On the Banks of Plum Creek

Walnut Grove, Minnesota

On Wednesday, June 20, I visited Walnut Grove, Minnesota.

The Ingalls family lived on a farm about a mile and a half north of Walnut Grove from 1874 to 1876. They initially lived in a dugout cabin next to Plum Creek, then Charles Ingalls built a wood frame house for the family in 1875. Unfortunately, a locust infestation destroyed the family’s wheat crop, and while he was able to get work in Eastern Minnesota to support the family, Charles could not pay off the debts involved in buying the frame house. These events are detailed in On the Banks of Plum Creek.

When they finally lost the farm, the family moved to Burr Oak, Iowa for a year. They returned and lived in the town of Walnut Grove from 1877 to 1879. Laura attended school and church in town and worked serving at a hotel. It was also during these years that Mary Ingalls got sick and became blind. These stories are presented in Pioneer Girl, but not in the Little House books. Much of this period is lost in the gap between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake. Some of the events and themes of town life from this period are included in the later Little House books set in De Smet, South Dakota.

The land where the Ingalls dugout once stood is now owned by the Gordon family. They have prepared a parking area near to Plum Creek and the dugout site. Visitors who pay $5 per car ($30 per tour bus) can drive back, wade in Plum Creek like Laura, and see where the dugout was located. There are also two half-mile hiking trails.

The forecast that morning was for rain starting at around ten o’clock in the morning, so I hurried from my hotel in Springfield, Minnesota, to the dugout site. I arrived at about quarter to nine, put my $5 in the pay box (it’s completely on the honor system), and drove to the creek. When I got out of the car, I was shocked at how quiet it was. I could hear the creek, which was running very high and fast because it had rained most of the previous day. I could hear the birds in the trees around the creek. And that was it. There wasn’t any distant traffic noise. I was the only one visiting the site. I walked to the creek, crossed it on the bridge provided, and walk up the bank to where it is believed that the dugout was. I could see what Laura described in Plum Creek as the tableland. I looked across the fields and see the water tower in Walnut Grove.

I walked both hiking trails. The uneven landscape reminded me of the farm I grew up on in Western Pennsylvania. As I child I had also played next to a creek, though it was much smaller than this one. I have lived so many years right next to Chicago that I had forgotten what exactly this was like. However, eventually my shoes and socks were soaking because of the wet grass I was walking through; each step brought a squish. As a result, the spell was a bit broken by the time I got back to the rental car. I took off my shoes and socks and put on a pair of sandals. I then walked back to the creek and put one foot in, just so I could say that I did. The water was very cold. As I drove back to town a little after ten, the rain started.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove is much larger than its counterpart in Pepin. There are eight different buildings, each containing historical materials of different types. There is a railroad depot (pulled to Walnut Grove from another town) with two main rooms. One room contains materials about the Little House books and the historic Walnut Grove, including a quilt owned by Laura (and donated by Roger MacBride) and a pew from the Congregational Church. The other room is dedicated to the Little House on the Prairie television show, which was set in Walnut Grove during its entire nine year run (although it was shot in California). There is a replica sod house the size of the dugout on Plum Creek, and a replica settler’s house the size of the frame house the Ingalls lived in on their farm. “Grandma’s House” was built in 1890 and brought to the site. It includes exhibits of sketches by Garth Williams, the illustrator of the 1953 edition of the Little House books, old time kitchens, dolls, and military service. There are also areas for children to play. There is a replica one-room schoolhouse and a small chapel built by a high school shop class in 1983. The last building, “Heritage Lane,” contains old print shop equipment, a telephone switchboard, a post office, a telephone booth, a covered wagon, and materials about American railroads. In between the buildings there are prairie grasses and flowers. So there is a lot to look at and do in a small area. It would provide a lot of opportunities to families with young children.

