Frontier Girl

A Biography on Laura Ingalls Wilder

http://webpages.marshall.edu/~irby1/laura/frames.html

   From a frontier girl to a well known author and human rights activist, Laura Ingalls Wilder was an amazing human being. Not only this, she was also a reporter, teacher and mother during her life.

   Born in 1867, on February seventh, in Big Woods, Wisconsin. Laura spent her childhood traveling West in a covered wagon. In 1868, her parents, Charles and Caroline, took her and her older sister, Mary from Big Woods to Chariton County, Missouri. From there they moved to a farm near Walnut Grove in Minnesota. They had no luck with their crops and the baby boy that was born on November 1, 1875, Charles Frederic, died only ten months later, on August 27, 1876. The family, devastated by their loss decided to move to Burr Oak, Iowa where they lived in their friends' hotel. Laura's parents helped them manage it but soon tired of the job and moved the family to a rented room and then to a little brick house. Grace, Laura's sister, was born in Burr Oak on May 23, 1877. The Ingalls family then returned to Walnut Grove in the summer that same year. There, Laura's father did carpentry and odd jobs and opened a butcher's shop to earn a living. In 1879, Mary had a stroke and became blind. Her parents had to work twice as hard to make enough money to send her to the University for the Blind.

   Laura was the top of her class and at the age of fifteen, she received her teaching certificate. She met Almanzo Wilder whom she later married on August 25, 1885. They had a daughter on December 5, 1886, whom they named Rose. During a rough winter soon after the birth of their first daughter, Almanzo became crippled. Their son died unnamed a few hours after he was born in August of 1889. To add to that, a fire started in their kitchen and burned their entire house down. All of these things Laura lived and dealt with. Almanzo and Laura decided to move to Florida but they returned to DeSmet soon after. Not long after that, they were on the move again, this time they moved to Mansfield where they owned Rocky Ridge Farm. At the time they bought it at, they had a small cabin to call home. Their home changed over time with the family living in it.

   Laura began to write articles for the "Missouri Ruralist" and other magazines. Laura Ingalls Wilder became a famous journalist in Mansfield, Missouri, where she wrote for a farm weekly. She spoke her mind about many things including women's rights, land abuse, the consequences of war and much more.

   The World's Fair in St. Louis was a big event and Laura was assigned the job of reporting on it. While there, she witnesses very disturbing events at a freak show held there. She sees the "freaks" being mistreated, and publicly humiliated. She also sees how lonely and sad the American Indians are, that are too short or too tall or deformed, the entertainment. She finds out that these so-called "freaks" were tricked into coming, they were told that they would be going to a sporting event. When they arrived there, they found out the truth, that they would be performing and on display for people to mock. Laura disagreed with the way that these people were being treated and felt she needed to take action. She took action by going onto the stage in the middle of one of the shows and yelled at the guards to let one of the men go. The announcer was planning to throw a cow pie in the pygmy's face( a pygmy is a Greek word meaning the distance between a man's knuckles and his elbow) and Laura was determined to stop it. She began this by telling the crowd how they should be ashamed of themselves. She then got the pygmy to talk. He told the crowd that he was black and they were white, but they both bleed red and that he too was one of God's children. The audience went silent from shame, but the announcer would not stop. He threw the mud in Bambuti, the pygmy's face. She could have been arrested for causing such an outburst but she did it any ways to save Bambuti from more embarrassment. It didn't work out like she planned though, the announcer still threw the mud in the pygmy's face.

   "In 1930, she wrote an autobiography called "Pioneer Girl," but she could not find anyone to publish it. Her daughter, Rose helped her rewrite it and renamed it Little House in the Big Woods. It was instant success; the result was the Little House books."

   Her husband died on October 23, 1949 at the age of ninety-two. Laura died eight years later at the age of ninety on February 10, 1957. They still lived in their home in the Ozarks when both husband and wife passed away.

   Laura Ingalls Wilder was an amazing reporter and author. She was also a very caring person who fought for human rights while reporting on the World's Fair in St. Louis. Laura Ingalls Wilder left her imprint on many people in the United States and Canada as well. She will be imprinted in my mind forever.

Frontier Girl 
This is the real life story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, her friends, family and Little House books. http://webpages.marshall.edu/~irby1/laura/frames.html