were every bit as fascinated as I. At sunset,
we drove up to the cemetery that overlooks
the charming little town and the “Shores
of Silver Lake.” There we visited the
Ingalls family graves where Pa, Ma, Mary,
Carrie, Grace, and Laura’s infant son
lay. A few feet away we saw the Boast and
Brown family plots along with other characters
we felt we knew from the books.
Our final morning there, I arose an hour before
sunrise. It was almost 15 degrees as I left
my mom and kids in the motel to explore an
area outside of town where Laura and her husband
Almanzo homesteaded. It was there in a shanty
near their small tree claim that Laura gave
birth to famous author-daughter Rose Wilder
Lane.
Much tragedy struck in those first years of
Laura and Almanzo’s married life and
it’s there where the events Laura’s
book, The First Four Years, took place.
I was told by folks in town that I should look
for a marker 1.4 miles outside of De Smet and
then try to find a small indentation in the
prairie where the Wilder shanty once stood.
At dawn I drove my car across fields of frozen
melting snow on a grassy slope of prairie,
watching farmers in the distance feeding their
livestock. Finally as the light began to envelope
the enormous prairie, I set out on foot looking
for “the spot.” I wasn’t
expecting to find it, well-warned by the docents
in town that few people had ever actually found
it.
As I was nearly ready to give up, I looked
back at the tiny town on the prairie far
below me and imagined life for Laura Ingalls
Wilder, a young pioneer woman living on this
gentle slope of prairie just a buggy ride
away from her family and the comforts of
town. As I walked towards my car, a slight
depression in the earth illuminated by the
early morning rays caught my eye.
As my teeth chattered, I made my way over
to the spot where history had happened. Not
only was the indentation right there but two
deep holes, certainly where Laura’s pump
and outhouse had once been more than 120 years
ago. As the freezing, unforgiving prairie began
to glow with the colors Laura described so
eloquently, I had a deeper appreciation for
the lives and fortitude of the pioneers.
Later that morning on our way out of the Little
Town on the Prairie, we stopped at the Ingalls'
original homestead location to see the original
Cottonwood trees that “Pa” planted
from seedlings, one for each of his girls.
Standing below the wintry trees near Lake Thompson
and Lake Henry where Laura rode ponies in By
the Shores of Silver Lake, more of the magic
came alive.
Leaving town as we passed the lakes where
Almanzo courted and proposed to Laura, in These
Happy Golden Years, we stopped to watch the
birds fly over the lakes just as Laura described
in her books.
Our next Little House on the Prairie stop
was in Walnut Creek, Minnesota, to see the
dugout described in, On the Banks of Plum Creek.
As I stood in the dugout spot where “Ma” had
kept house in the side of a hill by the creek,
I had more appreciation for the pioneer spirit.
Plum Creek looked just as Laura had described
it when she had played there with her sister
and got caught under the bridge over the creek.
In town we visited the museum and gift store
where photographs of the TV cast visiting the
dugout made me laugh as I recalled my own humorous
moments with them at the cast reunion. Still
passing through many of the small towns mentioned
in the books, we continued toward Pepin, Wisconsin
where it all began in Little House in the Big
Woods. After visiting a re-creation of the
cabin where Laura was born in 1867, we enjoyed
Lake Pepin.
It was New Year’s Day and the lake
was serenely frozen as we stopped to pick
up pebbles as Laura did a century and a half
ago. A lone man ice-skating on the lake with
his dog at his side, offered to let me skate
across the lake. What a New Year’s
gift. Not only did I visit Laura’s
lake, but I got the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to ice skate across it with the fresh chilly
air nipping at my nose. I know I’ll
never forget the treat.
We would have gone on to Mansfied, Missouri
where Laura spent her later life with Almanzo
on Rocky Ridge Farm but that museum isn’t
open during wintertime so it would have to
wait for another trip. On our three-week adventure
we also visited Mt. Rushmore, where at the
base of the mountain in nearby Keystone, Laura
and Mary both visited their sister Carrie Ingalls
Swanzey living there with her husband and step-children.
We visited the cemetery in Keystone in the
Black Hills below the magnificent sculpted
mountain and enjoyed another taste of Ingalls'
history.
We visited Niagara Falls, Buffalo, New York
City, Valley Forge, Cape Cod, Amish Country,
Ground Zero, Washington DC, The Liberty Bell,
Las Vegas, New Orleans, the Virginias and
Carolinas, the Coast of Florida, and numerous
other interesting places and states but most
memorable of all was watching the Little
House on the Prairie memories come to life
as we crossed the nation.
I recommend making the Little House on the
Prairie points of interest part of your itinerary
on any cross-country trip. The kids will find
it unforgettable and they’ll learn American
history in the process. I named my oldest daughter
after Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder whose
books have been translated in more than forty
languages around the world. Maybe one day my
daughter Laura and I can take the trip to Mansfield,
Missouri to complete the Ingalls trail.
Okay, I admit maybe I am a fan after all!
