Little House on the Prarie

detroitchef · May-07-09, 11:41 AM

My kid was doing a research paper for her seventh grade class, and picked the LHOTP series. To her surprise, it turns out that the original handwritten manuscripts of Laura Ingalls Wilder went to her daughter Rose, and Rose died in Detroit in the 1920's and left teh manuscripts to the Burton Collection at DPL.

Man, that show with Melissa Gilbert and Melissa Sue Anderson was teh best. My older sisters used to make it a family night, and Ma would send Pa out for Saunders Hot Fudge Sundaes when Little House was one.

Good Times, good times. Anyone ever gone down to Burton and read the manuscripts?

**Wintersmommy** · May-07-09, 12:23 PM

my kid is just getting into these! I would love to see the orginals ...do they let you actually read them?

**tkierpiec** · May-07-09, 12:29 PM

Oh, how I loved those books and the television show! I was thrilled about a month ago when I sold a vintage prairie dress to the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Missouri.

**oldredfordette** · May-07-09, 12:51 PM

Rose Wilder Lane lived to the 1980's. There are other relatives in the Ingalls family in the area,my husband is one of them.

CC would have loved Rose Wilder Lane. She was a friend of the odious Ayn Rand.

**AQCE** · May-07-09, 01:19 PM

odious Ayn Rand.[/quote]
What?

**gazhekwe** · May-07-09, 01:46 PM

I had no idea the manuscripts were here! How great it would be to read them. Rose was an author of some note, and history suggests she did quite a bit of editing to make her mother's manuscripts more interesting to read. The last book in the series is These Happy Golden Years which ends with Laura's marriage to Almanzo Wilder. The First Four Years, found after Rose's death, came later, published in 1971.

Rose initially capped off the series with On the Way Home, the story of her family's move from DeSmet to Missouri. There were hints of some of the terrible troubles preceding that move, including Almanzo's near death from diphtheria which affected his health for the rest of his life, drought, and the death of an infant brother.

A subsequent account tells of Laura and Almanzo's return to DeSmet in the 40s when Almanzo was 90. I loved the quote from him, I guess if I can drive a team from DeSmet to Missouri, I can drive a car back there.

Rose was a very active Libertarian.

**FlyingJ** · May-07-09, 02:17 PM

It's the manuscripts for 2 of her books that Laura Ingalls Wilder sent to make up for her husband falling ill when she was to open the DPL Children's Library. The librarian let me sister look through one of them back on Noel Night in the 70's;
http://hoover.archives.gov/LIW/pione...d-writing.html

**FlyingJ** · May-07-09, 02:27 PM

I don't get the odious Ayn Rand line either, no one is bad simply because you disagree with them. oldredfordette, oh that's funny-I've run into a guy related to the "McLaury Gang" from Tombstone out here & the Earp descendants used to host a radio sports call-in show. Nobody wants to restart their feud, I guess

**East Detroit** · May-07-09, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by FlyingJ

I don't get the odious Ayn Rand line either, no one is bad simply because you disagree with them.

Sure they are. Was Hitler bad because we disagreed with his ideals or because he was rude and didn't dress well?

LodgeDodger · May-07-09, 04:32 PM

I really loved those books, too.

**Django** · May-07-09, 06:11 PM

We had all her books growing up. My mother read and loved them all as a kid so much she named my sister Laura. Im looking forward to telling her about this thread and the originals being at the DPL.

I thought this thread was going to be about a lone house on an empty block in Detroit.

**Detroitej72** · May-07-09, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by East Detroit

Sure they are. Was Hitler bad because we disagreed with his ideals or because he was rude and didn't dress well?

Dude, the difference between Hitler and Rand are night and day.

Hitler actually killed people who didn't fit into his warped system, whereas Rand had some bad ideas and published them. She never acted on her ideas, and besides, they didn't include mass killings.

Back to the topic, I've also read that Mark Twain's daughter, whose husband was the conductor for the DSO, had some of his unpublished works in her Boston-Edison house when she died. Anybody know about this, or what became of them?

**East Detroit** · May-07-09, 07:24 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitej72

Dude, the difference between Hitler and Rand are night and day.

Hitler actually killed people who didn't fit into his warped system, whereas Rand had some bad ideas and published them. She never acted on her ideas, and besides, they didn't include mass killings.

Back to the topic, I've also read that Mark Twain's daughter, whose husband was the conductor for the DSO, had some of his unpublished works in her Boston-Edison house when she died. Anybody know about this, or what became of them?

The statement I was responding to included the absolute "no one", so I picked an obvious "someone."

My example was valid in that context.

LodgeDodger · May-07-09, 07:40 PM

[quote=Django;16978]We had all her books growing up. My mother read and loved them all as a kid so much she named my sister Laura. Im looking forward to telling her about this thread and the originals being at the DPL.

