Tag: Laura Ingalls Wilder

A Lovely Day at Three South Dakota Prairie Historical Sites

The re-created "Little House" at the Ingalls Homestead at DeSmet, S.D.. Photo by Deb Watley.
The re-created “Little House” at the Ingalls Homestead at DeSmet, S.D.. Photo by Deb Watley.

Recently my husband and I took a day trip to visit a several historical sites in South Dakota. We went to Prairie Village west of Madison and two Laura Ingalls Wilder sites at DeSmet.

Prairie Village is comprised of quite a few buildings from the area, ranging from a log cabin built in the 1870s to a school house, an opera house, and a telephone switchboard office. The village also features some railroading history.

The village is located on the shores of Lake Herman and has a lovely view.

A beautiful church at the Prairie Village outside of Madison, S.D. The church at the Ingalls Homestead looks similar. Photo by Deb Watley.
A beautiful church at the Prairie Village outside of Madison, S.D. The church at the Ingalls Homestead looks similar. Photo by Deb Watley.

We were provided with a map and printed information about most of the buildings, and we could wander at our own pace. It was our first visit to the village. Another time I’d like to see the historic steam carousel, but it was closed the day we visited.

We also visited the Ingalls Homestead site at DeSmet. This was also a first-time visit for us. It’s located on the 160 acre plot south of DeSmet that Charles Ingalls, father of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, claimed in 1880.

The site had an example of a dugout, like what the Ingalls lived in along the bank of Plum Creek in Minnesota, as well as an example of a shanty, similar to what the family would’ve lived in their first summer on their homestead.

I think the shanty looked more pleasant, but it would’ve been very hard to heat in the winter.

Inside the dugout at the Ingalls Homestead. Laura lived in something similar as a young girl when her family moved to Minnesota. It would've been warm in the winter, but I think critters and snakes would've been frequent visitors. Photo by Deb Watley.
Inside the dugout at the Ingalls Homestead. Laura lived in something similar as a young girl when her family moved to Minnesota. It would’ve been warm in the winter, but I think critters and snakes would’ve been frequent visitors. Photo by Deb Watley.

Although the site doesn’t have the house the Ingalls lived in, it has a re-created house built to the correct measurements at it’s final addition. The original house would’ve been very tiny for a family of six!

A school building and a church, that came from nearby, are preserved on the homestead even though those buildings don’t have direct connections to the Ingalls or Wilders.

There were docents at the school and the “Little House,” and at the church our wagon driver gave us some information and sung to us from the old song, “The Little Brown Church in the Vale.”

The church and the school buildings are on opposite ends of the land. You may walk if you want, or you may ride in a horse-drawn wagon. The wagon seats probably about 10-12 people, so it’s probably bigger than the wagon the Ingalls would’ve used.

Visitors are allowed to “drive” the tourist wagon — with help from the expert driver. Of course I volunteered, and driving the team of horses was one of the highlights of my day.

A wagon at the Ingalls Homestead. That seat looks mighty uncomfortable! Photo by Deb Watley
A wagon at the Ingalls Homestead. That seat looks mighty uncomfortable! Photo by Deb Watley

We also went to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Homes site in DeSmet. It is comprised of the Surveyors’ House, a couple school houses, and Charles and Caroline’s town house they built after Laura was grown and married.

We had been to this site previously, so instead of visiting the buildings again we went to the “Beyond the Prairie” exhibit at the museum/gift shop. The exhibit focused on the separate and collaborative writings of both Laura and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.

It’s well documented how Laura and Rose worked together to write the Little House on the Prairie novel series, but it was very interesting to see their handwritten and typewritten letters to each other discussing the stories and the writing process.

It was also very interesting to learn more about Rose. She was famous before her mother was. Rose was a world traveller, a writer of fiction and non-fiction, and an expert in needlework.

I recommend visiting any of these sites to see what pioneering life was like. Understanding some of the challenges pioneers faced makes me appreciate things like electricity, indoor plumbing, furnaces, modern medicine, gas-powered cars, asphalt roads, and the internet — though it might be fun, once in a while, to take a horse and buggy to town.

