Little House series: book vs reality

[freejoytoo]

Just looked up By the Shores of Silver Lake and some bastard has a reservation on the two copies on loan, and all the other books! I swear those books are never taken out!

[Artemis]

That was my interpretation. I doubt Laura could remember many specific conversations.

Can someone please explain that joke about the butter in the Long Winter about some guy using it to throw at his wife? That has always confused me.

Mrs Boast sends Ma some butter via Mr Boast, who is visiting. He jokes to Ma 'This is what the cobbler threw at his wife' Laura doesn't understand but Ma replies 'Oh no!' Then she explains to Laura 'It was his awl.'

The pun is on a cobbler's 'awl', which is used to pierce leather for stitching shoes and 'all', as in all the butter that's left. Mrs Boast has sent the last batch of butter from their cow, which was going dry.

Oh God, is it very, very sad that I didn't have to look that up in the book? (Hides head) :oops:

[freejoytoo]

Ah right! I nevr knew what 'awl' meant. Was there a story about a cobbler throwing it at his wife? It always seemed so random to me!

Haha, The Long Winter is one of my favourites as well!

[Avalondaughter]

I reread The Long Winter today. I've always wondered what Ma and the girls did when they got their period, though I assume they may have stopped menstruating due to the dramatic drop in their diet. Maybe Laura wouldn't have had that to deal with as she was thirteen and menarche was later then?

Laura must have hit puberty around The Long Winter or thereabouts. In LTOP she has started wearing her hair up and longer skirts and corsets. I know that's age-related but wouldn't such things also correspond with physical maturity?

I had a thought about Pa's supposed irresponsibility. During past centuries just because we saw very little in the way of legal divorces doesn't mean all marriages stayed intact. Desertions were common. With no easy government tracking systems like social security, if a husband or wife wanted out of a marriage, he or she could just change names and identities and leave town. This was easier in the west where you could just hit the frontier. Pa could have left if he wanted to. He stayed with his family and did right by them in what ways he could. It seems in the books that he was really quite fond of Laura and Grace and adored his wife. Yes, I do understand Laura might have been romantizing things a bit.

[lilith]

This thread has inspired me to go back and reread these books. They were childhood favorites and read over and over again, but they do read very differently as an adult.

The thing that stands out to me is how resigned Caroline seems. Charles is always coming in optimistic, with big new plans, and Caroline is constantly quietly saying "whatever you think best, Charles", or "I'm sure you're right Charles" or "that's good Charles". As a kid that just seemed nice, but when I read it now I can't help but think the way it's written is meant to convey her quiet resignation and weary tolerance of whatever mad scheme her husband had come up with.

[adayinthelife]

This thread has been really fun to read. I never read the books and only watched the show a few times but I love books that convey the details of life in different places and times. Putting LH on my "to read" list.

[charizbarb]

freejoytoo, I think you'd really enjoy Fallen Angels by Tracy Chevalier (author of Girl With A Pearl Earring) - it's about a woman who becomes a suffragette in the early 1900s written in diary format, so it goes into the interesting seemingly-minor details about everyday life then (including how the main character's daughter copes with her first period).

I too have never read these books but putting them on my 'to read' list - shame I can't find them as Kindle-friendly ebooks but they're cheap enough as physical books.

Does anyone have any recommendations for non-fiction about the lives of pioneer women? I'm also interested in non-fiction about LDS history, whether written by an LDS author or not (although obviously would prefer a warts and all account). I'm not American and the early pilgrims and 20th Century America are the only areas of US history I really know about, so something that doesn't need too much prior knowledge on the subject would be best.

[lilith]

freejoytoo, I think you'd really enjoy Fallen Angels by Tracy Chevalier (author of Girl With A Pearl Earring) - it's about a woman who becomes a suffragette in the early 1900s written in diary format, so it goes into the interesting seemingly-minor details about everyday life then (including how the main character's daughter copes with her first period).

I too have never read these books but putting them on my 'to read' list - shame I can't find them as Kindle-friendly ebooks but they're cheap enough as physical books.

Does anyone have any recommendations for non-fiction about the lives of pioneer women? I'm also interested in non-fiction about LDS history, whether written by an LDS author or not (although obviously would prefer a warts and all account). I'm not American and the early pilgrims and 20th Century America are the only areas of US history I really know about, so something that doesn't need too much prior knowledge on the subject would be best.

Google "mobile reads" and the title of the little house book you want. They are all there and can all be opened in kindle (so far. Im up to The Shores of Silver Lake though, and have so far found them all).

[charizbarb]

Google "mobile reads" and the title of the little house book you want. They are all there and can all be opened in kindle (so far. Im up to The Shores of Silver Lake though, and have so far found them all).

Thanks so much!

[salsa]

The house thing really just seemed like common sense for someone in their situation.

That's how I read it as both a child and as an adult. It was the grim reality of forging a life on the prairie and a caution to Laura to be wise and use more than her brain to forge her life - to observe nature (such as the muskrats building thicker dens) and to learn to interpret signs of the earth.

