The Long Winter

[Chris in VA]

So, we've been reading the series as part of our oral reading. (I read a page, Anna reads a page.) We've read Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, and On the Shores of Silver Lake. I read all of them when I was seven, and I don't remember disliking Long Winter, but I have to say, I just can't get excited about reading it now. I've skipped Farmer Boy, because it just felt out of sequence. I'm wondering if it would be wrong to just skip Long Winter and go onto Little Town on the Prairie? I remember finding that one particularly interesting when I was a kid. But I don't want to "do it wrong," if you know what I mean.

 

You won't be doing it wrong, but you may want to tell her that the reason Carrie has such bad headaches and is "spindly"is because of near-starvation the winter before.

You also may enjoy reading Farmer Boy now, before both Long Winter and Little Town, because she will develop an affection for Almanzo when reading about him as a little boy. The story also makes more sense, in both LW and LT, to know that Almanzo comes from a backround of plenty.

I think it's like knowing two people from childhood, and then seeing them meet and being so happy that two wonderful people found each other! I love when they are "introduced." It's a fun moment to realize this half-grown man on top of a stack of hay is the boy from the stories!

[hillfarm]

I think Pa was an idiot. Fun, good father, good fiddler, hard worker, entertaining...but an idiot all the same.

 

Dh and I had a much more adventurous spirit prior to the birth of our dd. We used to be storm chasers and scuba divers. The photo that sums it all up for me was one of me, about mid way through my pregnancy, with a F2 tornado in the background. That was our last chase. Because things got a little hairy on that one and I remember feeling so convicted that while it was fine to do things like that if it was just dh and I, that I was now responsible for another life and that chasing was not acceptable in that situation. We gave up things we loved for the safety and security of our child.

 

IMO, Pa let his desire for adventure overshadow his common sense and what was best for his wife and children. Imagine what would have happened if at the very first house in the big woods, instead of packing up and moving, he worked hard to build an addition onto the house. If when the fur trapping trade declined due to increasing population, Pa switched to one of the many other careers he eventually did instead of moving and having to switch later.

 

I think he was one of those guys who clings to the concept of the "do over". The combination of wonderlust, the belief that the grass was greener, and avoidance of failure all combined to make him ready to move every time his no-so-well-thought-out plans blew up in his face.

 

Although the 1870s were a time of economic difficulty in America, in my area (rural Appalachian foothills), the local farmers got along just fine and many new building projects were undertaken. There was work, ample food, and relative safety. And honestly, people didn't have to live in close proximity to each other unless they choose to do so. Outside of the small towns and cities, the average farm was about 500 acres, so you would not have had to be within sight of a neighbor unless you chose to be so.

 

Regarding Caroline and the schooling, perhaps it was more of a status thing than anything else. In my rural area, poor farmers who couldn't afford to be without the day labor help would keep their children home and not send them to public schooling (or the subscription schools that were popular back in the late 1700s and early 1800s). More upscale, prosperous families always sent their children to the local school. It was a sign of affluence and success to be able to allow your children to leave the farm and attend school with the hope of "bettering themselves" so they wouldn't have to work as hard as the parents.

 

We live a lifestyle that is in a way remniscent of one a hundred years ago. As it is now, we heat our home exclusively with wood, grow or raise much of our own food, eat a lot of wild game and berries, etc. We are at the teminal end of our electric line, so we often lose power. We do have to prepare to be without power for long periods during the cold winters. We have arranged things so that we can cook, bake, take warm showers, use the indoor plumbing, etc. without electric power. If we get a major snow or ice storm, we are often stuck here for the duration until the township maintenance crews can plow the roads open. I'm not sure we would stick with this lifestyle if we didn't have plenty of food, warmth, safety, etc. If living in town was what it took to take proper care of our daughter, I would put my yearning for wide, open spaces aside in a heart beat.

Edited December 22, 2010 by hillfarm

[laughing lioness]

Re: Pa. He was going from hunter/gatherer in WI to farmer in the west. The ability to hunt and gather was being compromised by the numbers of people moving in to the area.

