America's Byways, Road Trip 2019, Part 4

July 27, 2019

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum

I arrived at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum early this morning after a short drive from Mountain View to Mansfield, Missouri. The first stop there is a large white building that resembles a big white barn more than a museum. Tickets are sold in the entrance lobby at $14 for adults and $7 for children over five years old. The building is home to the museum itself, a gift shop, and a small video room that has a ten-minute film about the Wilders running on a loop.  Entrance to the museum is through a door inside the video room, and visitors exit the museum directly into the gift shop. The gift shop, of course, specializes in the Little House books and those written by Laura's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, but everything else you might expect to find in a museum gift shop is there, too. I was not surprised to see that Caroline Fraser's Prairie Fires is conspicuously missing from the gift shop shelves. Fraser dared to paint a less than flattering portrait of Laura and Rose, especially regarding the volatile personal relationship the two had.

The Farmhouse

The museum displays first editions of all the Little House books, clothing belonging to all three Wilders, and lots of other personal items belonging to the family. I was most intrigued (for some odd reason) by a pair of shoes Almanzo made for himself because one of his feet made it impossible for him to use store-bought shoes - and alongside the shoes were the tools he used to produce them. This is a small museum but it is crammed with items that fans of the books are certain to find interesting. My one gripe is that it is forbidden to take photos inside the museum or either of the two houses lived in by the Wilders. I can understand banning flash photography, but I've been in numerous museums housing much more valuable artifacts than these that allow pictures as long as a flash is not used to take them. I enjoy studying in detail the photos I take in places like this one, and now that won't be possible.

Side-view of the Farmhouse

As I was leaving the museum, a woman was walking up to the steps with a little girl all decked out in full Little House on the Prairie clothing. It was cute to see a child so excited about books; I'm happy that still happens. From the museum, it is just a short walk to the home Laura and Almanzo lived in for so many years.  Laura died in one of the house's two bedrooms in 1957, but no one seems sure if she died in her room or in the bedroom that Almanzo used before his own death. My group was a little too large to be led by a guide, so we were each given a brochure and allowed to wander around the little house on our own. A docent was there to answer questions about the home furnishings, what was in the roped off upstairs area, which bedroom was which, etc. This is a very small house but it was so cleverly designed that it must have been very comfortable for the Wilder family.  Its design, in fact, reminds me of some of the tricks that RV designers use to make their limited space so livable.

The Rock House

After leaving the farmhouse, I walked about half a mile on a hiking path over to the Rock House, the home that Rose built for her parents around the time of the Depression. Laura and Almanzo lived in the home for eight years, and according to Prairie Fires, that whole episode caused some hard feelings between Rose and her mother. I found myself alone with the docent for several minutes, and we discussed just how much work Rose may have done on her mother's books. That she edited them is well known, but some say that she practically rewrote them without taking any credit because she wanted to protect her mother's image. I did not want to ask that kind of question in front of anyone else for the same reason, so I was glad to get the chance to ask it. Laura has an image that deserves to be protected because of what she means to so many readers who grew up on her books.

Not too many miles down the road, I decided to stop in at a McDonald's on the highway to grab a breakfast sandwich (for lunch) and got another of those little surprises I always hope for. This is Amish country (Missouri is said to have the seventh largest Amish population in the country), and two pairs of Amish teens were waiting for their orders and ice cream cones. They had pulled up in separate black buggies, and their horses were tethered to a bright red hitching post that McDonald's placed in a corner of the parking lot for them. They were very quiet, and gave me the impression that they did not quite feel comfortable waiting around for their food in a crowd. I found myself standing next to one of the girls and she smiled when I told her good morning, so maybe it's just me projecting my own feelings onto them. 

Thirty minutes after getting back on the road I stopped off at the Wilson's Creek National Military Park. This was the site of the first Civil War battle in the state of Missouri, and it was a decisive victory for the Confederacy. The park has a very different feel from all the others I've visited over the years because there is only one monument inside the entire park. All the others I've visited are practically covered in large monuments financed by state governments or Civil War veteran groups wanting to honor their fallen comrades. Probably because Wilson's Creek did not become a National Park until 1961, the money for patriotic monuments was just not there. But that's not necessarily a bad thing because Wilson's Creek looks much more like it did during the war than the others do. It's got a very clean look to it.

The Only Surviving Building at Wison's Creek

Only one original structure still stands, the farmhouse belonging to a man who watched the beginning of the battle from his front porch before taking cover in the cellar with his family, a slave and her four children, and the local mail carrier. When the family finally emerged from the cellar, they found that the home had been turned into a battle field hospital and that it was filled with the wounded and dying from both sides. Even the grounds around the farmhouse were covered with suffering soldiers. It is said that the children spoke about that shock for the rest of their lives.

One of the House's Bedrooms

This old farmhouse was inhabited continuously from the 1850s through 1967 when the Park Service bought and restored it. It's last resident, an old woman who spent much of her life in the house, lived there without electiricty or indoor plumbing. The house was in bad shape when she finally moved out, but you would never know that today because it has been wonderfully restored using the same techniques, tools, and materials used in its original construction.

So it was a fun day - even though I stopped early to rest up for tomorrow when I head down into Arkansas to see what I can find there.