Notable Birthday: Laura Ingalls Wilder

When we think of novels that define Classic American Literature, our first thought may naturally be To Kill A Mockingbird or Little Woman, possibly even Moby Dick. All of these novels, although wonderful and impactful in their own right, pale into existence when compared with the likes of the Little House on the Prairie series, written by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Wilder was born on the 7th of February 1867, to Charles and Caroline Ingalls. The inspiration for Little House on the Prairie was her own life, as she was raised in a log cabin outside of Pepin, Wisconsin, before moving to Kansas two years later and finding even more inspiration for her novels.

As Wilder grew up, she found herself moving repeatedly from one Midwestern town to another, eventually settling in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. This location provided the setting for the Little House on the Prairie TV show.

Wilder and her siblings relied on each other to educate themselves, as moving frequently left them lacking any kind of classroom teaching. Despite this, Laura managed to become a teacher at the age of 15, to bring another income into the house that would allow her older sister, Mary, to attend a school for the blind.

After marrying her husband, Almanzo, in 1885, Laura was able to quit teaching to concentrate on raising her children and work on the family’s farm. It took another 40 years before she would start work on her Little House novel series, not publishing ‘Little House in the Big Woods’ until 1932. The final book in the series was completed in 1943, when Wilder was 76 years old.

Wilder lived to be 90 years old, dying just three days after her 90th birthday. She spent the final years of her life living on her farm in Rocky Ridge, reading and responding to her fan mail.

Wilder’s daughter, Rose, edited a lot of her manuscripts and published them posthumously, allowing her writing to live on after her death. Of course, Wilder’s lasting legacy is her beloved television series and film, Little House on the Prairie.