The thing about farming is aquiring land. When Pa and fam were moving around it was a post war depression- cash was scarce so the lure of "Free" land (homesteading) was a siren call. He tried to jump the rush in KS and was blindsided by boundary lines moving.

I don't see Pa as a jerk, but more of a man working extremely hard and with diligence to make something from nothing. And he did succeed, big picture, without crop insurance, loans from the bank or a wealthy family to draw on.

My grandparents were farmers in IN in the 19th C and they worked harder physically than anyone I know now. At 94 my grandpa still had a vise grip from years of hard core physical labor. And mental. He watched the weather and stock prices daily, keeping detailed and accurate records without the aid of computer equipment.

My other grandpa left his scrabble farm in AK ALONE at age 12 to travel to Chicago to make a life for himself. He ended up as a tool and dye maker. My dh's grandpa and his older bro's left KY ALONE to travel North for work when he was 10.

I shudder to think of my 10 yo and 16 yo traversing the world alone in order to survive. But that was the "norm" 80 years ago. People did what they had to in order to survive, without the benefit of resources now widely available.

Assumptions and resources that we take for granted simply did not exist in the 1880's. The fact that Pa kept his family together in reasonable good health is a bonus (I think fertility,health and health care are relative- out of my gpa's 5 siblings only 2 could have kids- and that was a generation (at least removed from Laura's)- not having enough to eat was often the norm until 2 generations ago- not a given -I've read several books about folks growing up farming. One author wrote about how it was a "given" that they would experience hardship, cold, hunger. "It was a given that life was uncomfortable." . My dad had a couple cousins killed in farming accidents in the 1940's- living with all of your limbs intact, bearing children and living to an old age were bonuses, even up until 2 generations ago.

 

I've been halfway keeping my eye on the weather out there - seems like your area has been getting hit hard this year. Do you think this year's weather rivals the Ingall's long winter?

 

I don't think so. The weather gal was saying that they did have records of 10 feet fo snow- last year was really hard-several blizzards and non-recorded ground blizzards. It's been cold but I dont' think record cold yet.

[Sheila in OK]

I agree with all of this. I *love* that book and re-read it almost every winter.

 

This is one of my all-time favorite books. The Ingalls are such an inspiration to me and help me to realize my life is not hard. I love the example Pa sets by being such a hard worker and doing everything he can to take care of his family. I love Ma's cheerful and optimistic attitude. I love how they trusted God to get them through. I love that they exercised self-control and did not read all the magazines they were sent right away, but spaced them out so they could enjoy them longer. I love the simple Christmas that showed how much they truly loved each other. I love Mary's patient uncomplaining attitude towards her blindness. I love how Almanzo sacrifices some of his seed corn to Pa to keep the Ingalls from going hungry. I love how Cap Garland and Almanzo risk their lives to save the town from starvation. I love the conversation in the General Store when the owner tries to price gouge the people over the wheat. I love how the men work as a team to get the train unstuck from the snow. And I love when the train finally comes.

 

Even with all the hardship, the love the family members have for each other, demonstrated in their patience, kindness and industry, makes it a cozy story to me.

 

It is chock full of wonderful character lessons as well. I find myself referring to it often when any of us is tempted to complain.

[Kathleen in VA]

You won't be doing it wrong, but you may want to tell her that the reason Carrie has such bad headaches and is "spindly"is because of near-starvation the winter before.

You also may enjoy reading Farmer Boy now, before both Long Winter and Little Town, because she will develop an affection for Almanzo when reading about him as a little boy. The story also makes more sense, in both LW and LT, to know that Almanzo comes from a backround of plenty.

I think it's like knowing two people from childhood, and then seeing them meet and being so happy that two wonderful people found each other! I love when they are "introduced." It's a fun moment to realize this half-grown man on top of a stack of hay is the boy from the stories!

 

:iagree:Getting to know Almanzo in Farmer Boy before you meet him later in the other books is a very, very good idea. Not only that, Farmer Boy was a great book - we laughed out loud at several points when I read it to my kids. It's a wonderful picture, too, of hard work and self-sufficiency. There are lots of nuggets of gold there (in all her books really) waiting to be mined - especially useful for teaching character qualitites.