Charles and Caroline Ingalls were founding members of the Congregational Church in Walnut Grove in 1875. When the family lived in town, Laura attended both the Congregational Church service on Sunday morning and the Methodist Church service on Sunday afternoon for a year. This was because the Methodist Church was having a contest to see who could memorize 104 Bible verses, two for each week of the year. Laura succeeded and was awarded a reference Bible. The Methodist Church did not have their own building, so they met in a hall upstairs of the grocery store owned by William Masters. Pioneer Girl also describes revival services in both churches, a Sunday School picnic, and an experience with God’s presence which caused Laura to observe, “’That is what men call God.’” (Pioneer Girl, 137)

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum recently was able to purchase the Masters Building. Charles Ingalls helped to build this building, and this is where the Methodist Church held services at the beginning. Laura also lived in an apartment there while helping William Masters’s son Will’s wife Nannie. I was privileged to sit in the upstairs of that building with Joel McKinney, the Collections Manager for the Museum. The building was used as a private residence from about 1900 to several years ago. The inside has just been gutted, so Joel showed me the original floor joists, which are exactly two inches by twelve inches, and studs, which are exactly 2 inches by four inches. We talked about the history of the town and about what Laura would have seen when she looked out of the windows that floor of the building during a Methodist worship service. I really appreciated his hospitality and his insights.

The Congregational Church in Walnut Grove closed in 1952, and the historical papers of the church were given to the Methodist Church. Unfortunately, the Methodist Church experienced a break-in some years ago, and someone poured ink on all of the historical papers of both the Methodist and Congregational Churches. They had to be thrown out. Certainly a great loss for my project.

Next stop: De Smet, South Dakota. Thanks for reading.

(Quote is from Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, edited by Pamela Smith Hill, [Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2014].)

Links:

Walnut Grove, Minnesota

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove

The Dugout site

Little House Manuscripts

Last week I promised that I would report on the archival research that I did at the archives of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. Here is the first installment of that report.

One of the reasons that I went to the Hoover Library was to look at a set of microfilm documents that included original manuscripts of several of the Little House books. The microfilm was made by the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri and the State Historical Society of Missouri. The actual documents are held by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Association in Mansfield, Missouri. The collection includes Wilder’s original handwritten manuscripts of Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek, and By the Shores of Silver Lake. It also has later, typescript manuscripts of Pioneer Girl, Little House in the Big Woods, and Little House on the Prairie. I had thought that the collection had some kind of manuscript of all eight of the Little House books, but I was mistaken. However, I was glad to look at what was available.

I’ve worked on two books myself, so I understand how many times a text is revised before it is published. But it still struck me how many different versions there were of each Little House book. This is most clear for On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake. It appears that for these books at least, Wilder wrote out two different drafts in longhand on yellow lined paper. Her daughter Rose Wilder Lane then typed a draft, changing the order of some stories and adding structure, pacing, action, and dialogue. Then Wilder read over the drafts and made corrections. At times she argued with Lane about changes. We have the letters Wilder and Lane sent to each other about these books because they were living in different parts of the country (and because Lane did not destroy them – see my post on Selected Letters). As a result, the original manuscript is often extremely different from the final, published versions of the stories.

I was also struck by how much of the material for the completed books, how much of the action and dialogue, actually was the work of Lane. It is clear that the books were a collaboration between mother and daughter, with each contributing what each was best at. Wilder excelled at description and she knew her characters and her audience. Lane provided overall structure, pacing, excitement, and dialogue. My apologies to Pamela Smith Hill, who I think has greatly influenced my understanding of this collaboration; she says something close to this in her biography, but I don’t have time to look it up right now.

I was especially interested in whether the depiction of the church and Christianity changed between the original handwritten manuscripts and later versions. It was my hypothesis that Wilder’s original drafts would have more positive descriptions of church people than eventually appeared in the published versions. I was guessing that Lane would have supplied the more negative comments. What I found supported this hypothesis. I can provide two striking examples, one from Farmer Boy and one from On the Banks of Plum Creek.

