Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born to
Charles Phillip and
Caroline Lake (née Quiner) Ingalls on February 7, 1867. At the time of her birth, the family lived north of the village of
Pepin, Wisconsin, in the
Big Woods region of
Wisconsin. Ingalls' home in Pepin became the setting for her first book,
Little House in the Big Woods (1932). She was the second of five children, following her older sister,
Mary Amelia. Three more children would follow:
Caroline Celestia (Carrie);
Charles Frederick, who died in infancy; and
Grace Pearl. Wilder's birth site is commemorated by a replica
log cabin at the
Little House Wayside in Pepin. Ingalls was a descendant of the
Delano family, the ancestral family of
U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One paternal ancestor, Edmund Ingalls, from
Skirbeck,
Lincolnshire, England, emigrated to
America, settling in
Lynn, Massachusetts. The Ingalls family lived near the Quiner family; three of the Ingalls married Quiners.
Early life When she was two years old, Laura moved with her family from Wisconsin (in 1869). After stopping in
Rothville, Missouri, they settled in the
Indian country of
Kansas, near modern-day
Independence, Kansas. Her younger sister,
Carrie, was born in Independence in August 1870, not long before they moved again. According to Wilder, her father Charles Ingalls had been told that the location would be open to white settlers, but when they arrived this was not the case. The Ingalls family had no legal right to occupy their homestead because it was on the
Osage Indian reservation. They had just begun to farm when they heard rumors that settlers would be evicted, so they left in the spring of 1871. Despite the fact that
Little House on the Prairie and
Pioneer Girl portrayed their departure as being prompted by rumors of eviction, she also noted that her parents needed to recover their Wisconsin land because the buyer had not paid the mortgage. The Ingalls family went back to Wisconsin, where they lived for the next three years. Those experiences formed the basis for Wilder's first two novels,
Little House in the Big Woods (1932) and the beginning of
Little House on the Prairie (1935). In the book
On the Banks of Plum Creek (published in 1939), the third volume of her fictionalized history which takes place around 1874, the Ingalls family moves from Kansas to an area near
Walnut Grove, Minnesota, settling in a
dugout on the banks of
Plum Creek. They moved there from Wisconsin when Ingalls was about seven years old, after briefly living with the family of her uncle, Peter Ingalls, first in Wisconsin and then on rented land near
Lake City, Minnesota. In Walnut Grove, the family first lived in a dugout
sod house on a
preemption claim; after wintering in it, they moved into a new house built on the same land. Two summers of ruined crops led them to move to
Iowa. On the way, they stayed again with Charles Ingalls' brother, Peter Ingalls, this time on his farm near
South Troy, Minnesota. Her brother, Charles Frederick Ingalls ("Freddie"), was born there on November 1, 1875, dying nine months later in August 1876. In
Burr Oak, Iowa, the family helped run a hotel. The youngest of the Ingalls children,
Grace, was born there on May 23, 1877. The family moved from Burr Oak back to Walnut Grove, where Charles Ingalls served as the town butcher and
justice of the peace. He accepted a railroad job in the spring of 1879, which took him to eastern
Dakota Territory, where they joined him that fall. In writing
On the Banks of Plum Creek, Wilder omitted the period between 1876 and 1877 when they lived near Burr Oak, skipping directly to the Dakota Territory, featured in
By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939). Over the winter of 1879–1880, Charles Ingalls filed for a
formal homestead in
De Smet, South Dakota. The family spent that mild winter in the surveyor's house. However, the following winter, known as the
Hard Winter of 1880–81, was one of the most severe on record in the Dakotas, an ordeal described by Wilder in her novel
The Long Winter (1940). Once the family was settled in De Smet, Laura attended school, worked several part-time jobs, and made friends. Among them was bachelor homesteader
Almanzo Wilder. This time in her life is documented in the books
Little Town on the Prairie (1941) and
These Happy Golden Years (1943). Charles and Caroline Ingalls, along with Mary Ingalls, remained in De Smet for the rest of their lives.
Young teacher On December 10, 1882, two months before her 16th birthday, Ingalls accepted her first teaching position. She taught three terms in
one-room schools when she was not attending school in De Smet. (In
Little Town on the Prairie she receives her first teaching certificate on December 24, 1882, but that was an enhancement for dramatic effect.) Her original "Third Grade" teaching certificate can be seen on page 25 of William Anderson's book ''Laura's Album'' (1998). She later admitted she did not particularly enjoy it, but felt a responsibility from a young age to help her family financially, and wage-earning opportunities for women were limited. Between 1883 and 1885, she taught three terms of school, worked for the local dressmaker, and attended high school, although she did not graduate. (According to the books, this was due to her third and final teaching job starting before her schooling finished.)
Early marriage years Ingalls' teaching career and studies ended when she married Almanzo Wilder on August 25, 1885, in De Smet, South Dakota. Almanzo had achieved a degree of prosperity on his homestead claim; the newly married couple started their life together in a new home, north of De Smet. On December 5, 1886, Wilder gave birth to her daughter,
Rose. In 1889, she gave birth to a son who died at 12 days of age before being named. He was buried at De Smet, Kingsbury County, South Dakota. On the grave marker, he is remembered as "Baby Son of A. J. Wilder". Their first few years of marriage were difficult. Complications from a life-threatening bout of
diphtheria in 1888 left Almanzo partially
paralyzed. Although he eventually regained nearly full use of his legs, he needed a cane to walk for the remainder of his life. This setback, among many others, began a series of unfortunate events that included the death of their newborn son, the destruction of their barn along with its hay and grain by a mysterious fire, the total loss of their home from a fire accidentally set by Rose, and several years of severe
drought that left them in debt, physically ill, and unable to earn a living from their 320 acres (129.5 hectares) of
prairie land. These trials were documented in Wilder's book
The First Four Years (published in 1971). Around 1890, they left De Smet and spent about a year resting at the home of Almanzo's parents on their
Spring Valley, Minnesota farm before moving briefly to
Westville, Florida, in search of a climate to improve Almanzo's health. They found, however, that the dry plains they were used to were very different from the humidity they encountered in Westville. The weather, along with feeling out of place among the locals, encouraged their return to De Smet in 1892, where they purchased a small home. In November of 1893, Laura Ingalls Wilder petitioned to join the local
Order of the Eastern Star Chapter, Bethlehem #13. ==Move to Mansfield, Missouri==