Book Title:  Laura Ingalls Wilder:  Farm Journalist
Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder; edited by Stephen W. Hines
Publishing Company:  University of Missouri Press
Year:  2007
# of Pages: 330
ISBN:  978-0-8262-1771-4
$34.95 

5 Stars

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner 

I still remember the day, in the second grade, when my class was exploring the library.  My reputation as a good student and a good reader had already traveled through my small elementary school.  Mrs. Plummer, the school librarian, made a special point of walking over to me with a book in her hands.  "I think you would like this," she said, "and if you do, the story continues in more books."  She handed me Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. 

My mother may have had to help me with some of the words in this book, but not many.  Mrs. Wilder wrote of her young childhood days in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, and she wrote for young readers.  I quickly became caught up in the stories of Laura and her older sister, Mary, and baby Carrie, living near their extended families and gathering for maple sugar parties and dances.  At the end of the book, though, those happy times came to an end as Laura's family set out for the West, their travels and new home described in Little House on the Prairie. 

Through elementary school, I read and re-read the Little House books and developed a serious crush on Almanzo Wilder, who made the daring run in his sled across the snow-covered plains to obtain food for the town in The Long Winter and appeared each Friday afternoon in his sleigh to drive Laura home for the weekend from her duties as a teacher in These Happy Golden Years.  I even read beyond the series to follow Laura and Almanzo's early adventures in married life in The First Four Years.  I have since read the books again with my daughter and enjoyed watching her re-read them as well.  So, the publication of a new book of Mrs. Wilder's writings, those that preceded her classic books, has been on my "must read" list.Laura Ingalls Wilder:  Farm Journalist, edited by Stephen W. Hines, gives a glimpse into the Wilder household in Mansfield, Missouri, where the couple traveled by wagon when Almanzo's health required leaving the harsh winters of the Dakotas.  Hines has collected Mrs. Wilder's columns that appeared in The Missouri Ruralist between 1911 and 1931.  (Little House in the Big Woods was first published in 1931; there is some controversy concerning whether Mrs. Wilder wrote her books alone or whether her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, a professional journalist, may have assisted or even ghostwritten-I couldn't care less).

Within these columns, there is a sense of an eternal optimism, the spirit that embodies the American farmer who can seed the fields year after year and hope for the best, then watch and work through the effects of Nature that are always beyond control.  Mrs. Wilder recognizes and communicates the important role played by women on the farm.  Writing throughout the first World War, she applies lessons that can be learned on a farm or in a small community to the world at large.  For example, this thought, written in January 20, 1918:

When our soldiers come home from that "war world" . . . what a delightful surprise it would be for them if they should find themselves at home in a world of that kind-where the loving and sharing and good comradeship reached all the year around."

In an essay entitled," Keep Journeying On," Mrs. Wilder looks with optimism at the question of aging, though acknowledging that "no one can really welcome the first gray hair or look upon the first wrinkles as beautiful."  Still, she observes, "There is nothing in the passing of the years by itself to cause one to become melancholy.  If they have been good years, then the more of them the better.  If they have been bad years, be glad they are passed and expect the coming ones to be more to your liking."

Some of her thoughts on environmentalism and preservation of resources ring forcefully true today.  Mrs. Wilder writes of recognizing a first true sign of spring:  "I saw scattered papers caught on the bushes, empty cracker and sandwich cartons strewn around on the green grass and discolored pasteboard boxes soaking in the clear water of the spring.  I knew then that spring was here, for the sign of the picnickers is more sure than that of singing birds and tender green grass, and there is nothing more unlovely than one of nature's beauty spots defiled in this way.  It is such an unprovoked offense to nature, something like insulting one's host after enjoying his hospitality."  This theme continues in a 1923 essay:  "We are the heirs of the ages, but the estate is entailed as large estates frequently are, so that while we inherit the earth the great round world which is God's Footstool, we have only the use of it while we live and must pass it on to those who come after us.  We hold the property in trust and have no right to injure it nor to lessen its value.  To do is dishonest, stealing from our hears their inheritance."    

Writing in February 1920, Mrs. Wilder expressed concern about the availability and cost of gasoline:  "Altho there is a present abundance, scientists and chemists have for years been trying to find a substitute, for they believe that we cannot go on forever using gasoline in ever increasing quantities without coming at last to the end of the supply."  Again, writing in 1920, she worried about a developing give-away, throw-away society:  "when flimsy, short-lived materials are used in construction the joy of the creation is soon swallowed up in dismay at the quick process of deterioration and decay.  . . . I would like to take part in a build-up campaign to encourage the use of building materials that would be more lasting.  I would like to see our farm homes built, not for the present generation only but for our children and our children's children."

Today's Presidential candidates, touting their experience, and voters as well could glean some helpful advice from Mrs. Wilder, who wrote in 1920 of the biggest business in the world, the United States of America:  "Surely a man should be chosen as manager of such a business for his business, for his business ability, his qualities as an executive, his broad, comprehensive knowledge of world conditions and people as well as of the home problems of our own country, for in our buying and selling, even of our eggs and butterfat, in our taxes and wars, our peace and prosperity, even our health and our lives, we are closely united with the rest of the world, for better or worse until death parts us.  Our next President, who will be our business manager for four years, should be chosen for his fitness for the place as tho we were hiring him to attend to our own private business, for a lack of knowledge or disposition on his part will be felt in our homes, from the front door to the kitchen."     

This is a book to be read and re-read, and certain passages should be marked and read aloud to family members who pass by the reader or carried in memory and shared in conversations.  It gives all Little House readers a glimpse at the woman our little "Half-pint" came to be, and there is no cause for disappointment.

My favorite story from this collection comes from Mrs. Wilder's telling of an old Irish fairy story.  A mortal was given a chance to go hunting with the fairies.  He was allowed to choose whether to have a fairy steed grow to fit him or to have his own size reduced to enable him to ride a fairy mount.  He chose to become small and rode side by side with the fairy king.  When he came to a high wall, he feared he could not jump over it, but the fairy king advised him, "Throw your heart over the wall, then follow it!"  From this, Mrs. Wilder finds a great meaning:  "the uplift of a fearless heart will help us over other sorts of barriers.  In any undertaking, to falter at a crisis means defeat.  No one ever overcomes difficulties by going at them in a hesitant, doubtful way.  If we would win success in anything, when we come to a wall that bars our way we must throw our hearts over and then follow confidently.  It is fairy advice, you know, and savors of magic, so following it we will ride with the fairies of good fortune and go safely over."

Thanks to Mrs. Wilder for throwing her heart over the wall in her writing, and providing the stories that continue to inspire.