nmoira Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Yesterday I listened to a podcast on the Bloody Benders and another on Laura Ingalls Wilder. Never the twain shall meet, right? Wrong. :tongue_smilie: I saw this on Boing Boing this morning: Little House on the Prairie, serial killers, and the nature of memoir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Lulu* Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Interesting... Very. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momma2three Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Wow. Who knew. Interesting blog entry, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cindergretta Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Kind of creepy... (I have read quite a bit about the Benders and certainly would never have linked them with the Ingalls! :001_huh: ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jujsky Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 That was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustybug Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Well...that's creepy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Well, that makes me want to reread the Little House books! I wonder if the blackface scene really happened... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stacia Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Creepy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elfgivas Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 that was an interesting read; thank you for posting the link! ann Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueenCat Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Extremely creepy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 (edited) As for "hearing about the Bender brothers" from her family, *I* heard about them from my parents when I was a kid, in the 1960s*. (I also heard about the '51 flood so often, I have a distinct memory of being in the flooded house and sitting on top of the fridge. NB: I wasn't born yet.) *My father's grandfather, who died in 1901, was working for the railroad in Thayer KS right around the Bender's time, and I'm sure my father grew up hearing people who remembered the events, as he summered in Thayer all through the '10s and '20s. Edited August 21, 2012 by kalanamak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delirium Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Neat, thanks for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elizabeth in MN Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 This is what I said at the site - "I need more dates to figure this out. Mrs Wilder moved the books around a bit from her personal history. In fact, the events in LHotP take place before Little House in the Big Woods. If you keep that in mind then maybe the dates with the Benders line up?" Carrie was born in Kansas in August of 1870. According to the Bender family article on Wikipedia the Benders were killing people in Kansas from 1871-3. So the question would be how long the Ingalls were in Kansas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted August 21, 2012 Author Share Posted August 21, 2012 This is what I said at the site - "I need more dates to figure this out. Mrs Wilder moved the books around a bit from her personal history. In fact, the events in LHotP take place before Little House in the Big Woods. If you keep that in mind then maybe the dates with the Benders line up?" Carrie was born in Kansas in August of 1870. According to the Bender family article on Wikipedia the Benders were killing people in Kansas from 1871-3. So the question would be how long the Ingalls were in Kansas. If they were back in Pepin in 1871 (there's evidence to support this), Pa could not have been one of the vigilantes who went after the Benders. It is possible, depending on the dates (of which I'm am almost wholly ignorant) that they either crossed paths with the Benders or later became aware that the possibility existed of of having crossed paths with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momma2three Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 This is what I said at the site - "I need more dates to figure this out. Mrs Wilder moved the books around a bit from her personal history. In fact, the events in LHotP take place before Little House in the Big Woods. If you keep that in mind then maybe the dates with the Benders line up?" Carrie was born in Kansas in August of 1870. According to the Bender family article on Wikipedia the Benders were killing people in Kansas from 1871-3. So the question would be how long the Ingalls were in Kansas. A comment on one of the pages linked off the first link in OP provides this timeline: The Bender story? It doesn't even fit historically into the time period the Ingalls family was there. I don't think Laura remembered this at all. But why does she say that she does? That is what I've often wondered about. I personally think that Rose and/or Laura uncovered the Bender story in their research for Little House on the Prairie and as neither seemed particularly aware of the historical details (Laura apparently even thought they had lived in Oklahoma rather than Kansas, as she and Rose went looking there for the location once), I think they didn't realize that the Bender story took place after the Ingalls had long since left Indian Territory. The Ingalls family left Kansas in September 1870, right after the birth of Carrie. It wasn't until Feb 1873 that the first victims of the Bender family disappeared, and it was spring 1873 when the Benders themselves came under suspicion and disappeared. There is no possible way Pa could have been involved in this. There were articles in the New York Times throughout the decades as various people were caught and thought to be Benders, and finally a dying man confessed he'd been part of a vigilance committee that had killed them. I think somewhere along the way, Laura or Rose read these stories and thought they took place during the Ingalls' stay in the area. But why Laura would act as if she remembered this all happening when it simply couldn't have has always puzzled me. And why tell such a gruesome story in a speech that surely must have included children as its attendees? I have no idea what she was thinking to have done this. (There is a typo in it: it says first victim was Feb 1873 and I think they meant Feb 1871). http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.ca/2008/07/selective-omissions-or-what-laura.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2denj Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 hmm.... This is all very interesting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bensmom Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Interesting, but very creepy. I had never heard of the Benders and it never really occured to me that serial killers have always existed. Those poor pioneers had enough trials in life to content with without adding a family of murderers to the mix. Yikes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Interesting, but very creepy. I had never heard of the Benders and it never really occured to me that serial killers have always existed. Those poor pioneers had enough trials in life to content with without adding a family of murderers to the mix. Yikes! I think of the term "serial killer" as more relating to a solo person with a sick mind. The Benders, and others such as the woman who advertised for husbands to join her on her comfy farm, and then offed them, as robbers who murder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathryn Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Interesting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted August 21, 2012 Author Share Posted August 21, 2012 I think of the term "serial killer" as more relating to a solo person with a sick mind. The Benders, and others such as the woman who advertised for husbands to join her on her comfy farm, and then offed them, as robbers who murder. Depends who is doing the defining. I think they meet the FBI definition of serial killers (see Wikipedia.... I don't have the coordination to link on a phone pre-coffee). It does appear that Kate Bender was the driving force of the group, and she seems way more "out there" than your average robber/murderer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mothersweets Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Very interesting! I've heard of the Benders but only because of my interest in Laura Ingalls Wilder. In Wendy McClure's book -The Wilder Life - she explains the story and comes the same conclusion these other articles came to: Pa couldn't possibly have been involved in the lynching of the Benders because the Ingalls family simply wasn't there at the time. Really fun book, btw. :) I bookmarked the link so I can come back to it later and read through it. I have the Bender family podcast yet to listen to from Stuff You Missed in History Class. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angela in ohio Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 There was a fascinating article in Wired magazine a few months ago about the nature of memory, how your current knowledge changes the memory and then you re-imprint it in the changed state. Then you *believe* that to be the real memory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuirkyKidAcademy Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Very interesting! I've heard of the Benders but only because of my interest in Laura Ingalls Wilder. In Wendy McClure's book -The Wilder Life - she explains the story and comes the same conclusion these other articles came to: Pa couldn't possibly have been involved in the lynching of the Benders because the Ingalls family simply wasn't there at the time. Really fun book, btw. :) I bookmarked the link so I can come back to it later and read through it. I have the Bender family podcast yet to listen to from Stuff You Missed in History Class. I thought The Wilder Life was interesting too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kb44 Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 There was a fascinating article in Wired magazine a few months ago about the nature of memory, how your current knowledge changes the memory and then you re-imprint it in the changed state. Then you *believe* that to be the real memory. I can tell, I have done that myself. The mind is a mysterious, powerful, wonderful thing! Very interesting OP! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ibbygirl Posted August 21, 2012 Share Posted August 21, 2012 Wow. Who knew. Interesting blog entry, though. You took the words right out of my mouth. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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