Where Half-Pint Grew Up

(original draft written in July 2014... a time-warp kept it in the interwebs until it was discovered today!)

I guess I like serials. Not cereals (though I like those, too). I'm talking about the books that come in installations. Series.

I've been known to wait in line to be one of the first to read a Harry Potter book - while on vacation in England and dragging a gaggle of kids with me across town at midnight.  For later book releases, I even dressed up to stand in line at midnight with hundreds of other fans. And when the 7th Harry Potter book was about to be released, I made myself go back and re-read books 1-6 and end #6 at just the right time to start 7.

This summer I read the Divergent series.

Years ago I read all of the Outlander books.

I even made series out of books that aren't a series --  I would just read through all of the books by one author in the library (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Barbara Kingsolver, Louisa May Alcott) before moving to another.

And as kids, my sister Vanessa and I entered the prairie through Laura Ingalls Wilder's stories of her childhood. Our parents read them out loud to us. Then I re-read them to myself a little later. And probably read them all again. Then watched the TV show even later.

Of course, I wanted to be Laura. Or like Laura, anyway. She had a pretty tough life -- living out in the middle of Kansas or Minnesota or Iowa or South Dakota was harsh in the 1890s. But I still thought it would be grand to live in her town and be her friend.

And for the last couple of years I've been thinking about diving into Laura Ingalls Wilder's world and going to visit some of her families' homesteads. But I hadn't made a plan or anything -- it was just something I'd tossed around for the future.

Then I was at a bookstore and a book actually fell of the shelf and hit me on the head:

In The Wilder Life, Wendy McClure recounts her delve into the world of Laura and all things Little House. Just the book I'd been wanting to read!

And it just so happened I was getting ready to visit some friends who lived within a day's drive of one of the final homestead of Laura and Almanzo, a short road trip was in order.

Dad and I -- and Eliza, Civil War Nurse Barbie (replacement for the unfortunately forgotten Crystal Barbie) -- set off.

Six hours later, we arrived at the Wilder's home in Mansfield, Missouri.

It was late in the day - we only had about an hour to explore the place. And what we saw was pretty fascinating - or, rather, what I learned was fascinating. 

The property that remains is held by a private group dedicated to protecting the legacy and keeping things up and running in two main areas -- the old house and the new house. 

The old house is the homestead that Laura and Almanzo originally built over several years -- cobbled together sections as they were able to add on. It's interesting to see how the place transformed itself over the years -- the very much antiquated kitchen (on the early side of things) and finalized in the living room at the other end of the house with a more craftsman feel. 

In true legacy spirit, you cannot take pictures inside of the house. You've gotta pay the fee to get inside and see it for yourself!

The house is surrounded by the a recreation of the original orchard that spurred them into settling in that area in the first place. A failed attempt at making a living as apple farmers led to the Wilders doing a bit of this and a bit of that over time.

The last remaining original tree that was blown down in 2002

And so it was that later, the Wilder's daughter, Rose - an accomplished author and quite the character it seems - came home to live with her parents after she ran into some trouble in the big city.

Rose used her own money to build her parents a fancy new house.

And it's where Laura started writing. 

Rose convinced her mom to write these stories and convinced a publisher to get them out. And so the series started!

Laura and Almanzo eventually decided they liked their old house better and moved back.

I think that bummed Rose out.

But sometimes you have to humor your parents, especially when they've spent some time humoring you.

And so that was how Dad and Crystal's stand-in Barbie friend and I spent a short afternoon outside of Springfield, Missouri. 

One day I'll visit some of Laura's other homesteads. 

And I'm not sure life will be complete until I see a pageant while sitting on the prairie.

In the meantime, I'll spend some time reading a couple of books a friend recently gave me.