Highlights Archives
Laura Ingalls Wilder Family Letters Go Online
The Wisconsin Historical Society has recently published on its website more than a dozen letters written during the Civil War by relatives of Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), author of Little House on the Prairie and other popular books for young readers. Wilder's famous novels are thinly disguised recollections of her childhood, and these private letters between her mother, uncles and an aunt shed light on the real-world adults who she fictionalized. They include a four-page letter written by her mother, Caroline Quiner Ingalls, shortly after being married and others written by various uncles while fighting in the Civil War.
The original handwritten documents are presented in color, accompanied by typed transcriptions, in the Society's Turning Points in Wisconsin History digital collection. A lesson plan based on them has also been provided for the use of elementary school teachers who use the Little House books in the classroom.
Vivid Glimpses of Ingalls Family History
The letters were written to Charles and Martha Carpenter (sister and brother-in-law of Laura's mother), who lived in Pepin County. Wilder's first book, Little House in the Big Woods, recalled her childhood years living near the Carpenters after the Civil War. The letters were donated to the Society in 1977 by a Carpenter family descendant.
In a letter written October 6, 1861 (pictured above), to her sister, Laura's mother Caroline describes an outbreak of scarlet fever that nearly killed Laura's grandmother and two cousins. She also discusses the family farm in Concord, Jefferson County, Wisconsin, prices for crops, her marriage, health and the activities of various relatives.
A few weeks later, Caroline's brother Joseph Quiner left for the Civil War. In a letter of April 26, 1862, his wife Nancy confesses her fears about his fate after the recent Battle of Shiloh. "These past two weeks we have not heard the particulars," she writes. "I am almost crazy. I have scarcely eat, drank or slept since I heard of the battle." She could not know that he was wounded and would die just two days after her letter was written.
Graphic Descriptions of Civil War Battles
Other of Wilder's uncles sent graphic descriptions from the front. The first Battle of Bull Run, the siege of Atlanta, the battle for Corinth, Mississippi, and guerilla fighting in Virginia are some of the military actions described. One of Wilder's uncles sent two charmingly ungrammatical letters home in the fall of 1862; in a third, dated February 1863, a friend sadly describes his death. Other letters discuss camp life, marches, engineering work, the draft, Abraham Lincoln and the election of 1864.
Letters Describe the Adults in Laura Ingalls Wilder's World
Although all the letters were written before Laura Ingalls Wilder was born, they draw a vivid picture of the adults who populated her world. Her grandparents, mother and father (Pa and Ma Ingalls in the books), aunts and uncles, and various cousins are all described in these intimate family documents.
Wilder turned her memories of their world into fiction that has delighted generations. The first in the series, Little House in the Big Woods (about her Wisconsin years), appeared in 1932. Her books have been continually in print ever since, and through translation into 40 different languages, they have made her famous around the world.
:: Posted May 21, 2009
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