So we stopped in DeSmet, South Dakota - where Laura Ingalls lived with her family for a time - she chronicled her De Smet memories in The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, and These Happy Golden Years. Her daughter Rose was born there.
We stopped to see the Laura Ingalls Wilder exhibit...
...a view of the little town - it's quite typical of small North and South Dakota towns...
The Surveyors House - The Surveyors' House was the first home of the Ingalls in Dakota Territory. Laura Ingalls Wilder described it in great detail in her book By the Shores of Silver Lake. By today's standards it's very small but Laura wrote that it was the biggest home she had ever seen. I certainly would have never thought when I was 9 years old and reading the Little House books for the first time that I would ever visit DeSmet SD...
I love the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and gave my collection to a young friend who is a great reader but had never read them.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the books - as an adult and fairly recently (for me) I started to call my mother 'Ma' - she loved it and when the first enthusiasm wore off and I reverted to 'Mum' she took me to one side and asked me to continue with 'Ma'.
Happy thoughts.