[HRAAB]

Well, Pa Ingalls is my dh's hero. All I can say is I am thankful I live now instead of then. TLW is our favorite book of the series, and we always read it in the winter. Of course, we do not have S. Dakota winters. And we have plenty of wood, and our furnace works, and there is food to eat.

[melissel]

What a timely thread for us. I just made the decision a few nights ago to bypass Farmer Boy so we could stay with Laura's time line. Now I'll make sure to read it before we meet Almanzo in Laura's story.

 

As for TLW, I've been really looking forward to it, but now I'm worried! We don't have scary winters here, though, so I think the girls will manage well. I'm :bigear: here!

[hillfarm]

Re: Pa. He was going from hunter/gatherer in WI to farmer in the west. The ability to hunt and gather was being compromised by the numbers of people moving in to the area.

The thing about farming is aquiring land. When Pa and fam were moving around it was a post war depression- cash was scarce so the lure of "Free" land (homesteading) was a siren call. He tried to jump the rush in KS and was blindsided by boundary lines moving.

I don't see Pa as a jerk, but more of a man working extremely hard and with diligence to make something from nothing. And he did succeed, big picture, without crop insurance, loans from the bank or a wealthy family to draw on.

My grandparents were farmers in IN in the 19th C and they worked harder physically than anyone I know now. At 94 my grandpa still had a vise grip from years of hard core physical labor. And mental. He watched the weather and stock prices daily, keeping detailed and accurate records without the aid of computer equipment.

My other grandpa left his scrabble farm in AK ALONE at age 12 to travel to Chicago to make a life for himself. He ended up as a tool and dye maker. My dh's grandpa and his older bro's left KY ALONE to travel North for work when he was 10.

I shudder to think of my 10 yo and 16 yo traversing the world alone in order to survive. But that was the "norm" 80 years ago. People did what they had to in order to survive, without the benefit of resources now widely available.

Assumptions and resources that we take for granted simply did not exist in the 1880's. The fact that Pa kept his family together in reasonable good health is a bonus (I think fertility,health and health care are relative- out of my gpa's 5 siblings only 2 could have kids- and that was a generation (at least removed from Laura's)- not having enough to eat was often the norm until 2 generations ago- not a given -I've read several books about folks growing up farming. One author wrote about how it was a "given" that they would experience hardship, cold, hunger. "It was a given that life was uncomfortable." . My dad had a couple cousins killed in farming accidents in the 1940's- living with all of your limbs intact, bearing children and living to an old age were bonuses, even up until 2 generations ago.

 

 

 

Although certainly there are a number of complicating factors about which we have no or very limited knowledge, I don't consider one child blind, another with headaches resulting from malnutrition, and a deceased son, not to mention a variety of frostbite incidents and other injuries to be indicative of reasonable good health. I understand that illness and disease occurred more frequently in both urban and rural settings back then (I was an interpreter at a local pioneer museum for several years.), however, IMO it is equally important to keep in mind the role that stress, overwork, and malnutrition play in making the human body susceptible to these things. Pa could have done a lot to lessen those factors if he had stayed in one place, or at the very least, gotten things set up a bit better before moving his family.

 

Regarding resources that did or did not exist in the late 1800s, somehow Native Americans managed to thrive in our area for thousands of years with only the natural resources present. One local historian quoted a member of the Shawnee tribe in the early 1800s as wondering how the local pioneers could have nearly starved to death in 1794 (locally called the Starvation Year). "My people could not understand why your people chose to starve that year. We could not imagine why they would go hungry when they were surrounded by so many edible roots, berries, small game, and other things."

 

I do agree that life was not what we think of as comfortable back then. People had to work their tails off to survive. I have often pondered this as I was hoeing my garden with less than enthusiasm, what a powerful motivator the specter of starvation would have been. In my area, farmers rarely starved - they might not have had any money, but they always had the ability to grow food for themselves. Even now, with a much larger population than back in the 1870s, wild game is abundant and I know several families of modest means who keep an abundant table set with deer, wild turkey, rabbit, squirrel, grouse, quail, pheasant, fish, etc. And in the not too distant past, added groundhog and possum to the list of edibles.

