Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Annotated Autobiography, Pamela Smith Hill, Editor, c. 2014

Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Annotated Autobiography, Pamela Smith Hill, Editor, c. 2014.

Review. It begins:

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill, has become a bit of a sensation, partly because it contains more tidbits about the Little House books, and mostly because its publishers, the South Dakota Historical Society Press, either genuinely failed to anticipate demand for the book, or, well aware of the basic laws of supply and demand, deliberately created an initially small press run to create that demand. 

In any case, Amazon got pummeled with complaints from customers who had pre-ordered in August and failed to get copies by Christmas, and this being the internet, copies started selling for a few hundred dollars on eBay. Impressive for a book that, as I'll be noting, has quite a few issues. I was lucky enough to score a copy through the local library. 

Laura Ingalls.

Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Rose Wilder.

Rose Wilder Lane.

Wiki.

Rose Wilder Lane (December 5, 1886 – October 30, 1968) was an American writer and daughter of American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Along with two other female writers, Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, Lane is one of the more influential advocates of the American libertarian movement. 

One of many, many passages from that link:

In 1943, Lane came into the national spotlight through her response to a radio poll on Social Security. She mailed in a post-card with a response likening the Social Security system to a Ponzi scheme that would, she felt, ultimately destroy the United States. Wartime monitoring of mail eventually resulted in a Connecticut State Trooper being dispatched to her home to question her motives. Her strong response to this infringement on her right of free speech resulted in a flurry of newspaper articles and the publishing of a pamphlet, "What is this, the Gestapo?", that was meant to remind Americans to be watchful of their rights despite the wartime exigencies.

The pamphlet was distributed by the National Economic Council, Inc, an anti-Semitic organization that supported the fascist government in Spain.

During this time period, an FBI file was compiled on Lane.

Absolutely fascinating.

Grandparents:

• Lansford and Laura Ingalls 
• living in New York state when son Charles was born
  

Parents:

• Charles Philip Ingalls, born near Cuba, NY, January 10, 1836.
• at nine years of age, his parents moved the family from Cuba, NY, to Illinois, and then, in 1853, to Jefferson County, Wisconsin.
• here Charles met and married Caroline Lake Quiner on February 1, 1860 (Civil War breaking out).
• two years later, 1862, the Ingalls clan moved to Pepin County, Wisconsin (the Big Woods).
• there, Laura Ingalls (to be ) Wilder was born on February 7, 1867.
• in 1867, her father would have been 24 years old; somehow he apparently missed the US Civil War;
  
• the next year, they sold the farm in Wisconsin and moved, either to north-central Missouri or possibly Wisconsin, as suggested by Pioneer Girl.

Autobiography:
Ingalls' autobiography begins inn Kansas, not Wisconsin, like her novels
1869: the real Ingalls family was part of an illegal movement to settle the Osage Diminished Indian Reserve, what Wilder calls "Indian Territory," in southeastern Kansas (see Theodor Roosevelt's autobiography and biography of the Rough Riders and "Indian Territory."

1808 - 1825: the Osage people ceded sizable tracts of land in what is now Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas to the United States -- the "diminished" reservation was roughly 50 miles wide and 150 miles long under the terms of the Treaty of 1825.  Osage Nation. Dominant nation at this time; pushed west by Iroquois. George Catlin described them as one of the tallest, if not the tallest, in stature among native Americans, many of them over six feet and a half feet tall and some even taller than seven feet.

In the Ohio Valley, the Osage originally lived among speakers of the same Dhegihan language stock, such as the Kansa, Ponca, Omaha, and Quapaw. Researchers believe that the tribes likely diverged in languages and cultures after leaving the lower Ohio Country. The Omaha and Ponca settled in what is now Nebraska; the Kansa in Kansas; and the Quapaw in Arkansas.

The present tribal lands are bordered by the Cherokee Nation to the east, the Muscogee Nation and the Pawnee Nation to the south, and the Kaw Nation and Oklahoma proper to the west. About one county in size, northernmost along the Kansas border.

See more of the Ingalls family history and the Osage during / after the US Civil war in Pioneer Girl, p. 2, in an annotation.

Exact location of the Ingalls' cabin in Kansas in 1870: link here. Laura Ingalls parents; Laura was born in 1867, and thus about three years old at this time.