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Finding Laura's Wisconsin
by Catherine Young
for Little House, Big Story:
Celebrating the 150th Birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Wisconsin State Historical Society 2017
Once upon a time, 60 years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin…
Each time I read these words of Laura Ingalls Wilder, they open up a whole world for me. I remember the first time I read them.
In my tall, dark, castle of a school, one classroom was transformed into a library when I was in fourth grade. That was where I discovered Little House in the Big Woods. I lost myself in the book, reading it throughout the six-block walk home, and continued reading, draped across my high, four-poster bed. I read feverishly until
She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now...
I had come to the end of the book, and I was devastated to let go of Laura and Wisconsin.
Returning the book to the library, I grieved as if for the loss of my best friend.
"How did you like it?" asked the wise librarian.
I told her how I wished it could go on and on.
She smiled. "Did you know that there are more Little House books?"
Oh what relief – and joy. It was the beginning of my journey through all the Little House books – and of a lifetime exploring history.
*
Whenever someone finds out that I left the eastern mountains of Pennsylvania forty years ago, there is surprise followed by the question, "Why did you choose Wisconsin?"
"Because of Laura Ingalls Wilder," I answer, "Because I wanted to see the land she wrote about," and if I get a smile, I tell my history.
I arrived at UW-Madison in the 1970s – about 100 years after Wilder's time in Wisconsin, and around the time Old World Wisconsin was created. I came to learn plant ecology and geography. Outwardly, I wanted to know Laura's Big Woods and prairies. Secretly, I wanted to come to the place where I believed I could learn about making cheese and tapping maple trees. At the time of the back-to-the-land movement, I sought the skills Wilder wrote about.
I didn't find the Big Woods in Wisconsin – at least not right away. I found instead, farms and towns and lakes – and people wanting to tell their stories at both big and small historical sites, waysides, rural festivals, feasts, and powwows.
And I found my calling – both as a farmer and storyteller.
*
With her first manuscript, Pioneer Girl Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her memories. When she crafted the Little House Books, Wilder created a portal to Wisconsin's rural heritage: winter heat depending upon a woodpile, fall squashes stored in the attic, and maple sap tapped and boiled to syrup and sugar. And who can forget Laura's family tales: "The Story of Grandpa's Sled and the Pig" or "The Story of Pa and the Bear in the Way" about a bear-shaped stump in the road – stories told as balm or evening treats?
Wilder's writing sent me to my elders for tales both funny and profound – stories about crossing an ocean to reach America. Not only had her writing sealed my love for the written word, but it gave me passage into the land of history. Because of the skills showcased in the Little House books, I later sought ways to learn crafts and tools through books and living history sites such as Old World Wisconsin.
*
Here's how Wilder's detailed and inspired writing has played out in my life.
I now live on a subsistence farm in Southwestern Wisconsin. Thirty years ago, my husband and I began building a house on our farm, temporarily living in the old farmhouse – an 1870s log cabin which was only slightly updated to have running water.
Though I have not slapped a bear, I've nodded to one and gone quietly on my way. Where we live, we hear the calls of Great Horned owls, the source of Pa's mysterious "Voice in the Woods." We raise our food, and like the Ingalls family, store it for winter. We heat with wood, and in late winter, we put taps in our maple trees.
I have read the entire Little House series to my family aloud three times. First, for my Swiss immigrant husband so he could learn English when we were dating, and then each to my son and daughter, eight years apart.
I have visited every Laura Ingalls Wilder site from Wisconsin through Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota and have taught my elementary students history through reading the Little House books.
Whenever I visit the Mississippi River at Lake Pepin, I collect pebbles on the beach. Often, I feel like that little girl from long ago with pockets full of stones.
*
In her sixties, and with a one-room school education, Laura Ingalls Wilder recreated her own history into classic children's literature. Her work continues to inspire the writings of others – Louise Erdrich and her unfolding Birchbark House book series, depicting Wisconsin history through tales of an Anishinaabe family and their westward migration in the 19th century.
And in Wilder's writings, I found inspiration for my own.
After having worked as a naturalist and cultural interpreter, I've written my experiences into story for literary journals – and for a children's literature magazine where I wrote a fictional story about our real experiences making maple syrup.
*
These words from Laura Ingalls Wilder live for all of us:
She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the fire-light in the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.