 

Yes, farmers did have to endure some hardship, cold, and a lot of extremely hard work and deprivation. But in general, that was usually worse during the early years in a new location. After they got set up, they made sure that things got better and better. They learned which varieties of seed could best withstand that climate, they learned where small game, like rabbits, quail and squirrels were during the winter. They learned which types of native trees produced the best heat as firewood. They found the abundant wild fruit trees and learned how to dry the fruit to last through winter. They improved their homes to keep out as much of the cold as possible. Every day was spent making efforts to improve on previous times.

 

Pa Ingalls kept quitting before things got better. He never got the benefits of building momentum because he kept starting over. My point was that if he had chosen to stay in one place and focus his efforts, he would have been able to provide a much better (although not perfect) life for his family. Again, he could have built on to the Little House, given up the hunter/gather gig if it was no longer paying off, and embarked on one of his many other careers. He could have built on to the relatives' cabin and installed Catherine and the children there while he went off to work to earn money to buy more land of his own (since he later had to leave his family and go off to work anyway). He could have moved them to a nearby small town while he continued to work at the Little House and bring them back when it was improved enough for them to be more secure there.

 

There were many, more stable but less exciting options he could have pursued that would have not exposed his family to as much hardship as constantly moving around. He had many admirable characteristics, but IMO, his habit of constantly uprooting his family to go start over elsewhere was not one of them.

Edited December 22, 2010 by hillfarm

[Remudamom]

You mean moron? :lol:

 

No, I mean maroon, Bugs Bunny style!

[Remudamom]

No, she means maroon. It's what Bugs Bunny would say, ("What a maroon!") instead of using "moron."

 

A+

[Scarlett]

Although certainly there are a number of complicating factors about which we have no or very limited knowledge, I don't consider one child blind, another with headaches resulting from malnutrition, and a deceased son, not to mention a variety of frostbite incidents and other injuries to be indicative of reasonable good health..

 

:iagree: When I read TLW as an adult I was struck by the description of Laura not remembering what day/month/year it was...her 'foggy' memories...and I suddenly realized ---they were starving to death!

 

Pa was not a 'bad' man. I believe he loved his family and I believe he worked very very hard. However, he was too flighty and impulsive. He put his family in harms way many many times for no real good reason.

[katilac]

Yes, Pa's bravery and such lessened a great deal for me when I realized what a poor decision maker he was, lol. He definitely put his own desires and wanderlust above the overall good of the family, imo.

 

But I will say that I was reading some non-fiction journal excerpts from people settling the west, and some of the entries make him pale in comparison. Lots of people left comfortable situations for the adventure and glory of the west, and the wives and children suffered mightily for the decision. In one family, two of the kids went off riding horses, and weren't back when the wagon train was ready to move on. I can't remember if they decided to leave earlier than planned, or if the kids were late getting back, but THE PARENTS LEFT WITHOUT THEM!!

 

This particular story had a happy ending, as the kids did manage to catch up. But the parents did not have the expectation that they would; they very much realized that they might never see them again, that they might be lost or injured, and yet they left them. They were afraid that THEY would not be able to catch up to the wagon train, and afraid to travel alone. I just cannot wrap my mind around that.

 

Another interesting example is Bronson Alcott, father of Louisia May Alcott. You don't get a sense of it in Little Women, b/c she conveniently sends him off to war for most of the book, but his utter lack of practicality is more evident in other stories, like Transcendental Wild Oats (he was a leader of the transcendental movement, right up there with Emerson and Thoreau, and started a utopian commune!). Just as the Ingalls were often saved by Laura's teacher wages, the Alcotts were saved by Louisa's stories. In Alcott's defense, his wife at least knew what she was getting into!

[katilac]

Regarding Pa not being able to hunt/trap: It's been a while since I read the books, but I seem to remember Pa wanting to move on because he could see the smoke from his neighbor's chimney, or something equally flip. I know additoinal settlers would affect the hunting eventually, but I don't remember his reasoning being that sound, lol.

