Moncur Epic Journey May 2012: Laura Ingalls Wilder House in Mansfield, Missouri
Mike and I left Memphis and started on the long journey back to Utah. I was driving and in a bit of a road trance when Mike asked,
“Do you want to see the Laura Ingalls House?”
“What? Yes! Of course I would!”
He replied, “We just missed the turn off for it.”
It was all I could do to not slam on the brakes and attempt a u-turn on the interstate.
“It can’t be the Little House on the Prairie. That wasn’t in Missouri, was it? I thought they lived in South Dakota.”
Mike pulled out his iPad, doing research while I looked for another exit.
“It was the house she WROTE the books in. Take the next turn-off.”
Had we planned our trip better, we would have KNOWN that we were passing by the Laura Ingalls Wilder House and Museum, but as it was, we had an enjoyable break in our long drive home.
They didn’t allow photographs in the house or museum, so all I have is a picture from the outside of the house. I wouldn’t have minded as much if there had been a glossy picture book showing all the things in the house that I could have bought in the gift shop.
This tree was planted by Laura and Almanzo when they moved to this farm, but it fell in a storm. It seems so unfair that the objects we create and the plants we nurture have the ability to live far longer than we do.
As a child, I obsessed over the Little House on the Prairie books and watched the show religiously, so seeing the home where Laura wrote her books felt like stepping on hallowed ground. Seeing her small desk where she wrote by hand in notebooks right next to her bedroom made me feel better about my blue comfy chair where I do all my writing. I don’t need some huge study to write. All I need is a comfortable spot where my fingers can tell their stories, just like Laura Ingalls Wilder did.
For more info: