Resources and Links for LHOTP

Resources and Online Links for More Information and Details about Laura Ingalls Wilder

Frontier Girl 

Little House Books

Lifestyle of LHOTP

Pioneer Girl

The Wilder Women

Living like Little House on the Prairie

Rocky Ridge Farm, Missouri 

Timeline and Chronology

Laura's Prairie House

Laura Ingalls Wilder Genealogy Part 1

Did you know that Laura Ingalls Wilder was related to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

On the Wikipedia page for Laura, there is a statement that says that Laura was related to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Now, I am a very keen genealogist. Quite frankly I was sceptical of that Wikipedia statement, so I did some research and typed in all the names for both Laura's ancestors and FDR's ancestors into my genealogy software program. 

Sure enough I discovered that yes they are related and that they are both of the same generation. 

My software doesn't seem to make real family trees, so you will have to settle for these Lines of Descent!!

But there is also a big age discrepancy between these two.

Laura Ingalls Wilder and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were 5th cousins.

They were both descended from Jonathan Delano, the son of Philippe De Lannoy. Philippe changed his name to Delano when he immigrated to America from Europe in 1621.

Laura was born in 1867 and FDR was born in 1882 - Laura was already 15 years old when FDR was born.
 
FDR contracted polio in 1921, (at the age of 39) which cost him the use of his legs. This put his future political career in jeopardy. But he worked hard to recover from the illness, and also founded a new treatment centre for people with polio in Warm Springs, Georgia.

Laura died in 1954, aged 90. FDR died in 1945 aged 63.

Laura was 78 years old when FDR died. She out-lived her cousin by 12 years.

FDR was elected President in 1932. He was aged 50 years old. Laura was 65 years old.

I am wondering. 
Was Charles Ingalls ever made aware of his Delano heritage? His grandmother (Laura's great grandmother) was Margaret Delano who married Samuel Ingalls in Connecticut in 1793. 
Did Laura know that she was related to the Delano family?  
While the Wilders were living in Missouri, did Almanzo vote for FDR? 
Did Laura  know that FDR was a relative?

There are so many questions I want to ask both Laura and Charles, and Rose too. Did she ever know that she had some famous relatives?  

Is there any of this mentioned in any of Laura's letters and in the biography Pioneer Girl, which I clearly have not yet read? 

One more thing. Jonathan Delano Sr also had a number of other famous descendants who are also distantly related to Laura Ingalls Wilder.

 These include President Calvin Coolidge, President Ulysses S. Grant, and the NASA astronaut, Alan B Shepherd. 

Jonathan's Delano's wife Mercy Warren was the granddaughter of  Richard Warren who arrived in America on the Mayflower in 1620. So now only does Laura have several famous relatives, she can also claim Mayflower Descent too!!!

See Mayflower History for details.
 

Little House in the Big Woods

Title - Little House in the Big Woods
Author - Laura Ingalls Wilder
First Published - 1932


This book basically describes one year (4 seasons) of living in the Big Woods of Wisconsin in the 1870s. It is actually a fictionalised story of Laura's life.

Laura and her family lived in a cabin about 7 miles north of Pepin on Lake Pepin in western Wisconsin. Lake Pepin is actually part of the Mississippi river (and forms part of the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota) but there is NO mention of the Mississippi in this book at all.

The story starts at the beginning of winter and gives lots of details about pioneer life through winter, spring, summer and fall. I especially loved how Laura describes in detail how a lot of the food was prepared and stored. 

My first thought on reading this book was that is was clearly written for children. And then I thought, well, of course it WAS written for children and if I did read this back when I was a child, I do not remember it. So I continued reading, It was kind of hard to read a book that has clearly treating me, the reader, as if I were a child. But eventually I got so caught up in all the details that I forgot that I was being treated like a child. 

This was Ma's working week.

Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday.

The only days that were described in any details in the book were Baking days, and Churning days, because these involved food and were Lauras favourites.