However, the point is well-taken that Rose's involvement in the writing very likely reveals some of Rose's beliefs. How could it not? No one writes perfectly impartially.

[tropaka]

My understanding was that Rose heavily edited the first books to be more rosy/suitable but that "The First Four Years" was from Laura's draft, and much more realistic. I'll always remember that when they discovered Laura was pregnant with Rose Laura wrote "those that play must pay the piper" or something of the like.

[loveandwar]

This thread has been fascinating!! I loved the Little House books as a kid, and dressed up as Laura for a 3rd grade book report. Definitely putting some of the other book recs on my "must-read" list.

[OddlyAmused]

I really need to read the books again-this thread has brought back a lot of memories from reading them and given me a new perspective on Laura's life. Now I wonder if I still have my boxed set...

[Rosa]

I had a thought about Pa's supposed irresponsibility. During past centuries just because we saw very little in the way of legal divorces doesn't mean all marriages stayed intact. Desertions were common. With no easy government tracking systems like social security, if a husband or wife wanted out of a marriage, he or she could just change names and identities and leave town. This was easier in the west where you could just hit the frontier. Pa could have left if he wanted to. He stayed with his family and did right by them in what ways he could. It seems in the books that he was really quite fond of Laura and Grace and adored his wife. Yes, I do understand Laura might have been romantizing things a bit.

This is true - he never really left.

My hometown promoted itself for a long time as the home of the youngest Union veteran - a 5 year old drummer boy whose father was a local army leader and took him along (looking at the family structure, I suspected his mother sent him along - her husband and all the older boys went to war leaving her with an awful lot of little kids). Anyway, there was a mystery about where his grave really was - because he grew up to be a bigamist and fraudster with families in multiple states. It was really easy, before standardized records and the telephone.

[AnnaSofia]

What I HAVE forgotten is why Rose's marriage broke up. I always got a strong lesbian vibe from her.

I read the "Little House" series (and Rose's "Young Pioneers") with my Mother when I was a kid. I was older when some of the supplement books came out, and Mom and I bought them out of nostalgia.

One of them, I can't remember if it was "Little House Reader" or "Little House Sampler". contained a bunch of letters from Rose to Laura, written as Rose traveled through Europe after her divorce from Gil Lane. Something about the way her "traveling companion" Helen Dore Boylston, was mentioned made both Mom and I wonder.

They lived together in Albania for a couple of years, then Helen went back to Rocky Ridge with her and they lived together there in the main house (while Laura and Almanzo retired to a smaller house on the property). Helen never married or had children.

[Loveday]

I read the "Little House" series (and Rose's "Young Pioneers") with my Mother when I was a kid. I was older when some of the supplement books came out, and Mom and I bought them out of nostalgia.

One of them, I can't remember if it was "Little House Reader" or "Little House Sampler". contained a bunch of letters from Rose to Laura, written as Rose traveled through Europe after her divorce from Gil Lane. Something about the way her "traveling companion" Helen Dore Boylston, was mentioned made both Mom and I wonder.

They lived together in Albania for a couple of years, then Helen went back to Rocky Ridge with her and they lived together there in the main house (while Laura and Almanzo retired to a smaller house on the property). Helen never married or had children.

I've read both those books and have no memory of her mentioning Boylston. :think: I'll have to go back and look through them. Boylston wrote another of my favourite series of books, the Sue Barton nurse series. My mother gave me one of them when I was about ten, and then I found the rest of them at the library and devoured them all. I came across some of them at a Friends of the Library book sale many years later and bought them all :lol:

[O Latin]

I love this thread! Some of my earliest memories are of my dad reading the Little House books to me before bedtime. I reread a few of them a couple of years ago and what really stood out to me were the details about how they did various daily tasks, which I assumed to be fairly accurate because what reason is there to edit that sort of stuff (besides just not being able to remember)? How ordinary people lived their ordinary lives is my favorite kind of history, so I found it especially fascinating. As an adult, I've only read maybe three of the books and I read them out of order, so I didn't pick up on the constant moving around, although I remember as a kid thinking it was weird that they lived somewhere different in every book.

I liked the TV series, too, despite the rampant historical inaccuracy. When I was in junior high some local station would show episodes right about the time I got home from school, so I would run home, grab a snack, and watch LHOTP. My favorite episode was the one where Almanzo first shows up and Laura and Nellie both have crushes on him. Laura puts cayenne pepper on the chicken that Nellie is supposedly making for Almanzo, and Laura and Nellie end up getting in a big fight over it. Anyway, it was a two part episode, and the first time I saw it I only got to see the first half because I had to leave to go to an orthodontist appointment or something before the second half came on. I watched religiously for months waiting for that episode to come on again. By the time it finally did, I had gotten my sister hooked on the show as well and I remember shouting at her to hurry up and get downstairs because THE episode was finally on.

I loved the PBS "House" shows. Colonial House was by far my favorite. I was in about eighth grade when it originally aired and I remember thinking, "What are they whining about? That looks like fun." I rented it from Netflix a couple of years ago and I think I understood it better, but I still thought it would be cool. I wish they would make more of those shows. I would kill to be on one. I think it would absolutely be THE most fascinating and life-changing experience of all time.