 

Poor Pa, I do still love him :D. My dad actually reminds me of him in certain ways; impractical as hell, but he modelled a sincere joy in life that has served all of his kids well. We all know that you can be happy no matter what is going wrong in your life, and that's a valuable gift. The main difference is that my dad did not take our actual health and safety quite as blithely as Pa Ingalls did!

[laughing lioness]

Although certainly there are a number of complicating factors about which we have no or very limited knowledge, I don't consider one child blind, another with headaches resulting from malnutrition, and a deceased son, not to mention a variety of frostbite incidents and other injuries to be indicative of reasonable good health. I understand that illness and disease occurred more frequently in both urban and rural settings back then (I was an interpreter at a local pioneer museum for several years.), however, IMO it is equally important to keep in mind the role that stress, overwork, and malnutrition play in making the human body susceptible to these things. Pa could have done a lot to lessen those factors if he had stayed in one place, or at the very least, gotten things set up a bit better before moving his family.

 

Regarding resources that did or did not exist in the late 1800s, somehow Native Americans managed to thrive in our area for thousands of years with only the natural resources present. One local historian quoted a member of the Shawnee tribe in the early 1800s as wondering how the local pioneers could have nearly starved to death in 1794 (locally called the Starvation Year). "My people could not understand why your people chose to starve that year. We could not imagine why they would go hungry when they were surrounded by so many edible roots, berries, small game, and other things."

 

I do agree that life was not what we think of as comfortable back then. People had to work their tails off to survive. I have often pondered this as I was hoeing my garden with less than enthusiasm, what a powerful motivator the specter of starvation would have been. In my area, farmers rarely starved - they might not have had any money, but they always had the ability to grow food for themselves. Even now, with a much larger population than back in the 1870s, wild game is abundant and I know several families of modest means who keep an abundant table set with deer, wild turkey, rabbit, squirrel, grouse, quail, pheasant, fish, etc. And in the not too distant past, added groundhog and possum to the list of edibles.

 

Yes, farmers did have to endure some hardship, cold, and a lot of extremely hard work and deprivation. But in general, that was usually worse during the early years in a new location. After they got set up, they made sure that things got better and better. They learned which varieties of seed could best withstand that climate, they learned where small game, like rabbits, quail and squirrels were during the winter. They learned which types of native trees produced the best heat as firewood. They found the abundant wild fruit trees and learned how to dry the fruit to last through winter. They improved their homes to keep out as much of the cold as possible. Every day was spent making efforts to improve on previous times.

 

Pa Ingalls kept quitting before things got better. He never got the benefits of building momentum because he kept starting over. My point was that if he had chosen to stay in one place and focus his efforts, he would have been able to provide a much better (although not perfect) life for his family. Again, he could have built on to the Little House, given up the hunter/gather gig if it was no longer paying off, and embarked on one of his many other careers. He could have built on to the relatives' cabin and installed Catherine and the children there while he went off to work to earn money to buy more land of his own (since he later had to leave his family and go off to work anyway). He could have moved them to a nearby small town while he continued to work at the Little House and bring them back when it was improved enough for them to be more secure there.

 

There were many, more stable but less exciting options he could have pursued that would have not exposed his family to as much hardship as constantly moving around. He had many admirable characteristics, but IMO, his habit of constantly uprooting his family to go start over elsewhere was not one of them.

 

Not sure I agree with Native Americans thriving. They did survive but I’m not sure I’d agree with thrive, due to warfare, lack of food and their nomadic lifestyle.

Pa was willing to settle in KS but was moved due to boundary disputes. Once settled in the Dakotas he and Caroline were active in the local government and helped to found the church and school, creating something from nothing.

I agree that Pa could have chosen “More stable, less exciting options†in life. Stability can often beget wealth and health. Land ownership, however, has also been an indicator of wealth. Could Pa have truly “gone somewhere†to earn money in a post war depression where money was scarce? People flocked to the New World in the hope of gaining freedom from the stability that had shackled them for centuries in Europe. I don’t read that Pa quite. I see him as re-grouping and trying again. He didn’t quite before things got better – their life in the Dakotas WAS better. He kept at it until he succeeded.