I thought this thread was going to be about a lone house on an empty block in Detroit.[/quote]

Same here, Django. That's why I didn't read it for a couple of days. Glad I finally did! I'd love to know where they lived in Detroit.

**Detroitej72** · May-07-09, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by East Detroit

The statement I was responding to included the absolute "no one", so I picked an obvious "someone."

My example was valid in that context.

Ah, point taken.

9mile&seneca · May-07-09, 08:20 PM

What exactly were her "bad ideas"? If more people had picked up on them about 50 years ago [[not blindly following them to the letter but the basic principles)I don't think we would be living in this country ruled by greedy scoundrels. In fact politics would be almost irrelevent.

Originally Posted by Detroitej72

Dude, the difference between Hitler and Rand are night and day.

Hitler actually killed people who didn't fit into his warped system, whereas Rand had some bad ideas and published them. She never acted on her ideas, and besides, they didn't include mass killings.

Back to the topic, I've also read that Mark Twain's daughter, whose husband was the conductor for the DSO, had some of his unpublished works in her Boston-Edison house when she died. Anybody know about this, or what became of them?

**reddog289** · May-08-09, 01:21 AM

Late as usual ,But I thought the same as Django and LD. I never read any of the books, yet watched the TV show as a kid. Since I work in the schools I do see that the Little House series is still popular with the kids[or at least the teachers].
This thread gave me an idea for a TV show in itself.

**mauser** · May-08-09, 04:32 AM

Originally Posted by AQCE

odious Ayn Rand.

What?[/quote]

Ayn Rand: cult leader of a socio-economic ideology based on self serving greed. Spurred on such bastardized movements as Reaganism, Voodoo Economics, Thatcherism, Neo Conservatism, Casino Capitalism and Disaster Capitalism.

This movement is solely responsible for the current world wide depression.

"Odious" was an understatement used by the poster in polite company.

9mile&seneca · May-08-09, 08:22 AM

Let's have another 40 years of the "Great Society". That should just about do it.

Lorax · May-08-09, 09:03 AM

Any derivitive of so-called conservativism- call it neocon, libertarianism, whatever, IS responsible for the position we now find ourselves in.

Unregulated business in any society is a perscription for disaster, and we had 8 years of unregulated fascism under the Tushies, and now need to dig ourselves out of it.

Once big business is rendered only a component of our economy rather than the reason for it's existence, then we'll have a better society to live in.

All you neocons out there will scream about the nanny state taking over, but done correctly, as it is in many European nations, we can have the truly socicalistic society our founding fathers envisioned.

I would suggest to any followers of Ayn Rand to read the constitution- "promote the general welfare" has meaning and shouldn't be ignored. Jefferson and Madison had the right idea.

Too bad the writer of Little House had such backwards political views- perhaps she should have kept to writing.

**jcole** · May-08-09, 09:21 AM

This is a thread about Little House on the Prairie, for god's sake. Can't we keep politics out of ANYTHING here?

**Maxine1958** · May-08-09, 10:18 AM

Originally Posted by jcole

This is a thread about Little House on the Prairie, for god's sake. Can't we keep politics out of ANYTHING here?

Took the words right out of my brain, jcole!

Lorax · May-08-09, 10:25 AM

Actually by definition, fascism is corporate and government interests co-mingling- i.e. no bid contracts with Halliburton, [[which felt the need to open it's new HQ in Dubai to avoid paying taxes here in the US.)

Unregulated financial markets, i.e. Phil Gramm's commodities reformation act of 2000 which gave us the sub-prime debacle as well as open season on screwing American consumers through loan-shark lending rates.

Yes, indeed we were closest we've ever been to fascism under the Tushies.

Taking this back to Laura Ingalls and her family's devotion to libertarinism- it's a misnomer for anyone to think they were libertarians in the modern sense of the word- just as true conservatism ended with Reagan's world champion deficit spending practices, and carried on by both Bushes.

Modern libertarians are simply neocons of a different stripe. Just add legalized drugs and the removal of legislated morality, and you have the modern libertarian's mantra.

**SDRdesign** · May-08-09, 10:38 AM

I thought this thread was going to be about a lone house on an empty block in Detroit.[/quote]

Me too

What a nice suprise!

Sludgedaddy · May-08-09, 02:59 PM

Even though Micheal Landon [[ Pa Ingals ) was pure of heart, and said his prayers at night,He became a wolf when the wolfsbane bloomed and the autumn moon was bright [[on the prairie ).

I would have liked the TV show better if Teen-age Werewolf [[Michael Landon ) would have become the Middle-Aged Werewolf on the Prairie!