Susan Wittig Albert
Persevero Press, 2013
978-0-9892035-0-0
Publication date: 10/1/13
# # #
Rose spent much of her adult life trying to absolve her guilt from a family tragedy in her early childhood. Her desire for independence took her from the Missouri Ozarks to San Francisco to post- WWI Albania. Her success as a journalist and then as a fiction writer enabled her to “help out” her parents with a new house and other assistance. She used her success to give her the authority to edit and “polish”Laura’s memoirs and her connections to get the books published.
#
# #
Note:
The Ghost in the Little House is William Holtz’s 1993 biography of Rose.
I recall that some people were outraged at the very suggestion that Rose
rewrote Laura’s stories. That didn’t bother me at all. Susan acknowledges
Bill’s scholarship as a significant source for her novel. (Bill Holtz was one of
my professors in college, and his wife was in library school with me.)
I
was about 12 when I read Let the Hurricane Roar, Rose’s novel about
pioneers named Charles and Caroline. I noted then that those were her
grandparents’ names, and that parts of the story were very similar to the
Little House books. (By that time I’d read all the LH books several times over so I was
quite familiar with the chronology and the scenes.) A Wilder Rose provides the context in which Rose wrote LTHR.
Years
later I acquired Rose’s book-and-pattern history of American needlework, a
compilation of columns from Woman’s Day magazine. I never did make anything
from any of the patterns, but I still have the book.
I think I'm like many LIW and RWL fans in that I didn't like the TV show. It veered from the books pretty quickly and then spun into story lines that weren't true to the Ingalls' and Wilders' lives. (And Michael Landon had way too much hair to be Pa. ) When I visited Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri, in 1978 I asked the docent if she could tell the difference between visitors who came because of the books and visitors who only knew the TV show. She said yes, indeed, and she preferred the book people. (I also remember that the kitchen linoleum at Rocky Ridge was exactly like that in my apartment in Brenham, Texas.)
Nann, I think the questions you raise are both pertinent and important. I've often wondered how different Rose's life would have been if her brother had lived--although sons did not then (and still don't) have the same obligations imposed on them that daughters do. And there are many "secret" family stories in every family. Laura, for instance, wanted to conceal the Ingalls' poverty: it was not, she wrote once to Rose, part of the "picture" she wanted to create. But it haunted her, and it haunted Rose.
ReplyDeleteThanks for these thoughtful comments. I'm so glad you enjoyed the book!