Laura's FamilyLaura's Family
"Pa": Charles Phillip INGALLS
Born: 10-Jan-1836 in Cuba, NY, Died: 8-Jun-1902 in: De Smet, SD
Father: Landsford Whiting INGALLS
Mother: Laura COLBY
At last, when it was getting dark, Pa said again,"Come here, Laura." His voice was kind, and when Laura came he took her on his knee and hugged her close. She sat in the crook of his arm, her head against his shoulder and his long brown whiskers partly covering her eyes, and everything was alright again.
(Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House In The Big Woods, page 184)
"Ma": Caroline Lake QUINER
Married: 1-Feb-1860 in Concord, Wisconsin
Born: 12-Dec-1839 in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Died: 20-Apr-1924 in De Smet, SD
Father: Henry QUINER
Mother: Charlotte QUINER
Then Ma took them into the bedroom. She knelt down by the box where she kept her best things, and she took out three books. They were the books she had studied when she was a little girl. One was a speller, and one was a reader, and one was 'rithmetic.
She looked solemnly at Mary and Laura, and they were solemn, too.
"I am giving you these books for your very own, Mary and Laura," Ma said. "I know you will take care of them and study them faithfully."
(Laura Ingalls Wilder, On The Banks of Plum Creek, pages 140-141)
"Mary": Mary Amelia INGALLS
Born: 10-Jan-1865 in Pepin, Wisconsin
Died: 17-Oct-1928 in: Keystone, SD
Mary was even more beautiful than ever. Laura would never grow tired of looking at her. And now there was so much to tell each other that they talked every moment. Sunday afternoon they walked once more to the top of the low hill beyond the stable, and Laura picked wild roses to fill Mary's arms.
(Laura Ingalls Wilder, These Happy Golden Years, page 246)
"Laura": Laura Elizabeth INGALLS
Born: 7-Feb-1867 in Pepin, Wisconsin, Died: 10-Feb-1957 in Mansfield, MO
Spouse: Almanzo James WILDER
Married: 25-Aug-1885 in De Smet, SD
By noon, they had hauled all the hay and finished the stack...Dinner was ready when they went to the shanty. Ma looked sharply at Laura and asked, "Is the work too hard for her, Charles?" "Oh No! She's as stout as a little French horse. She's been such a great help," said Pa. "It would have taken me all day to stack that hay alone, and now I have the whole afternoon for mowing."
(Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter, pages 8-9)
"Carrie": Caroline Celestia INGALLS
Born: 3-Aug-1870 in Montgomery Co., KS, Died: 2-Jun-1946 in Keystone, SD
Spouse: David N. SWANZEY
Married: 1-Aug-1912 in De Smet, SD
Laura craned to look at Carrie, sitting beyond Mary. Carrie was small and thin in pink calico, with pink ribbons on her brown braids and her hat. She flushed miserably because Mary found fault with her and Laura was going to say, "You come over by me, Carrie, and fidget all you want to!"
(Laura Ingalls Wilder, By The Shores of Silver Lake, page 17)
"Freddie": Charles Frederick "Freddie" INGALLS
Born: 1-Nov-1875 in: Walnut Grove, Minnesota
Died: 1-Aug-1876 in Walnut Grove, Minnesota
He hadn't lived to celebrate even one birthday, or to make more than one journey, or to hear with his heart one song from his father's violin.
(Donald Zochert, The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, page 97)
"Grace": Grace Pearl INGALLS
Born: 23-May-1877 in Burr Oak, IA, Died: 10-Nov-1941 in De Smet, SD
Spouse: Nathan "Nate" William DOW
Married: 16-Oct-1901 in De Smet, SD
"One day when Grace was very young, she was reading in the Dakota Claim Shanty and looked up to ask, "What is a tree?" Her little girl images were full of treeless Dakota Land; she knew nothing of the Wisconsin Woods."
(William Anderson, Laura Ingalls Wilder Country, page 85)
Ingalls/Wilder Family
"I was wondering..." Almanzo paused. Then he picked up Laura's hand that shone white in the starlight, and his sun-browned hand closed gently over it. He had never done that before."Your hand is so small," he said. Another pause. Then quickly, "I was wondering if you would like an engagement ring."
"That would depend on who offered it to me," Laura told him.
"If I should?" Almanzo asked.
"Then it would depend on the ring," Laura answered...
(Laura Ingalls Wilder, These Happy Golden Years, page 214)
Husband: Almanzo James WILDER
Married: 25-Aug-1885 in De Smet, SD
Born: 13-Feb-1857 in: Malone, NY, Died: 23-Oct-1949 in Mansfield, MO
Father: James WILDER
Mother: Angeline WILDER
"But you've got it all wrong," Manly told her seriously. "Farmers are the only ones who are independent. How long would a merchant last if farmers didn't trade with him? There is a strife between them to please the farmer. They have to take trade away from each other in order to make more money, while all a farmer has to do is to sow another field if he wants to make a little extra."
(Laura Ingalls Wilder, The First Four Years, page 5)
Children:
Rose WILDER
Born: 5-Dec-1886 in De Smet, SD, Died: 30-Oct-1968 in Danbury, CT
Spouse: Gillette LANE
Married: 1909 in San Francisco
Divorced: 1918
Only lately I've decided against that youthful ambition. Here I'm not yet ninetly, and far from knowing all languages, I don't even know my own. Words I've relied on all my life are quicksand under my feet. Just think of "square" for example.
And hep, hip, hippie change so rapidly that they escape a grasp. And as for understanding people-Once I thought I had began to, but now I give up...
(Rose Wilder Lane, A Little House Sampler, page 59)
Infant Son
Born: Aug 1889 in De Smet, SD, Died: Aug 1889 in De Smet, SD
Laura was doing her own work again one day three weeks later when the baby was taken with spasms, and he died so quickly that the doctor was too late.
(Laura Ingalls Wilder, The First Four Years, page 127)