Photo by Bruce Watley.

Have you been to any of these sites? What’s your favorite part? What part of pioneering would’ve been toughest on you?

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Historical Fiction: My Definition

Welcome to my new blog! Some of you know that I blogged for several years at www.debwatley.com. But as I’ve started my own company and next week will release my own book, Summer Ruins, I am making a fresh start with a new website/blog.

I will continue to blog about many of the same things: history, archeology, memory, and stories, especially stories for kids. I’ll expand that by also writing about imagination and play.

I’ll write a lot about historical fiction. I love to read it. And although Summer Ruins is contemporary fiction, I also love to write historical fiction.

What exactly is historical fiction?

Can we classify The Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Little House series, and Pride and Prejudice as examples of historical fiction? After all, these stories are set in the past.

Yes, I would classify all three of those examples as historical fiction, especially for child readers, because to an eight-year-old, anything beyond five years ago is ancient history.

My definition of historical fiction: A genre comprised of all stories set in the past.

Splitting up fiction into genres is a function of marketing. It helps match the books to the readers’ interests. It gives the readers some idea of what to expect in a novel.

However, I’d like to split this huge genre into three sub-genres: past contemporary, personal historical fiction, and researched historical fiction.

Past Contemporary: Any story that an author wrote that is set in his or her time period. Often in past contemporary novels, authors assume readers are familiar with current events and culture, so they don’t explain things their contemporary readers already know and understand.

For example, Pride and Prejudice and other books by Jane Austen are set in her own time period. Even while she purposefully wrote stories that focused on family and community instead of the large geo-political events of her time, she often placed soldiers or sailers in her stories without explaining their presence. Yet her first readers would’ve understood and expected a military presence because many of her books were set during the same time period as the Napoleonic Wars.

But in 2018 adult readers, who have some knowledge of British history, may or may not get those kinds of details. Child readers may struggle even more to understand cultural references and values, as well as unfamiliar vocabulary and dialogue.

However, many past contemporary books have successfully passed the test of time, and readers still identify with the characters, their problems, and their universal emotions.

These are great books to read in order to immerse oneself into a past time period. Readers can really get a feeling and understanding of what the time period was like, especially of what people then took for believed—or feared–was coming in their own future.

Personal Historical Fiction: Stories in which the author not only lived in that time period but relied on personal experience to write the story. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books are an example. Although she wrote the stories about 40-50 years after the time period of the stories, Wilder relied heavily on her own experiences. As the author, she knew her child readers wouldn’t understand a lot of the details, so she described how things were done. But she didn’t have to go to the library to read about others’ pioneer experiences. She could draw from her own memory.

These types of books are also great for understanding the zietgeist of the stories’ time periods. However, readers might come away with the added benefit of learning about the time period of the writing of the book as the authors translate their history for us. Authors might not do this consciously, but even by picking what details to show or not show, they reveal what they thought was important at the time of writing.

Researched Historical Fiction: Any story that takes place far enough back that the author has little or no memories of the time period. For instance, Scott O’Dell’s novel, The Island of the Blue Dolphins, is set more than a century before he wrote the book. He had to use research and imagination to compose this story.

Another example would be if I wrote a story about the Vietnam Conflict era. I was alive during the end of it. But I have no personal memories of it. If I wrote a book, I would have to research it just as much as if I wrote a book about the Civil War.

Books in this sub-genre often have more descriptions and explanations of vocabulary, setting, and events. Authors of these books may use details to give the stories the flavor of the past, but they may also focus on keeping the readability level appropriate for modern readers.

Again, the authors are translating the zeitgeist of the historical time periods, as well as their own, for current readers.

For more information about the genre of historical fiction, check out this article: Defining the Genre: What are the rules for historical fiction? It was helpful to me, especially author Sarah Johnson’s take on what I’m calling researched historical fiction.

I’d love to use your feedback to refine my thoughts. How do you define historical fiction?