A Wilder Rose: A Novel (29 page)

In the last few years of her life, Rose traveled with friends around the United States. She found someone to live in her Danbury home and bought a house on Woodland Drive in Harlingen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley. She began to think of traveling abroad and planned a trip to Europe and beyond. Intending to sail from New York on November 9, 1968, she went back to Danbury to prepare for the trip. She baked several loaves of bread, went upstairs to bed, and died in the night. She was eighty-two.

But death did not end the what-belongs-to-whom controversy. Rose had been the beneficiary of her mother’s estate—at eighty-eight thousand dollars, a sizeable one—including annual royalty payments on the books. But Mama Bess had assigned the copyrights and the income they produced to her daughter only for Rose’s lifetime. At Rose’s death, they were to go to the Mansfield Public Library. Rose, however, had renewed the six expiring copyrights in Roger MacBride’s name. She left her entire estate to him, and as additional copyrights expired, he renewed them in his own name. After MacBride’s death, the library sued for the copyrights to the two books still in Laura’s name. The claim was reportedly settled for $875,000.

The nature of the mother-daughter collaboration has been the subject of scholarly debate since the 1970s, when Rosa Ann Moore and William Anderson published articles examining the discrepancies between the manuscripts and the early books and speculating that Rose had a significant hand in their production. William Holtz’s biography,
The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane
, published in 1993, argued that Rose was essentially the ghostwriter behind the scenes. It was met with a great deal of vocal opposition by fans of the series and the later TV shows, who resisted the idea that their heroine might be involved with a literary deception.

I don’t think it began that way, though. I think Laura simply believed Rose’s assurances that the books were
hers
and that her daughter was doing nothing more than any good editor would have done. Laura may have been initially uneasy with this explanation, but she was isolated from the literary community and had no experience of authorship against which to test what her daughter told her. From this point of view, she was operating out of a naive and simplistic understanding of the full dimensions and responsibilities of authorship and an eager acceptance of the unexpected prestige (Laura’s word for what she wanted) that came with being an “author.” I admit, however, that this explanation doesn’t fully account for Laura’s participation in the elaborate concealment of the collaboration from her agent and editors. At some point, I think, she must have recognized that this was an unusual arrangement, to say the least.

It’s easier to understand the situation from Rose’s point of view, especially with a careful reading of her journal. She undertook to “fix” and market the material that became
Little House in the Big Woods
primarily in order to gain some writing income for her mother. She did whatever it took to get the first book published without considering the possibility of future books. Once it became clear that there would be additional books, she might have requested a jacket acknowledgment of her contributions, but that would mean backtracking on claims she had made to agents Carl Brandt and George Bye and editor Marion Fiery. If she had known that she was obligating herself to eight books, and that those eight books would go on to make literary history—and a great deal of money—it might have been a different story. We might remember, though, that the largest sums of money didn’t arrive until after Roger MacBride helped to produce the long-running television adaptation of
Little House on the Prairie
and worked with Harper to produce innumerable spinoffs, as well as dolls and toys. It was Rose who turned her mother into an author, but it was Roger MacBride who turned Laura Ingalls Wilder into a brand
.

It’s difficult and perhaps even painful to dismantle a long-standing myth, especially one in which the heroine is as lively and authentic-seeming as the young Laura and as sweetly ladylike and decorous as the older Laura. But whatever we have learned in the past few decades about the real circumstances of authorship, the books themselves remain exactly what they were when you and I read them for the first time and fell in love with Laura, her sisters, and her resourceful mother and father. Rose and Laura’s stories are a continuing testament to the strength, resilience, and courage of American pioneers and to our enduring belief in what it means to be an American.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a very special debt of gratitude to William Holtz, whose masterful biography of Rose,
The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane
, established the factual basis on which my fiction is built. I am grateful, as well, for the published work of many other scholars, notably that of John E. Miller, William Anderson, Anita Fellman, Ann Romines, Janet Spaeth, Stephen W. Hines, and Nancy Cleaveland (whose “Pioneer Girl” website has inspired many readers to further research). Additionally, William Anderson and John E. Miller made careful notes on the manuscript and generously shared both their advice and their knowledge of Wilder/Lane history.

Thanks, too, to the patient and helpful archivists at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and at the State Historical Society of Missouri, who helped me assemble copies of the documents on which I relied, and to Kerry Sparks at the Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency for her enthusiastic support and her help in putting this book in the hands of readers.

