October 26, 2020 - Laura Ingalls Wilder House

Where to next?  Lynnnette and I have toured Kansas City before -- Link -- and saw everything except for the Harry Truman Presidential museum which was not open because of a government shutdown.  But now it is currently under renovation so there was no reason to go to Kansas City.  Someday I'll see the Truman Library.  Instead, we headed southwest on Interestate 44 to the famous Branson, Missouri.

Northeast of Branson is the Laura Ingalls Wilder home and museum.  Lynnette is a big fan of the Little House on the Prairie TV show so decided to check it out.

They have a nice, little museum.  It was also warm, which was nice on this cold and rainy day.

Laura Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American writer, mostly known for the Little House on the Prairie series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, which were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.
   
This interesting map shows the migration of the Ingalls family during the late 1800's.  This area was clearly the frontier back then.  People had to be hard-working, independent and tough.  There was no infrastructure.  If you needed or wanted something, you made it yourself.
   
You can't say it any better than this.
   
The Laura Ingalls Wilder house on Rocky Ridge Farm is located in the southwest corner of Missouri, in the Ozark mountains, in the little town of Mansfield.  Laura and her husband Almanzo moved her in 1894.  They built this house.  The house is that it is exactly the same as when Laura died in 1957 at age 90.  It was kept as is by Laura's daughter Rose who was a successful writer before Laura started writing her Little House books.  So now you can see what a house and life was like in the first half of the 1900s.
   
The front of the house.  The house had was no electricity.
   
   
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