Laura Ingalls Wilder poll: What is your favorite Little House book?

[I Luv Bulldogs]

These were my favourite books as a kid (now in my mid 40's). Last year, I was browsing through Powell Books in Portland and saw Little House in the Big Woods. I had to buy it and re-read it as it had been so long. Ahhh so many happy memories of sharing the books with my best friend, watching the TV series and playing dress-up and acting out parts of the show/book. Good times.

 

[Susan1]

I copied my comment from the Mary Ingalls.....Blind thread in case anyone on this one doesn't read that one:

For anyone going back and reading their collection, between On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake, check out Old Town in the Green Groves by Cynthia Rylant. It's ABOUT the Ingalls' time in Burr Oak, Iowa. It's written as Laura would have. Copyright 2002, so it's a little more "mature" than Laura wrote, sort of? It addresses Freddie's birth and death and then Grace's birth soon after. And the hotel and school and other people they knew. Even though I read about Burr Oak in the Zochert book and Pioneer Girl, it was interesting to read it like I was reading Laura's other books. She even got some of the information from the "unpublished manuscript" (at the time) of Pioneer Girl.

 

[Skittl1321]

Thanks to this thread ice dug out my books and am spending my weekend reading. They go so quick, I'll have read the series by tomorrow night. Just love them. The racism and xenophobia in them though makes me think it would be difficult to read with a young child anymore; you'd have to wait or a kid to be older who can have conversations about what it means.

I could never imagine doing the amount of work they do. Wow.

I'd also love to know more about the bathroom situation in each of the little places they lived....

 

[Moto Guzzi]

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I'd also love to know more about the bathroom situation in each of the little places they lived....

Little Outhouse on the Prairie. My grandparents' farm has an outhouse that is over 100 years old. Back in the day before indoor plumbing, people had outhouses and chamber pots for use at night or when it was too cold to get to the outhouse.

 

[Skittl1321]

It just seems strange with all the talk of building various buildings, digging wells, etc. that it is never mentioned.

They didn't always live in a house either- was the outhouse built first? When they had a dugout house did they still have a wooden outhouse? I don't believe the recreated site in Indian territory has one- was it omitted?

I'm just really curious what the logistics were. Especially during the winter- it wouldn't make a good book chapter, but did excrement just pile in the snow when it was too far to dump it far from the house?

There is mention if burning manure, in the grasshopper summer iirc, maybe that included human waste too

 

[Susan1]

Little Outhouse on the Prairie. My grandparents' farm has an outhouse that is over 100 years old. Back in the day before indoor plumbing, people had outhouses and chamber pots for use at night or when it was too cold to get to the outhouse.

Heck, back in the mid-1970's, I went to my best friend's grandma's house in "the holler" of Barbourville, KY and she had an outhouse! And a coal stove, and big fat feather beds you had to jump into, and a ringer washer. I felt like I WAS visiting Little House on the Prairie.

 

[danceronice]

It just seems strange with all the talk of building various buildings, digging wells, etc. that it is never mentioned.

They didn't always live in a house either- was the outhouse built first? When they had a dugout house did they still have a wooden outhouse? I don't believe the recreated site in Indian territory has one- was it omitted?

I'm just really curious what the logistics were. Especially during the winter- it wouldn't make a good book chapter, but did excrement just pile in the snow when it was too far to dump it far from the house?

There is mention if burning manure, in the grasshopper summer iirc, maybe that included human waste too

The manure they burned is buffalo chips--it's sun-dried cow or buffalo poop and more like burning briquettes than manure (actual manure on fire would stink unbearably.)

As for 'where do people 'go'", digging a true outhouse is kind of a pain, and often it's not that complex, so until they were settled somewhere likely...well, it's like work in the fur trade post when people realize I've got one room. I kind of point to the woods behind the stockade and note that the bears do it. It's entirely possible they had nightjars (more likely than a chamber pot at this point--those handled 'mug-style' things are more city folk and more 1700s) even a commode (potty chair, more or less) and otherwise...well, you dig a pit, bury your 'business.' I would guess they probably did have a real outhouse in most places where they lived for an extended period (where there was time to dig a decent-size sink), but Laura didn't mention 'delicate' matters like that!

And the original one is probably long backfilled. They may have just figured that's not what Little House tourists are coming to see! Though I don't know why, it's everybody's favorite question, which I usually follow up with 'who do you think EMPTIES the nightjar in the morning" when I'm working our settler's cabin (kids, of course!)

 

[Skittl1321]

The manure they burned is buffalo chips--it's sun-dried cow or buffalo poop and more like burning briquettes than manure (actual manure on fire would stink unbearably.)

Probably not buffalo- Laura mentions that they are long gone, and she wishes she could see one when they visit the old buffalo wallows.

I've camped a lot, so I get the idea of going the bathroom outside- on their travels, that makes sense to me. I'm just really more interested in permanent settlement and what kind of sanitation was set up. It appears they move the outhouse whenever the pit gets full. I'm just wondering if the praire towns were "shit all over the street" type places that Medieval cities seem like they must have been (when it was tossed into the street to get it out of the house!), or if it was actually discarded in a reasonably clean manner.

 

[danceronice]

Probably not buffalo- Laura mentions that they are long gone, and she wishes she could see one when they visit the old buffalo wallows.

I've camped a lot, so I get the idea of going the bathroom outside- on their travels, that makes sense to me. I'm just really more interested in permanent settlement and what kind of sanitation was set up. It appears they move the outhouse whenever the pit gets full. I'm just wondering if the praire towns were "shit all over the street" type places that Medieval cities seem like they must have been (when it was tossed into the street to get it out of the house!), or if it was actually discarded in a reasonably clean manner.