Now is now, and the past always lives in the present as we pass along our stories, our heritage, our history. Now, as then, Wisconsin is a place of possibility strengthened by our shared histories.
by Catherine Young
for Little House, Big Story:
Celebrating the 150th Birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Wisconsin State Historical Society 2017
Once upon a time, 60 years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin…
Each time I read these words of Laura Ingalls Wilder, they open up a whole world for me. I remember the first time I read them.
In my tall, dark, castle of a school, one classroom was transformed into a library when I was in fourth grade. That was where I discovered Little House in the Big Woods. I lost myself in the book, reading it throughout the six-block walk home, and continued reading, draped across my high, four-poster bed. I read feverishly until
She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now...
I had come to the end of the book, and I was devastated to let go of Laura and Wisconsin.
Returning the book to the library, I grieved as if for the loss of my best friend.
"How did you like it?" asked the wise librarian.
I told her how I wished it could go on and on.
She smiled. "Did you know that there are more Little House books?"
Oh what relief – and joy. It was the beginning of my journey through all the Little House books – and of a lifetime exploring history.
*
Whenever someone finds out that I left the eastern mountains of Pennsylvania forty years ago, there is surprise followed by the question, "Why did you choose Wisconsin?"
"Because of Laura Ingalls Wilder," I answer, "Because I wanted to see the land she wrote about," and if I get a smile, I tell my history.
I arrived at UW-Madison in the 1970s – about 100 years after Wilder's time in Wisconsin, and around the time Old World Wisconsin was created. I came to learn plant ecology and geography. Outwardly, I wanted to know Laura's Big Woods and prairies. Secretly, I wanted to come to the place where I believed I could learn about making cheese and tapping maple trees. At the time of the back-to-the-land movement, I sought the skills Wilder wrote about.
I didn't find the Big Woods in Wisconsin – at least not right away. I found instead, farms and towns and lakes – and people wanting to tell their stories at both big and small historical sites, waysides, rural festivals, feasts, and powwows.
And I found my calling – both as a farmer and storyteller.
*
With her first manuscript, Pioneer Girl Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her memories. When she crafted the Little House Books, Wilder created a portal to Wisconsin's rural heritage: winter heat depending upon a woodpile, fall squashes stored in the attic, and maple sap tapped and boiled to syrup and sugar. And who can forget Laura's family tales: "The Story of Grandpa's Sled and the Pig" or "The Story of Pa and the Bear in the Way" about a bear-shaped stump in the road – stories told as balm or evening treats?
Wilder's writing sent me to my elders for tales both funny and profound – stories about crossing an ocean to reach America. Not only had her writing sealed my love for the written word, but it gave me passage into the land of history. Because of the skills showcased in the Little House books, I later sought ways to learn crafts and tools through books and living history sites such as Old World Wisconsin.
*
Here's how Wilder's detailed and inspired writing has played out in my life.
I now live on a subsistence farm in Southwestern Wisconsin. Thirty years ago, my husband and I began building a house on our farm, temporarily living in the old farmhouse – an 1870s log cabin which was only slightly updated to have running water.
Though I have not slapped a bear, I've nodded to one and gone quietly on my way. Where we live, we hear the calls of Great Horned owls, the source of Pa's mysterious "Voice in the Woods." We raise our food, and like the Ingalls family, store it for winter. We heat with wood, and in late winter, we put taps in our maple trees.
I have read the entire Little House series to my family aloud three times. First, for my Swiss immigrant husband so he could learn English when we were dating, and then each to my son and daughter, eight years apart.
I have visited every Laura Ingalls Wilder site from Wisconsin through Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota and have taught my elementary students history through reading the Little House books.
Whenever I visit the Mississippi River at Lake Pepin, I collect pebbles on the beach. Often, I feel like that little girl from long ago with pockets full of stones.
*
In her sixties, and with a one-room school education, Laura Ingalls Wilder recreated her own history into classic children's literature. Her work continues to inspire the writings of others – Louise Erdrich and her unfolding Birchbark House book series, depicting Wisconsin history through tales of an Anishinaabe family and their westward migration in the 19th century.
And in Wilder's writings, I found inspiration for my own.
After having worked as a naturalist and cultural interpreter, I've written my experiences into story for literary journals – and for a children's literature magazine where I wrote a fictional story about our real experiences making maple syrup.
*
These words from Laura Ingalls Wilder live for all of us:
She was glad that the cozy house, and Pa and Ma and the fire-light in the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.
Now is now, and the past always lives in the present as we pass along our stories, our heritage, our history. Now, as then, Wisconsin is a place of possibility strengthened by our shared histories.
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