There are many Laura Ingalls Wilder “points of interest” in the United States, but perhaps the most fascinating is Rocky Ridge Farm, a time capsule in southern Missouri that opened just a few weeks after Laura’s death. There are two homes there, one of which she wrote the first four Little House books in, and in the other–the home her husband built–she wrote the remaining titles.
The properties were truly left untouched and undisturbed. Her chicken coop is still in use, and most of the original acreage stands unclaimed. The stream described in the later books is a bit overgrown, but it’s there to witness. Her desk and writings have been left in her home just the way they were, open to the public with (almost) no velvet ropes standing in the way.
Contra to most museums in this day and age, there are no faux fascades, no replicas. No buttons to press or simulations or lit-up video screens. This is her house furnished with her refrigerator, her piano, and the paintings she owned. Her old magazines are still stuffed under a chair near the fireplace.
It’s a testament to the quality of people who visit this place that they have graciously respected the relics on display and left them undisturbed since 1957. Compare this to most places open to the public in a typical city such as a park or playground, pilfered, graffiti’d, and abused during the first year.
The most fascinating of the two homes has to be the one her husband Almanzo built with his own two hands. It started out as a log cabin in 1895, which later became the kitchen area of the two story home. It was completed eighteen years later in 1913.
The home feels quaint, custom, and beautiful. Every stone that makes up the fireplace was found on the property; Almanzo loved to choose rocks with fossil records in them. Rich dark wood is interlaced in an intricate pattern above the parlor, and the walls are painted in a pleasant forest green. It reminds me very much of a Hobbit home one might find in the Shire. A comfy window seat in the corner lets one take in all the nature just outside, and a custom library was built specifically for Laura to peruse her books in comfort.
It’s not perfect as some things (such as beds and other fragile things) are roped off out of necessity, and the most interesting relics have been moved to a proper museum which is also on the property (such as Pa’s famous fiddle featured many times in the books, and Laura’s pistol which she used personally for self-defense and to hunt small game).
Laura stood at 4’11” and Almanzo was 5’3″, yet they were able to build such a beautiful place, tend a farm, raise a child, and Laura was not only able to write her books and articles, but also able to become a renowned seamstress. That really put things into perspective for me and served as a great reminder: Work hard and wonderful things happen. That goes for your book, too.
If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, it’s pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting.
-Laura Ingalls Wilder
Nick Enlowe 