Sundays were also described in detail as well. Laura hated Sundays. The children could not yet read so they could only talk to their dolls (but not play with them) or listen to Ma reading to them from the bible. Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest. Christmas was described in detail as well. 

Other activities described in detail, were usually in connection with Pa's work outside.

The details of making bullets, loading the gun, making maple syrup, milking the cow, curing the pork, beef, venison and other meats for storage, collecting honey from an old hollow tree, and also the threshing machine that threshed the wheat after the harvest and before the winter.

It seemed that Pa had the most interesting jobs in Laura's eyes. But they were probably interesting because as a girl, Laura was not permitted to actually do them. She could only stand by and watch.

There was very little of Laura's personality in this book. She slaps her older sister Mary once, and is suitably punished. She is also jealous of Mary's golden blonde hair. Laura has ordinary brown hair. Laura believes herself to be ugly just because she doesn't have blonde hair. The feeling gets worse every time a visitor pays attention to Mary and says nothing to Laura. I got a little tired of Laura's frequent whining about how ugly she felt and how she was always comparing herself to Mary.

All in all this was a pretty sanitised childhood. There was no bear attacks, although there were some close calls mentioned. Noone died from any disease or epidemics. 


I have a lot of questions about some of the activities and things described in this book, and I will be researching them for future posts. 

I read this book for the LHOTP challenge for 2016 where we shall be reading one book per month. See my Little House Read-Along page at the top of this blog. Other reviews can be read here and here.

Merry Xmas for 2015

Merry Xmas for my family to yours.

And a Happy New Year for 2016

I know I haven't read the 24 books I planned on reading this year, but I always had trouble getting all hyped up about reading fiction.

AS a Scanner I have had to learn to give myself permission to stop flogging a dead horse. If I am not going to complete the project, then dont keep trying to finish it, because I know I wont.  Just put it aside and leave it. It's now over and done with.

 Except Historical fiction. I can read that because it is based on history - usually.

Find something new to take its place - in this case NON Fiction Books.


So come look for me on my new NON FICTION Blog for the next 5 years - from 2016 to 2020.

Here's the thing...

Ever since I discovered the NON Fiction Challenge that I am starting in January, I have been less and less inclined to want to continue reading classical fiction.

This is not an excuse, but several years ago, I discovered that I have a Scanner type personality. We scanners are hard wired to always be learning.  We can't learn from classic fiction. Unless it's historical fiction. LOL

And besides that, I am having a devil of a time even trying to get into the Spin Book I am supposed to be reading - The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain.

If Mark had only written this book in 19th century english, I could have managed it. But no, its mostly written in this 16th century shakespeare type language which makes it devilishly hard to read.

So I have decide that I will do NO MORE Spins. I have failed at 3 out of 3 Spins. I always get the wrong number and the wrong books.

I will keep this blog open to read and review those classics on my list that I DO want to read.

I will also do the LHOTP readalong for next year since that is only one book a month. I shouldn't have too much problem with that.

So basically, starting in January 2016, I will be mostly reading NON fiction books for the NON fiction challenge.

Please see my NON Fiction blog for details.

Thank you.

Xmas SPIN Number 19

The wheel has been SPUN and we have our Number.

 The Number is 19!!!!!

And on my list 19 is - The Prince and the Pauper  - by Mark Twain!!!!!

Finally a Book I can actually READ!!!!!

Non Fiction Adventures Challenge

Today I discovered the NON FICTION ADVENTURES 5-year reading challenge - which I have joined. I have always preferred reading NON Fiction over Fiction. Which is probably why I am not doing so well on this Classics Challenge.

As you can see from the link above, I have made a new Blog for this NON Fiction Challenge.

Anyway I also now need to remove the few NON fiction books I have on this classics club  challenge - which will affect the Xmas Spin list as well - so it's a good thing I discovered this before the SPIN number is chosen.

Xmas Spin is here!!

SPIN Number 11 has been announced so I am going to try one more time.

