Laura Ingalls Wilder(1867-1957)

Born Laura Elizabeth Ingalls in Wisconsin in 1867, she spent her childhood as a "pioneer girl, " settling in Wisconsin (twice), Missouri, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota by the time she was twelve years old. Her family stayed in South Dakota, or Dakota Territory as it was known, and in 1885, she married Almanzo Wilder. She called him "Manly" and he called her "Bess". The following year, they had a daughter, Rose, later to become the author Rose Wilder Lane. In 1894, the three of them left De Smet and traveled to the Ozark mountains of Missouri, where they settled in the town of Mansfield. Laura and Manly remained there for the rest of their lives. In the 1930's and 1940's, encouraged and aided by Rose, Laura set pen to paper and wrote a series of books about her childhood on the frontier. Called the "Little House" books, they were published every year or so from 1932 to 1943, describing Laura's experiences from her earliest memories of the big woods of Wisconsin and the Kansas prarie to the golden year in which she married Almanzo. The books were immensely popular with children, for whom they were written, and adults alike. Except for the occasional book tour, Laura's life as a farm wife in Mansfield still remained relatively unchanged, however, though she did receive much more mail than she ever had before! She died in 1957, shortly after her 90th birthday. Even after her death, Rose found more of her writings. These included a diary she kept detailing the journey to Mansfield in 1894, letters she wrote to Almanzo while visiting Rose in San Francisco in 1915, and even a new, unfinished "Little House" book, about the first four years after her marriage to Almanzo. Her major contribution to movies and television has been her books, for they were the inspiration for the long-running TV series "Little House on the Prairie" (1974-1983), and its various TV-movie sequels. Currently (1999), a TV-movie entitled "Beyond the Prarie," is in production. It purports to be "the true story of Laura Ingalls Wilder."