What do you think?
Rate this book
Before the Prairie Books: The Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder 1921-1924: A Farm Woman
Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the American classic Little House on the Prairie, from which the award winning television show was taken. Her first book was published in 1932 but long before that Laura wrote magazine articles on small farming and country living. She and her husband Almanzo lived on a small farm near Mansfield, Missouri from 1894 until their deaths, his in 1949 and hers in 1957, and it is from that happy life that the spirit of her books sprang. Laura’s articles are full of merriment, country lore, and old fashioned wisdom. They are the seed stock of the Little House® books.
This book contains thoughts such as these:
"As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness–just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breathe it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day and a cool breeze when the day is warm."
"The stream of passing years is like a river with people being carried along in the current. Some are swept along, protesting, fighting all the way trying to swim back up the stream, longing for the shores that they have passed, clutching at anything to retard their progress, frightened by the onward rush of the strong current and in danger of being overwhelmed by the waters. Others go with the current freely, trusting themselves to the buoyancy of the waters knowing they will bear them up. And so with very little effort they go floating safely along, gaining more courage and strength from their experience with the waves."
"Across the years, the old home and its love called to me and memories of sweet words of counsel came flooding back. I realized that all my life the teachings of those early days have influenced me and the example set by father and mother has been something I have tried to follow, with failures here and there, with rebellion at times, but always coming back to it as the compass needle to the star."
"The person who keeps looking ahead for happiness is on the way to miss it, no matter how anxious and eager she is. The person who looks around for chances of making other people happy and carries them out, cannot escape being happy."
These forty-nine articles of Laura’s are accompanied by setting and notes by Dan L. White, a fellow Ozarker who has lived for the last quarter century in Laura’s neck of the woods and has authored several books on Laura, including Laura’s Love Story, Laura Ingalls’ Friends Remember Her and Devotionals with Laura.
This book contains thoughts such as these:
"As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness–just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breathe it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day and a cool breeze when the day is warm."
"The stream of passing years is like a river with people being carried along in the current. Some are swept along, protesting, fighting all the way trying to swim back up the stream, longing for the shores that they have passed, clutching at anything to retard their progress, frightened by the onward rush of the strong current and in danger of being overwhelmed by the waters. Others go with the current freely, trusting themselves to the buoyancy of the waters knowing they will bear them up. And so with very little effort they go floating safely along, gaining more courage and strength from their experience with the waves."
"Across the years, the old home and its love called to me and memories of sweet words of counsel came flooding back. I realized that all my life the teachings of those early days have influenced me and the example set by father and mother has been something I have tried to follow, with failures here and there, with rebellion at times, but always coming back to it as the compass needle to the star."
"The person who keeps looking ahead for happiness is on the way to miss it, no matter how anxious and eager she is. The person who looks around for chances of making other people happy and carries them out, cannot escape being happy."
These forty-nine articles of Laura’s are accompanied by setting and notes by Dan L. White, a fellow Ozarker who has lived for the last quarter century in Laura’s neck of the woods and has authored several books on Laura, including Laura’s Love Story, Laura Ingalls’ Friends Remember Her and Devotionals with Laura.
- GenresFiction
180 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 28, 2010
9 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Dan L. White
23 books9 followersDan is an upper-60s father of five grown children and grandfather to twelve grandchildren who has lived and worked with his wife, Margie, for over forty years. For the last almost thirty years, they have lived a quiet, laid-back lifestyle on their forty acre farm not far from where Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her famous Little House books. Dan has written a number of books about Laura Ingalls and on other subjects including marriage and homeschooling. In 2006, they began Homeschool Helpers to encourage Christian families to center their lives around Christ with the homeschooling lifestyle. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Homesc...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 4, 2014
This is the final set of articles that Laura wrote for the Missouri Ruralist. It is interesting to watch her writing style change as her daughter, Rose (at the time a world-renowned journalist) came home to Rocky Ridge farm after traveling Europe with the Red Cross. Laura includes Rose's stories in many of these later articles, and also has more time to write longer articles since Rose has taken over most of the house work. Apparently Laura, now in her 50s, was in poor health.
Laura's last regularly scheduled articles are written in 1924; they stop with the death of her mother on Easter Sunday of that year. After that, at Rose's urging, she began writing a book, a novel about her childhood, and so she only published several more articles. The last article is actually from 1931 as she is waiting for a publisher to approve changes to her manuscript for Little House in the Big Woods.
Laura's last regularly scheduled articles are written in 1924; they stop with the death of her mother on Easter Sunday of that year. After that, at Rose's urging, she began writing a book, a novel about her childhood, and so she only published several more articles. The last article is actually from 1931 as she is waiting for a publisher to approve changes to her manuscript for Little House in the Big Woods.
Displaying 1 of 1 review