In my post on Farmer Boy, I related how God comes into the story of the strange dog who guarded Almanzo’s family’s house from thieves when they had been paid $200 cash for two horses and could not get to town to put it in the bank. Here is Wilder’s original manuscript:

Father took the money to Mother. They didn’t like to keep $200 in the house overnight, but it was too late to take it to the bank at Malone. Mother put it away in the bureau drawer in her room. She said good Christians ought to feel that God would take care of them, but she’d rather the money were in the bank. (Laura Ingalls Wilder Papers, Western Historical Manuscripts Collection C-3633, Folder 11)

This becomes, in the published book, the following exchange:

“The Lord will take care of us,” Father said.

“The Lord helps them that help themselves.” Mother replied. “I wish to goodness that money was safe in the bank.” (164)

Then, at the end of the chapter, Mother says the following in Wilder’s original:

Father shook his head and said, “Well! Well! Well!” But Mother said she would always believe the strange dog had been sent by the Lord to watch over them and that he had kept the robbers away. (Laura Ingalls Wilder Papers, Western Historical Manuscripts Collection C-3633, Folder 11)

The published book says the following:

Mother said she would always believe that Providence had sent the strange dog to watch over them. Almanzo thought perhaps he stayed because Alice fed him.

“Maybe he was sent to try us,” Mother said. “Maybe the Lord was merciful to us because we were merciful to him.” (167)

Both of the exchanges in the published version are more interesting and engaging since they are dialogue instead of narrative. This directness is one of the things that makes the Little House books memorable. But I believe that the original manuscript better expresses how Wilder understood God and His actions in the lives of His people. It expresses a more settled faith. Mother and Father agree that God is in control, even when they are anxious. They believe that it was God’s providence that sent the dog to be the means of their protection. The addition of the words from Aesop’s fables (which many believe are in the Bible) and the multiple interpretations given by Mother and Almanzo confuse this depiction of God’s work in the world. Lane must have been the source of these changes, and that confusion reminds me of Lane’s experience of religion. She rejected Christianity until late in her life, was drawn towards Islam when she visited the Middle East, and was a pretty confirmed agnostic if not an atheist during the 1930s.

Even more striking are the changes to the description of church in On the Banks of Plum Creek. In my post on that book, I noted that the treatment of her Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Tower, had a bit of a negative edge. Laura’s original draft is much more positive:

“The lady told them her name was Mrs. Tower and learned all their names. Then she told a Bible story.

It was one Ma had told Laura and Mary, so they knew it already, but they liked to hear Mrs. Tower tell it…

After the story Mrs. Tower repeated a verse from the Bible to each little girl in turn and told her to remember it and tell it to her the next Sunday. That would be her Sunday school lesson.

When Mrs. Tower came to Laura, she said, “My very littlest girl must have a small lesson. It will be just three words, ‘God is love.’ Can you remember that for a whole week?”

Laura thought she was not so small as Mrs. Tower imagined. Why! She could remember long verses and whole songs. But she wouldn’t hurt Mrs. Tower’s feelings by telling her that so she answered, “Yes, Mam!” (Laura Ingalls Wilder Papers, Western Historical Manuscripts Collection C-3633, Folder 22)

This becomes the following exchange in the published book:

“When the others were settled on the square of benches, the lady said her name was Mrs. Tower, and she asked their names. Then she said, “Now, I’m going to tell you a story!”

Laura was very pleased. But Mrs. Tower began, “It is all about a little baby, born long ago in Egypt. His name was Moses.”

So Laura did not listen any more. She knew all about Moses in the bulrushes. Even Carrie knew that….

[Mrs. Tower gives out Bible memory verses:] When it was Laura’s turn… she said, “My very littlest girl must have a very small lesson. It will be the shortest verse in the Bible!”

Then Laura knew what it was. But Mrs. Tower’s eyes smiled and she said, “It is just three words!” She said them, and asked, “Now do you think you can remember that for a whole week?”

Laura was surprised at Mrs. Tower. Why, she remembered long Bible verses and whole songs! But she did not want to hurt Mrs. Tower’s feelings. So she said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s my little girl!” Mrs. Tower said. But Laura was Ma’s little girl. “I’ll tell you again, to help you remember. Just three words,” said Mrs. Tower. “Now can you say them after me?”

Laura squirmed.

“Try,” Mrs. Tower urged her. Laura’s head bowed lower and she whispered the verse.

“That’s right!” Mrs. Tower said. “Now will you do your best to remember, and tell me next Sunday?”

Laura nodded. (505-506)

Like the alterations to the text of Farmer Boy, the changes to this account make it much more direct. One can feel what Laura felt. It’s much more effective storytelling. However, the tone of the writing and the feelings conveyed to the reader are completely different in the two versions. In Wilder’s original manuscript, Laura enjoys this new person and likes to hear her tell a story, even though she has heard it already. Later, Laura is a little surprised at Mrs. Tower’s notions, but doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. In the published book, which must be Lane’s retelling, Laura is offended that she would be told such a juvenile story and tormented by Mrs. Tower’s assumptions that she can’t memorize anything longer than several words. Add to this the fact that the shortest verse in the King James Bible (which was undoubtedly what was used) is only two words: “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) “God is love” is actually part of a longer verse (I John 4:8) It appears that Lane did not know this, and it also appears that she deliberately avoided including the words “God is love” in the story.

I believe that these examples, and several others that I’ve not given here, show that it was Lane who changed Wilder’s straightforward and positive depictions of Christianity into the more mixed or even negative descriptions found in the published works. It is good to have some confirmation of something that I’ve long suspected.

However, Wilder did read Lane’s changes before they were finalized. She sometimes argued with Lane about keeping things the way she had written them, and at times she prevailed. But in none of the correspondence that I looked at does the depiction of Christianity come up. So it appears that Wilder accepted Lane’s changes. I think we might explain this acceptance in one of several ways. First, Wilder may have seen this as an acceptable shift in tone. Second, Wilder may not liked the changes, but she may have decided to choose her battles with Lane; she left these changes and concentrated on others. Third, Wilder might have objected to the changes in conversations or correspondence that we do not have, but ultimately lost the argument. I think one of the first two explanations is most likely.

The other reason I went to West Branch was to look at the correspondence the Hoover Library has between Wilder and Lane, which I will address in a separate post. Thanks for reading and I appreciate all comments.

(Page number references are from Volume 1 of the two volume set of the Little House books published by the Library of America in 2012.)

With On the Banks of Plum Creek, I think that the Little House books turn a corner. While the first three books cover just one year, this one covers an indeterminate time of around 18 months. It begins when the Ingalls family arrives at their new home in Minnesota and ends on Christmas Eve over a year later. It shares with the earlier books a keen feel for description of nature and Laura’s joy in experiencing it, especially in the earlier chapters. However, like the later books, it reveals a much larger world, including town institutions such as store, school, and church. The story arc involves Pa’s plans to bring in a huge wheat crop in order to pay his debts for building a new house for the family. Unfortunately, his dreams are dashed by a grasshopper infestation that lasts two years. Pa must walk hundreds of miles east to get wage work to support the family; at home Ma and Mary, Laura, and baby Carrie face uncertainty, loneliness, and doubt. Later, Pa is lost for four days during a blizzard. Wilder’s descriptions of the feelings of young girls faced with the possible loss of a parent are strikingly evocative. I found myself crying for joy each time Pa is reunited with his family. (I’m also getting older and certain members of my family say that I’m getting sentimental…)

This is the first book of the series that the church makes its appearance in a significant way. Unlike the one-chapter descriptions of Sundays in Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy, religious observance appears in no less than seven chapters in Plum Creek. In chapter 21, “Going to Church,” the family goes to Sunday School and a worship service for the first time. The family, and particularly Laura, must have made a significant connection with the pastor of that church, a “tall, thin man” named Reverend Alden. Throughout the rest of the book, he is described sympathetically. He speaks kindly to Laura and Mary, always remembers their names, calls them his “little country girls,” and compliments Laura on her new dress. The family rides or walks to town every week after that for Sunday School—on days the Rev. Alden did not come—or Sunday School and preaching on the days that he did. We are told when the family could not go to town on Sunday: when Pa is gone (chapter 27) and when winter blizzards threaten (chapter 36). Famously, Pa also takes the $3 he meant to spend on new shoes and donates it to the church’s fund for a church bell.