We all know the rules. Make up a list of books you want to read - no more than 20 titles - and list them numbered from 1 to 20.

The deadline for posting a spin list is today since the spin number will be posted tomorrow!!! Once the number has been announced, we all have to read and review that number title.

The deadline for reading is by February 1st. which is 6-7 weeks away. 

So far I have had NO luck with the last  two spins I entered. The first spin I was able to swap out my title for another title by the same author so that was OK.

On the last spin I hated the book I ended up with. And I promise I DID try to read it. but who wants to read Middle English just for a challenge?? Certainly NOT me. So The Canterbury Tales was soon dumped from my list!!

Now I have to make up a new list and hope this time I get a book that I DO want to read!!!

Most of these have been on my previous lists. Some are new.

The Campfire Girls are an early form of Girl Scouts, but totally fictional. There were tons of Books written about them by various authors. You can read more here. Most of them are available on Project Gutenberg as well.


Below is MY Spin List for December



1 Richard Adams - Watership Down

2 Victor Appleton - A Tom Swift book

3 Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden

4 CampFire Girls - Various Authors

5 Susan Coolidge - What Katy did at School

6 Agatha Christie -  A Tommy and Tuppence Mystery

7 Daphne Du Maurier - The Glass Blowers

8 F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

9 Arthur Hailey - Final Diagnosis

10 Laura Lee Hope - The Bobbsey Twins

11 Rudyard Kipling - Kim

12 Louis L'Amour - Sacketts Land

13 Gaston LeRoux - Phantom of the Opera

14 C S Lewis - The Magicians Nephew

15 Katherine Mansfield - The Garden Party & Other Stories

16 E Nesbit - The Railway Children

17 Anna Sewell - Black Beauty

18 James Alexander Thom - From Sea to Shining Sea

19 Mark Twain - The Prince and the Pauper

20 Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House on the Prairie

Women's Classic Literature Event

And inside the Big Classics challenge we are today being introduced to a new smaller challenge.

The Women's Classic Literature Event. This will run from now until 31 December 2016

The idea is to read any classics WRITTEN BY WOMEN and published BEFORE 1960.

These are the details

There are no set number of books to be read. You can read one book and study it in depth or you can read several books all by one female author or you can read a mix of books by women authors.

I'm going to have to think about which female author or authors I want to read.

I'll get back to you on that one.

One Hour Later

Having looked over my E-books, I have 2 collections written by women that I would love to read - both of which are on my current classics list.

These are Katherine Mansfield of New Zealand who wrote a collection of short stories, and Agatha Christie who wrote numerous Detective mysteries.

Now while most people are familiar with Agatha Christie's most famous detective - the man from Belgium called Hercule Poirot, she also wrote several other detective series. One was Miss Marple which I never really got into precisely because the detective in question was an old lady and I am NOT THAT OLD. Not yet anyway!!

The other series was a short lived series called The Tommy and Tuppence Series. about a young couple who liked solving mysteries. This series I liked and I recently purchased the entire collection. I have never read the entire series so I think I will read these. Besides, this series is also set in the Golden age of the 1920s, one of the era's that I LOVE reading about.

So Yes I have decided to read the Tommy and Tuppence series by Agatha Christie.

The Canterbury Tales - Woe is me!!

I really really did NOT want to have to be forced to read The Canterbury Tales.

But since there are no  other books by this author that I can swap out with, I have decided that I don't have any choice. I might as well get this over and done with and get this book off my lists.

I do this under protest however. As such, I will not be reading ALL of the tales. I will choose the 10 shortest tales, to read and review.

First I have to look for a decent PROSE version.  These are virtually impossible to find. I spent 2 weeks loking.

I really really detest poetry which is why I didn't want to read this book. Goodness knows why I even put this book on my list in the first place!!!  I really should not have done that!!

Right, That's one lesson learnt. Don't ever put a book onto any SPIN list if you really really do NOT want to read it.

I will be swapping out the Canterbury tales for another book to read - and removing Canterbury Tales from my lists altogether.