Cities and towns at the time were not necessarily havens of health and prosperity; disease, poverty, starvation, infant mortality, infertility were just as prevalent there as out west- maybe more so.

Traveling back and forth to a homestead and wherever Caroline and the kids could have stayed isn’t truly realistic until the RR’s were established. Travel was arduous and dangerous- even once the RR’s were built- and expensive. Traveling back and forth would have depleted resources used to establish the homestead. There was no crop insurance, no bank loans, no genetically modified seed, no pesticides.

“farmers did have to endure some hardship, cold†My Grandma (who died 20 years ago in her 90s) told me stories of hardship that SHE endured that made me ache for her.

I think we really take for granted the options and resources that we have so readily available to us today.

[ChrisOR]

Unless the books tell the story in an overly-biased way, Pa seems to be a trusted voice in his community. This does give me added respect for him. I realize all of the community was "like" him, people with pioneering spirits, but Laura does give quite a few examples of lazy, foolish or uncivilized pioneers (like the drunks in town or the rowdy railroad workers, or the family that refused to leave their wagon even after Pa offered help). This, and his family's adoration of him, shows me that he was a good man.

[LibraryLover]

Unless the books tell the story in an overly-biased way, Pa seems to be a trusted voice in his community. This does give me added respect for him. I realize all of the community was "like" him, people with pioneering spirits, but Laura does give quite a few examples of lazy, foolish or uncivilized pioneers (like the drunks in town or the rowdy railroad workers, or the family that refused to leave their wagon even after Pa offered help). This, and his family's adoration of him, shows me that he was a good man.

 

 

The Long Winter (there us no greater hell) is a book I can never read again, so I can't go back and analyze Pa. But am I surprised that on a hsing list --made up of people bucking the system-- Pa's pioneering, gutsy spirit isn't more valued. Interesting.

[Matryoshka]

Another interesting example is Bronson Alcott, father of Louisia May Alcott. You don't get a sense of it in Little Women, b/c she conveniently sends him off to war for most of the book, but his utter lack of practicality is more evident in other stories, like Transcendental Wild Oats (he was a leader of the transcendental movement, right up there with Emerson and Thoreau, and started a utopian commune!).

 

Transcendental Wild Oats is hilarious! After reading that, I decided Mrs. Alcott was some kind of a saint. The men all wandering around in linen shifts (because wool exploits animals and cotton was picked by slaves) and preaching utopian ideals while Mrs. Alcott and her young girls did all.the.work. They wanted to farm in the 1800's with no animals (exploitation) and no idea of how to even plant or harvest a crop. Let's just say they didn't make it through the winter.

 

Yeah, compared to Bronson Alcott, Pa was Mr. Practicality.

[Joyofsixreboot]

As a child I liked Pa. He played music and was fun. Ma was a bit of a stick in the mud. As a mother my view has totally changed. She held that family together with a wish and a prayer. And of course they are told from a child's perspective, so who knows what the truth was.

[Beetkvass]

The Long Winter is my favorite Ingall's book! I don't find it depressing at all. But I do think it's rather silly to be saying Pa could have done better by his family if only he'd made different choices. We really don't know all the circumstances. The books are hardly presented from his point of view either and don't give us the thought processes of why he made his choices. They are meant to be from the point of view of his daughter as a child.

 

I'd hate to have my life choices judged decades after my death based on books my daughter wrote to entertain children. It's very to look at someone's life after the fact and say that if only they'd done X, Y or Z their life would be better.

 

That said, I did have a totally different view of those choices reading the books as an adult versus reading them as a child. I no longer thought Ma was a stick in the mud and that Pa was so exciting! I'm no 19th century pioneer. I sure wanted to be one as a kid. Now? No thanks. I like the grocery store being 2 min down the road even if I do choose to garden for pleasure as well.

[DianeW88]

Long Winter is my favorite LWI book. Having said that, please understand that the entire Little House series is a heavily fictionalized account of what Laura's real life was all about. It was written for children (duh, lol) and so the stories were very glossed over and the morality tales were inserted to "teach lessons".