[freejoytoo]

Point taken about the house thing being common sense, but I do think Rose inserted her own political views into the books a lot. There's a lot about being free and independent and how shocking it is to expect to depend on anyybody.

Had a flick through These Happy Golden Years last night. I'd forgotten about the part where Laura stays with a woman and her daughter for a few weeks where they have to live alone in the middle of nowhere for seven months. I can't imagine how isolating that would be. Just you and a child and nothing to do but the chores and no one to see. No wonder Mrs Brewster ended up getting a knife out.

Does anyone know if you can watch Outback House online? I couldn't find it anwhere and it sounds so interesting.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Interesting!

I read the entire series as a kid and loved it. Then, a few years ago, I ordered the box set for my kids but ended up reading the whole thing myself over again.

It's amazing how your perspective on the same books changes with age. As a kid, it was sort of exciting to see how the family would manage through challenges. As an adult, I saw more clearly that it wasn't all fun and games, and the last book, The First Four Years, is just non-stop depression once you get past Rose's birth.

If anything, the book seems to be about the naive trust and optimism of children, and their energy and spirit, and how that can get crushed by reality. Except for truly hideous childhoods, kids can have a resilience and have fun while the adults are stressed to the max. That's part of the reason that people seem to think that "the good ole' days" are whenever they happened to be a kid. Each book seems to represent Laura's POV at that stage. In Little House in the Big Woods, everything is cozy and Pa is just the bravest and best. Along with telling a story, it's like LIW was reaching back to remember some of her old feelings, from a time when she didn't feel so broken down. So, she remembers her youthful spunky spirit, which disappeared when she struggled as a young wife and mother with crop failures and the burning down of her house and severe depression after the death of her son. She remembers Almanzo as this larger-than-life hero of her dreams, when he hadn't been financially responsible and then had his health fail early in their marriage. She remembers Ma and Pa as always managing to provide for them on the frontier, when they were clearly struggling and experiencing a string of failures and resulting moves.

As you read, you also see that the books are hardly an endorsement of wifely submission. Caroline Ingalls seems to be that sort of wife - she keeps sweet, never raises her voice and ultimately accepts whatever Pa decides. Reading it now, though, it seems pretty clear that she must have been miserable. I remember the episode where Pa moves the family to Dakota right as they are still recovering from scarlett fever and Mary's blindness. It helps explain why Laura later refuses to include "obey" in the wedding vows.

[freejoytoo]

I've never read The First Four Years. It sounds very different from the other books.

Ma must have seriously meant it when she forbade Charles from going in search of that wheat. I don't think she was happy with a lot of their moves but she clearly knew that if he'd gone looking for wheat they would have starved.

[moreorlessnu]

Fascinating thread. Brings back so many wonderful memories of the book, and a few memories from the TV show.

I had forgotten about Ma telling the girls to put a bar against the door. It makes me wonder why Laura/Rose would include that in the book when little girls would not pick up on its meaning. Maybe to send the message that, even back then, people had to be wary of strangers?

The clown/rape episode was the creepiest. If I remember correctly, it starts with Sylvia's father telling her (harshly) to bind her chest because she has begun to develop. I always wondered why they included that in there, as though her chest was a factor in her being raped. No, the guy was the factor in her getting raped. What a terrible episode/message.

I also hated the Albert and Andrew (http://littlehouse.wikia.com/wiki/Andrew_Garvey) characters. The episodes just became lamer and lamer at that point.

[freejoytoo]

Maybe it was to show how messed up the dad was rather than it being a factor? Or maybe I'm too optimistic. A lot of viewers would probably agree with the dad :(

My personal favourite episode was where Laura and Mary's friend Ellen died and then Ellen's mum kidnapped Laura and hallucinated that she was Ellen. Least favourite was the one where Albert and possibly Andy went on a fishing trip and nothing happened.

[moreorlessnu]

My personal favourite episode was where Laura and Mary's friend Ellen died and then Ellen's mum kidnapped Laura and hallucinated that she was Ellen.

Oh, yes, Laura, Mary and Ellen went to a swimming hole, and Ellen drown...

[Pattypoundcake]

I so love this thread!

Among the "houses" shows (which I dearly wish they still did!) I really enjoyed Colonial House. I felt terrible for the Wyre family and always wondered what became of Bethany (her fiance died in a car accident while she was away on Colonial House) and her brother (who was in the accident with the fiance).

I had a major obsession with LHOTP but was majorly traumatized/confused by the family who wanted Laura to "bring the baby in to his wife to keep", they could always have another. To trade the baby for a horse. WTF? It was just so flippant.

I have to wonder how fundies feel about Anne of Green Gables.

[teddybear]

I have always been a big fan of the Little House books (hated the tv show though) and can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this thread. I've been interested in the "real" stories behind the books, so have found some new information on this thread. Thanks to all the posters here.