And of course to Bill Albert, again and always.

HISTORICAL PEOPLE
*

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968, RWL), only surviving child of Laura and Almanzo Wilder. Author of
Let the Hurricane Roar
(1932),
Free Land
(1938),
The Discovery of Freedom
(1943), and other fiction and nonfiction; unacknowledged coauthor (with her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder) of the Little House
series.

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957, LIW), daughter of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. Author of articles for the
Missouri Ruralist
and other farm publications; coauthor (with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane) of the
Little House
children’s books. Called “Bessie” by her husband, “Mama Bess” by Rose.

Almanzo Wilder (1857–1949), married (1885) to LIW. Known for his farming skills and horsemanship. Called “Manly” by LIW.

Eliza Jane (Aunt E.J.) Wilder Thayer, Almanzo’s sister. Invited RWL to live with her in Crowley, Louisiana, and attend high school.

Ethel Burney, Rose’s Mansfield friend from youth until her death; married Paul Cooley.

Rexh Meta, the Albanian boy whom RWL met in 1921 and adopted informally. She sponsored his education in Tirana and at Cambridge University and helped to support his family through the rest of her life.

John Turner, Rose’s second informally adopted son. She cared for and supported him from 1933 to 1939.

Al Turner, John’s brother. Rose’s third informally adopted son.

Helen (Troub) Boylston (1895–1984), RWL’s friend, travel companion, roommate, and confidante. Author of the young adult series Sue Barton, Nurse (1936–1952) and Carol Page, Actress (1941–1946).

Norma Lee Browning (1915–2001), close friend and confidante of RWL from 1936 until Rose’s death. Born in Missouri and educated at the University of Missouri and Radcliffe. Award-winning
Chicago
Tribune
feature writer and columnist for thirty years, author of more than a dozen books. Married (1937) to Russell Ogg, who became a well-known newspaper photographer.

Carl Brandt, RWL’s literary agent, 1920–1930.

George Bye, literary agent for RWL and LIW after 1930. His client list also included Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, and Frank Buck.

George Q. Palmer, New York stockbroker for RWL, LIW, and Helen Boylston.

Genevieve Parkhurst, friend and occasional guest of RWL at Rocky Ridge.
Pictorial Review
editor
.

Catharine Brody, friend and frequent guest of RWL, author of several bestselling novels in the 1930s, including
Nobody Starves
,
Cash Item
,
and
West of Fifth
.

Mary Margaret McBride, friend of RWL, later a famous radio talk-show host. Rose stayed often in New York City with McBride and Stella Karn.

Berta Hader, friend of RWL, children’s book illustrator. Berta introduced Marion Fiery to Rose to promote “When Grandma Was a Little Girl.”

Marion Fiery, editor and head of the children’s book department at Knopf, who first (1930) agreed to publish “When Grandma Was a Little Girl” (the material that became
Little House in the Big Woods
).

Virginia Kirkus, director, Harper Books for Boys and Girls, who agreed (1931) to publish “When Grandma Was a Little Girl” after Fiery left Knopf.

Ida Louise Raymond, Harper Books for Boys and Girls, who oversaw the production of the Little House
series.

Adelaide Neall,
Saturday Evening Post
fiction editor,
with whom Rose worked on her stories in that magazine.

Garet Garrett, anti–New Deal critic,
Saturday Evening Post
leading political writer
,
close friend of RWL after 1935.

*
The names of most of the Wilders’ neighbors and friends have been altered to protect their privacy.

FOR FURTHER READING

For more of the story behind the story, check out the Reader’s Companion, available from
www.AWilderRoseTheNovel.com
.

The Little House Books

Little House in the Big Woods
,
1932. New York: Harper & Row.

Farmer Boy
,
1933. New York: Harper & Row.

Little House on the Prairie
,
1935. New York: Harper & Row.

On the Banks of Plum Creek
,
1937. New York: Harper & Row.

By the Shores of Silver Lake
,
1939. New York: Harper & Row.

The Long Winter
,
1940. New York: Harper & Row.

Little Town on the Prairie
,
1941. New York: Harper & Row.

These Happy Golden Years
,
1943. New York: Harper & Row.

Works by Laura Ingalls Wilder

West From Home: Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, San Francisco, 1915
. Ed. Roger MacBride, 1974. New York: Harper & Row.

The First Four Years
. Ed. Roger MacBride, 1971. New York: Harper & Row.