ROFL, no, and neither were Medieval cities. Not nearly like pop-history likes to show. (And if you go back to ancient times, some places had functional public lavatories, and in Rome launderers put out pots for people to piss in so they could collect the urine and use it in cloth-cleaning.) Outhouses WERE moved when they got a bit filled, but that takes much longer than you'd think as they're quite deep and they do compost. But if one started really being past its use, they'd backfill and dig a new one. Backfilled outhouses are actually great for archaeologists--not only do people drop stuff, they deliberately use them as garbage dumps and you'll find broken crockery and glass, buttons, bones and basically anything with enough substance to last longer than the moisture does. (No, it doesn't stink.) Until the late 19th century and the start of indoor WCs, everywhere, in town, out east, and out west, would have privvys out back. Chamber pots were really only for when it's too dark or cold at night to go out (or if you're out on the frontier when it's legitimately dangerous to walk twenty yards out behind the house in the pitch black.) And they'd be emptied down the privvy.

And yes, there'd still have been buffalo chips dried out, and then OLD (but never new) cattle droppings. The buffalo were only 'long' gone if you're an eight-year-old kid with no concept of time (plus dried dung lasts a long time.) The actual dates the Ingallses were on the prairie, the great mass millions of buffalo were drastically reduced, but they were hardly extinct. Horse poop works, too, though there weren't nearly as many (there were never large populations of "wild" horses in North America, at least not after the original ancestors of the horse went extinct thousands of years earlier. The natives had a few from the Spanish that were small feral populations, but "wild" horses were and still are just feral offspring of released cavalry remounts and farm horses, so there were never nearly as many as cows or bison.) And the older and drier, the less painfully stinky burning it would be.

 

[olympic]

Confession: When I was younger I really hated Mary because she was such a goody two shoes.

An aside:

Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie on the TV series, wrote a book a while back. I think it was called 'Confessions of a Prarie Bitch' or something like that. My favorite quote was 'I played a bitch, but Melissa Sue Anderson (actress playing Mary) was a bitch.'



For the record, I liked Farmer Boy. As someone upthread stated, the posh meals and their seemingly posher lifestyle interested me

 

[Colleen]

The discussion on outhouses brings back memories - my aunt and uncle lived on a farm in Manitoba and didn't get indoor plumbing until the mid 70's. I remember staying there as a little kid and hating the outhouse - we were always afraid we would fall down the hole. My grandparents had a 'two seater' outhouse with a smaller/lower hole for kids but my aunt's wasn't that 'fancy'. And they used catalogues for toilet paper at times. My aunt would sometimes let us use a pail at night - it just got flung out into a field in back of the house. My grandparents had indoor plumbing but in summer their well would be low on water and we had to use the outhouse instead of flushing the toilet. Or go in the bushes. I don't think anyone on a farm was too worried about a little pee!

The outhouse was in the same place for as long as I knew - I guess everything just composts. I remember my grandpa saying that the grass was always green and grew fast around the outhouse and that he was going to plant potatoes there. Thankfully, he never did.

I loved the 'Little House' books and the TV show. I wanted to be friends with Laura, and was always on her side in fights with Nellie. I haven't read the books in years so my memory of what was on the show and what was in the books is foggy, but now I want to read them again.

 

[Moto Guzzi]

When we bought our family farm, there was an old, boarded-up outhouse on the property. One day, when my younger brother was about 5 years old, he went missing. My mother frantically searched the house and yard and then headed toward the chicken house. She heard faint cries coming from the old outhouse. My brother had managed to pry off a rotting board to make a hole just large enough for him to squeeze through.

My mother got an axe and broke down the door to find my brother literally in deep shit. He had somehow fallen through the hole and was clinging to the edges of the seat. It was good that he had the strength to hold on because had he let go there's no telling how far he would have fallen. He could have suffocated and we may never have found him. My mother pulled him out and, when my father came home from work, he knocked the outhouse down with the tractor and filled in the hole. We kids teased my brother about it for years and told him our parents had named him John because they knew he would some day fall down one.

 

[Karina1974]

I wasn't in the US when I read this one, but I remember the confusion I had over it. My knowledge of New York was just about NYC. So I had a hard time reconciling in my mind that there was a rural area to New York even in that time period.

You ought to venture up to the North Country region of the state sometime. NYC is just a concrete wasteland. The real beauty of NY is in the upstate rural areas.

 

[Maofan7]

On the Banks of Plum Creek is my favourite of the books

Little House on the Prairie has always been one of my favourite TV shows. The Lord is my Shepherd from series 1 (2 episodes) were my favourite episodes. This is the 2nd episode

Also, check out the following 4 videos:-

Following the Trail of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Houses
Visiting Laura Ingalls Wilder's Rocky Ridge Farm
Little House on the Prairie: The American Dream
Filming location of Little House on the Prairie

 

[ArtisticFan]

You ought to venture up to the North Country region of the state sometime. NYC is just a concrete wasteland. The real beauty of NY is in the upstate rural areas.

I have and lived upstate for a while when I first arrived here. I just remember my confusion living in Moscow and knowing only of NYC. I couldn't figure out the oxen and cows, etc. Oh the confusion of an 8/9 year old.

 

[Susan1]

On the Banks of Plum Creek is my favourite of the books

Also, check out the following 4 videos:-

Following the Trail of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Houses

Thanks! This was 50 times better than that book by Wendy McClure. It was too much about her and her disappointments. I wasted half a day.

 

[Moto Guzzi]

http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=57821

This is the marker for Dr. Tann who saved the Ingalls family when they had fever 'n' ague in Little House on the Prairie.