Laura Ingalls Wilder

Born - February 7, 1867 in Pepin, Wisconsin

Died - February 10, 1957 in Mansfield, Missouri

Early Life

Laura was the second of five children born to Charles and Caroline Ingalls. Like other families in the frontier West, Charles and Caroline worked very hard for their family’s survival. They did all kinds of chores together, like milking cows and making butter and cheese from the milk, planting gardens, butchering hogs and smoking the meat, making soft leather from deer hides, making sugar from maple sap, and gathering wild honey. On top of this, Charles farmed the land, shot wild game with bullets he molded himself, fished, and trapped animals for their pelts while Caroline was in charge of cleaning the house, sewing the family’s clothes, and taking care of the garden. Laura would recall all these things later in life in her writings. The family also lived in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansa, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. She never finished high school, but she became a teacher and met her husband, Almonzo Wilder.

Missouri Connection

In 1894 Laura, Almonzo, and their daughter, Rose, moved to Rocky Ridge Farm, just outside of the small town of Mansfield, Missouri. This is where she wrote her beloved series, Little House on the Prairie.

Claim to Fame

Laura Ingalls Wilder used her childhood and adolescent experiences on the American frontier to write autobiographical novels beloved by children and adults alike. At Rocky Ridge Farm, her family home in the Ozarks near Mansfield, Missouri, she wrote the "Little House" books such as Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie. Wilder’s work has remained continuously in print since the books first appeared in the 1930s and was the subject of a very successful television series.

Later Life

Laura started her writing career in 1911, at the age of 44. With the help and guidance of her daughter, Rose, she started writing for magazines. In the 1930s she started writing an autobiography that was never published. However, the publishers who reviewed it suggested she rewrite the story as fiction. Once Laura decided to take that advice, her famous Little House series was born. In 1932, at the age of sixty-five, Laura published her first book, Little House in the Big Woods.

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