Visiting Laura Ingalls-Wilder

I suspect, if you're reading this, that you're familiar with and may have even read the Little House books (or even seen the TV series), so I doubt the name Laura Ingalls Wilder needs an introduction.  The house that Laura lived in and ultimately wrote the Little House books in is in Mansfield, Missouri and not far from the Baker Creek seeds location, so J. and I took an afternoon out to go visit her farm.  It has now been designated a National Historic Site and is being preserved, pretty much the way it was when she and Almanzo lived there.

For a small admission fee, you can tour the house and a museum that has a staggering amount of photos and personal items from Laura, Almanzo, Rose, Ma and Pa, Mary and Carrie.  The star of the show is Pa's Fiddle, which is still played annually at a local festival.

The house is a quaint little farmhouse with a large beautiful yard.  We toured through the downstairs (the upstairs bedrooms are off limits), and the entire house is filled with the furniture that Laura used when she lived in the house.  Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures inside the house so I can only share exterior shots of the house.

Laura, 27, and Almanzo, 37, moved to this location in 1894 after a series of misfortunes left them in debt and in ill-health.  After a 6-week journey over 50 miles and with a $100 bill representing the last of their savings, they purchased the 40-acre farm and named it "Rocky Ridge Farm".  The tour guide told an interesting story about the trip from South Dakota in which they arrived and couldn't find the $100 that had been tucked away for safekeeping.  It ultimately was located hidden away in Laura's desk.

The "back porch".  The window to the left is the music room and library and to the right is the sitting room where Laura liked to write.  I am love with that stacked stone fireplace chimney, aren't you?

Another view of the screened in summer porch.  It's evident that the house began as a smaller one and was added onto as the farm grew and became more profitable. 

I wish I could share interior pictures with you, as I found the kitchen to be really fascinating.  Laura was just 4 foot 11 inches tall and Almanzo custom built all the cabinetry and countertops for her, so they are shorter than today's modern kitchen fixtures.  An accomplished woodworker, Almanzo also built much of the furniture and the built-in bookcases throughout the house.

We were very surprised to hear that there are actually two homes on the property.  Their daughter, Rose, was a very successful free-lance writer and had a more modern house constructed as a gift for her parents.  Laura never wanted to move and refused to visit the building site until the day they were to move in.  Rose moved into the old farmhouse until she ultimately left the farm for good 8 years later. 

Despite the fact that the house was within a 15-minute walk of the old farmhouse, Laura had never wanted to move from the house that she and Almanzo had built with their bare hands, and they moved back into the old house where they lived until their deaths in 1949 and 1957 respectively.

The stone used to build this house is gorgeous and I fell in love with the tool marks in the mortar.

Nestled among the trees and on the downslope of an Ozark hill overlooking an immense field, you can see forever from this house.  On the side overlooking the field, the entire wall of the living room is a bank of french doors that open up to take advantage of the view. Rose certainly knew how to pick a location!

Well, I hope you thoroughly enjoyed the visit to this historic landmark as much as we did.  I'll leave you with a quote from Rose, one of the most influential Libertarians in the 20th century:

"Everything that an American values, his property, his home, his life, his children's future, depends upon his keeping clear in his mind the revolutionary basis of this Republic. This revolutionary basis is recognition of the fact that human rights are natural rights, born in every human being with his life, and inseparable from his life; not rights and freedoms that can be granted by any power on earth."

I'm sharing this post as part of the Rural Thursday Blog Hop.  Hop on over and see what everyone else is up to!