The church is also front and center for chapter 31, “Surprise,” which depicts a Christmas party in the church building. An enormous Christmas tree sits at the front of the sanctuary, full of presents sent by Rev. Alden’s regular church in the east. (The church in the Ingalls’s town is his home missionary church in the west, which is why he is only there to preach once every three or four weeks.) All members of the family receive multiple gifts, but most importantly Laura is given a fur cape and muff that is nicer than the cape that Nellie Oleson has been taunting Laura with all winter. Nellie makes her first appearance in this book and remains Laura’s foil and nemesis for the rest of the series. She is a spoiled shopkeeper’s daughter who has everything but doesn’t know how to treat others.

Christianity is also present in chapter 27, “Rain,” a dense chapter that describes the hot and dry late summer of the year the grasshoppers arrive. Pa is gone working for wages, and one Sunday afternoon, Ma reads from the Bible of the locust plague that God brought upon Egypt (Exodus 10). Ma then also reads about the promises of God to bring His people into “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Mary asks where that might be, and Ma says that Pa believes that it might be right where they were in Minnesota, “if we stick it out.” (521) The heat becomes so unbearable that Laura exclaims that she wishes she were an Indian so she didn’t have to wear clothes. “‘Laura!’ said Ma. ‘And on Sunday!’” (521) The rest of the chapter describes the coming of a raincloud in almost Biblical terms. While it doesn’t explicitly refer to I Kings 18, it reminds me of the descriptions there of the coming of rain to Israel after 3 years of drought during the time of Elijah. The rain shower is clearly depicted as God’s provision for the Ingalls and their land.

These three appearances of church and Christianity are positive. The church is described as an important institution for Pa, Ma, the children, and the community they lived in. The pastor is especiaslly beloved. It is not mentioned what type of church it is, though we know from other sources that the Ingalls went to the Congregational Church in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, that was pastored by Edwin H. Alden. (630, footnote 2)

However several descriptions in the book are somewhat discordant with the positive depictions mentioned so far. One is in the midst of the description of Laura’s first trip to Sunday School; her Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Tower, insults her twice by treating her as younger than she really was. First, Mrs. Tower tells the children a Bible story that Laura already knew: “Laura did not listen any more. She knew all about Moses in the bulrushes. Even Carrie knew that.” (505) Second, she gives Laura a Bible verse to memorize that is offensively easy: “‘The shortest verse in the Bible… just three words!’” (505) In addition, the congregation’s singing is depicted as incredibly poor: “They all opened their mouths and tried to sing ‘Jerusalem the Golden.’ Not many of them knew the words or the tune. Miserable squiggles went up Laura’s backbone and the insides of her ears crinkled. She was glad when they all sat down again.” (506) Rev. Alden’s sermon is long: “Laura thought he would never stop talking.” (506) Finally: “At last, everyone stood up and tried again to sing. When that was over, there was no more. They could go home.” (506) It appears that these things struck Wilder such that she would remember them and describe them vividly in ways that children would understand. These comments do not completely undermine the positivity of other descriptions of Christianity and the church. But they do provide a bit of a sharp edge to the stories.

So I’ve read four of the eight Little House books and so far I’m not sure what to make of their descriptions of Christianity. I’m still working with the same questions. If Laura was a lifelong Christian, why isn’t organized religion mentioned extensively until chapter 21 (of 41 chapters) of the fourth book in the series? If church was a vital part of life, why do the descriptions of services have an edge? Were the negative comments from Wilder or her daughter Rose Wilder Lane? Right now, I don’t think I have to have answers. I still have a lot to read. Historians have to cultivate their questions to get a fix on what we don’t know. Eventually, Lord-willing, we find answers to them. Ken Cmiel, a mentor of mine at the University of Iowa, called this “the thrashing around period” of a research project. He encouraged students to not cut short the thrashing around period, i. e. not to jump to conclusions.

As always, I’d be glad to hear others’ comments.

(All page number references are from Volume 1 of the two volume set of the Little House books published by the Library of America in 2012.)