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist: Writings from the Ozarks
.
Ed. Stephen W. Hines, 2008. Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press.

Works by Rose Wilder Lane

Henry Ford’s Own Story
, 1917. New York: Ellis O. Jones.

Diverging Roads
, 1919. New York: Century Company.

The Making of Herbert Hoover
, 1920. New York: Century Company.

The Peaks of Shala
, 1923. New York: Harper & Brothers.

He Was a Man
,
1925. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Hill-Billy
, 1926. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Let the Hurricane Roar
, 1933. New York: Longmans, Green & Company.

Old Home Town
, 1935. New York: Longmans, Green & Company.

Give Me Liberty
,
1936. New York & London: Longmans, Green & Company.

Free Land
, 1938
.
New York: Longmans, Green & Company.

The Discovery of Freedom
,
1943. New York: John Day Company.

Woman’s Day Book of American Needlework
, 1963. New York: Simon & Schuster.

The Lady and the Tycoon: The Best of Letters Between Rose Wilder Lane and Jasper Crane.
Ed. Roger MacBride, 1973. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers.

Travels with Zenobia: Paris to Albania by Model T Ford, A Journal by Rose Wilder Lane and Helen Dore Boylston
.
Ed. William Holtz, 1983. Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press.

Dorothy Thompson & Rose Wilder Lane:
Forty Years of Friendship. Letters, 1921–1960
.
Ed. William Holtz, 1991. Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press.

The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder Lane,
Literary Journalist.
Ed. Amy Mattson Lauters, 2007. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

Works by Rose Wilder Lane and Laura Ingalls Wilder

On the Way Home: The Diary of a Trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894. With a Setting by Rose Wilder Lane
,
1962. New York: Harper & Row.

A Little House Sampler: Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane
.
Ed. William Anderson, 1988. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Manuscript Sources

Lane, Rose Wilder. Papers. Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa.

Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Her letters are part of the Lane Papers, labeled “Laura Ingalls Wilder Series.”

––––
. Papers, 1894–1943. Joint Collection, University of Missouri, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, State Historical Society of Missouri, microfilm.

Selected Sources

Anderson, William.
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Biography
.
New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

––––
. “Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: The Continuing Collaboration.”
South Dakota History
16, no. 2 (1986): 89–143.

––––
. “The Literary Apprenticeship of Laura Ingalls Wilder.”
South Dakota History
13, no. 4 (1983): 285–331.

Campbell, Donna M.
“
‘Written with a Hard and Ruthless Purpose’: Rose Wilder Lane, Edna Ferber, and Middlebrow Regional Fiction.” In
Middlebrow Moderns: Popular American Women Writers of the 1920s
,
edited by Lisa Botshon and Meredith Goldsmith, 25–44. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003.

Ehrhardt, Julia C.
Writers of Conviction: The Personal Politics of Zona Gale, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Rose Wilder Lane, and Josephine Herbst
.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004.

Fellman, Anita Clair. “Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: The Politics of a Mother-Daughter Relationship.”
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
15, no. 3 (1990): 535–561.

––––
.
Little House, Long Shadow: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Impact on American Culture
. Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press, 2008.

Hill, Pamela Smith.
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life
.
Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2007.

Hines, Stephen W.
I Remember Laura
.
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994.

Holtz, William. “Closing the Circle: The American Optimism of Laura Ingalls Wilder.”
Great Plains Quarterly
4 (1984): 79–90.

––––
. “Ghost and Host in the
Little House
Books.”
Studies in the Literary Imagination
29 (1996): 41–51.

––––
.
The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane
.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993.

––––
. “Rose Wilder Lane’s
Free Land
:
The Political Background.”
South Dakota Review
30 (Spring 1992): 56–67.

Miller, John E.
Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman behind the Legend
.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998.

––––
.
Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: Authorship, Place, Time, and Culture
.
Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press, 2008.

Moore, Rosa Ann. “Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane: The Chemistry of Collaboration.”
Children’s Literature in Education
11, no. 3 (1980): 101–109.

––––
. “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Orange Notebooks and the Art of the Little House Books.”
Children’s Literature
, no. 4 (1975): 105–119.

––––
. “The Little House Books: Rose-Colored Classics.” 
Children’s Literature
, no. 7 (1978): 7–16.

Romines, Ann.
Constructing the Little House: Gender, Culture, and Laura Ingalls Wilder
.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997.

Spaeth, Janet.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
.
Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987.

Zochert, Donald.
Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder
.
New York: Avon, 1976.