4 lesser-known facts about Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of Little House series
For years, the popular children’s fiction series called ‘Little House’ was published under the name of Laura Ingalls Wilder. While generations of kids were delighted by her stories, not much was known about the author, until recently. In 1930, Harper Collins collaborated with the author’s grandson Charles Wilder to create her autobiography in 1930 by the name Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography. This was a tribute to her unparalleled contribution to modern children’s literature. The book revealed that she based the ‘Little House’ stories on her own life. Here are some lesser-known yet fascinating facts about this celebrated author.
Teenage teacher in her own school
Born on 7th February, 1867 in Wisconsin, USA, Wilder showed great promise as a student and was the brightest among all five siblings. In fact, at the mere age of 15 she successfully passed the teaching service examination and received her teaching certificate. Thereafter, she was appointed as a full-time teacher in her own school. In fact, the account of her girlhood followed by her teaching days has been published in her book Farmer Boy the second in the Little House series.
Wilder’s daughter, her inspiration
Rose Wilder, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s only daughter was her real inspiration behind the Little House series. Rose herself was a writer and often encouraged her mother to write accounts of her own childhood for her to read. In fact, Rose was Wilder’s first editor and critic, and published her mother’s first story Little House in the Big Woods using her own savings. This happened in the year 1932, when Wilder was 65 years old! Talk about finding your calling late in life! Given the success of this book, she continued sharing the story of her life through her books On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), The Long Winter (1940), Little Town on the Prairie (1941), and These Happy Golden Years (1943). In fact, one of these got adapted to a television series that was hugely successful.
An award named after Wilder
The first four of the ‘Little House’ books had won the famous Newbery Honours (a literary award conferred by the Association for Library Service to Children for contributions in the field of children’s literature) throughout 1950s. Following this, The American Library Association named an award after Wilder, known as Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. This award was meant to honour children’s authors and illustrators in the USA. The first Wilder award was conferred in 1954 and Laura Ingalls Wilder was herself the recipient. Since then, every year, this award has been customarily offered. Other notable recipients of this award includes Tomie de Paola (2011) and Dr. Seuss (1980).
A celebrated columnist
Wilder was already an established author before she began to write the ‘Little House’ series. In fact, apart from being a teacher, Wilder had several part-time writing jobs for years, until she was permanently hired as a columnist for Missouri Ruralist, a local but popular bimonthly journal. In fact, it was because of her writing skills that the journal became widely known across Missouri. Later, she also published articles in magazines such as Missouri State and St. Louis Star.