 

If you read biographies, autobiographies, and Laura's newspaper columns from the 1930s-40s, you will see a very different (and certainly more human) side of her family. In fact, it totally changed my view of Ma, as Laura indicates she was cold, overly-strict, not affectionate, and very concerned with outward appearances. She absolutely adored her father, however, who was the complete opposite in temperment.

 

Here's a selection of books to try if you're interested in the real Ingalls family. Laura's swearing, drinking beer on the back porch, and smoking a pipe, Rose and her manic depression, Ma's withholding personality and all. :D I love her more for it. Most of these you can find in libraries.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Laura-Ingalls-Wilder-BIOGRAPHY/dp/082621648X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1293043775&sr=8-4

 

http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Little-House-MISSOURI-BIOGRAPHY/dp/0826210155/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1293043775&sr=8-15

 

http://www.amazon.com/Remember-Laura-Ingalls-Wilder/dp/0785282068/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1293043775&sr=8-13

 

http://www.amazon.com/Little-House-Ozarks-Rediscovered-Writings/dp/0840775970/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&qid=1293044194&sr=8-24

[kalphs]

The boys and I have been listening to Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter in the car, and since it has been hovering around 20 degrees F, and I have a foot and a half of snow in my yard, it has been kind of depressing.

 

I recommend listening/reading this book in the summer.

:iagree:

Our third grade teacher read this during the middle of winter when we were getting tons of snow and having to take "snow days" off from school.

[Melissa in Australia]

I decided Mrs. Alcott was some kind of a saint. The men all wandering around in linen shifts (because wool exploits animals and cotton was picked by slaves) and preaching utopian ideals while Mrs. Alcott and her young girls did all.the.work. They wanted to farm in the 1800's with no animals (exploitation) and no idea of how to even plant or harvest a crop. Let's just say they didn't make it through the winter.

 

Yeah, compared to Bronson Alcott, Pa was Mr. Practicality.

I am glad you thought him a saint, I thought he was insane, and should have been shipped off somewhere to give his family a chance to survive. I could not believe it when gave the family's supply of fire wood away to let his own family freeze.

I know a few families that have husbands very similar to Bronson Alcott:glare:

[cathmom]

But I will say that I was reading some non-fiction journal excerpts from people settling the west, and some of the entries make him pale in comparison. Lots of people left comfortable situations for the adventure and glory of the west, and the wives and children suffered mightily for the decision. In one family, two of the kids went off riding horses, and weren't back when the wagon train was ready to move on. I can't remember if they decided to leave earlier than planned, or if the kids were late getting back, but THE PARENTS LEFT WITHOUT THEM!!

 

This particular story had a happy ending, as the kids did manage to catch up. But the parents did not have the expectation that they would; they very much realized that they might never see them again, that they might be lost or injured, and yet they left them. They were afraid that THEY would not be able to catch up to the wagon train, and afraid to travel alone. I just cannot wrap my mind around that.

 

 

 

A year or so ago I read the series The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg about a family who emigrates from Sweden to the US. As they are travelling to MN by ship up the river, the ship stops for a break. Somehow they lose track of their little girl - each parent thought she was with the other. The ship is about to leave and they don't know what to do. They don't know if she's on the ship or on the land. Do they both go on the ship? Do they both stay on the land and look for her? But their other children are on the ship! Does one stay and one go? How will they ever find each other again? And none of them speak English! As they are totally panicking with no clue what to do, a woman they are travelling with comes running to the ship holding their little girl, they all just manage to get on, and everything is fine.

 

Pa was willing to settle in KS but was moved due to boundary disputes. Once settled in the Dakotas he and Caroline were active in the local government and helped to found the church and school, creating something from nothing.

 

I thought they stayed there because he promised Caroline, not that he chose to stay.

[cathmom]

I am glad you thought him a saint, I thought he was insane, and should have been shipped off somewhere to give his family a chance to survive. I could not believe it when gave the family's supply of fire wood away to let his own family freeze.

I know a few families that have husbands very similar to Bronson Alcott:glare:

 

She thought the wife was a saint, not the dh!