0:00

This recording is being made in Laura Ingalls

0:03

Wilder Library of Mansfield, Missouri,

0:05

the home of Missus Wilder.

0:07

In nineteen fifty three, nineteen

0:10

years after the first Little House book was released,

0:13

librarians in California sent Laura Ingalls

0:15

Wilder a present for her eighty sixth birthday,

0:18

and especially they were homemade dolls

0:20

of every member of the Ingles family. To

0:24

thank the librarians, Laura recorded

0:26

a response in the Mansfield, Missouri Library.

0:30

I certainly do appreciate the gift

0:32

of these clanked little figures that

0:34

seemed to have walked out of my memory

0:37

Chauvelona.

0:38

Though this is the only known

0:40

recording of Laura's voice, but

0:42

more.

0:43

Than all, I value the understanding

0:45

and love for me and my family

0:48

that prompted the gift.

0:52

Little House in the Big Woods, the

0:54

first book in the Little House on the Prairie series,

0:57

was published ninety years ago this year.

1:00

As we talked about in our very first episode,

1:02

the last line of Big Woods reads.

1:05

Now is now it can never be a

1:07

long time ago.

1:10

That line might be the most accurate description

1:12

there is of the Little House series. The

1:15

books still saw millions of copies, the

1:17

television show still airs around the

1:19

world. Little House on the Prairie

1:22

might be about another time, but

1:24

Laura's stories are very much alive in

1:27

our time.

1:28

We can't seem to let her go.

1:31

Why is Laura still around?

1:33

She's just really

1:35

honestly going to sound like a ridiculous answer,

1:38

but like why is a cup of tea still

1:40

around?

1:41

It's she's so cozy.

1:44

A century and a half after a girl

1:46

was born in a little log cabin in the big

1:48

Woods of Wisconsin, her stories

1:51

continue to hold some timeless truths.

1:53

There's a rich family in town at the store

1:56

who give them a hard time, and there's

1:58

always a crop failure or blizzard.

1:59

Her loco and they cling together

2:02

and make it through.

2:03

I think it's that these are the problems

2:06

that people really deal with.

2:08

Laura is still relevant, although

2:10

often in ways that can be painful to consider.

2:14

Many of the issues that Wilder raises

2:16

in the Little House Books are

2:18

issues that are still with us today, and

2:21

in that sense, her work is

2:24

more relevant than ever.

2:27

We started this podcast in order to have

2:29

an honest look at the woman behind the

2:31

books, and what we discovered

2:34

is that there is a lot more behind Laura than

2:36

the simple, heartwarming tale of a sixty

2:38

five year old farm wife deciding to sit

2:40

down and write about her life.

2:44

There is mind blowing poverty, relentless

2:47

hardship, a father who made

2:49

a lot of questionable decisions, an

2:52

extremely complicated, some might

2:54

say, backstabbing daughter, an

2:57

authorship conspiracy that won't quite

2:59

die, a Hollywood star

3:02

with shiny hair, a perfect jawline

3:05

and glistening abs.

3:07

A lot of violent racism,

3:10

and.

3:10

The funding of some extreme political figures,

3:14

and an army of fans

3:16

that has fueled an entire international

3:18

tourism industry. But

3:21

where does that leave us? And

3:24

where does that leave me? A

3:26

person who has loved Laura so

3:28

deeply for so long. I

3:31

went into this project not knowing

3:33

where our investigation would take us, and

3:36

not knowing how I would feel on the other side.

3:39

And now we're here, and

3:41

what I feel is complicated, And

3:44

I'm also shocked at the things that ended up

3:46

upsetting me the most while making this show.

3:51

What if doing this episode makes me never read Little

3:53

House again?

3:55

What I do know is I

3:57

don't love Laura Ingalls wild or aney less,

4:00

but I think about her and

4:02

myself very differently

4:04

than I did a year ago. You

4:06

know what they say about truly loving something,

4:10

sometimes you have to let it go.

4:14

I'm Glennis McNichol, and

4:16

this is the final episode of

4:18

Wilder. We're

5:02

going to start by going right back to

5:04

where this entire project began.

5:07

On the road. Oh

5:10

that's you can see the beginning of the bad Lands right over

5:12

there.

5:12

Wow.

5:15

Last summer, when we were driving around the Midwest

5:18

visiting the lower Ingles houses, we

5:20

didn't end our trip at de smet South Dakota.

5:23

Unlike the Ingles family, Emily

5:25

and I kept moving west. There

5:28

are two sides to the state of South Dakota.

5:30

The eastern side, where the Ingles lived,

5:33

is largely farmland, but

5:35

once you cross the Missouri River, things

5:38

open up. You pass through

5:40

a number of Native American reservations,

5:42

including the Pine Ridge Reservation.

5:44

One of the largest in the United States, and

5:47

Buffalo Gap National Grassland.

5:51

A little further is the Badlands National Park,

5:54

and beyond that the Black Hills.

5:59

So that seems like the start of the real

6:01

Western landscape I've been imagining.

6:07

The idea of the American West is

6:09

at the heart of the idea of America, and

6:12

despite never moving beyond the actual Midwest,

6:16

Little House is.

6:16

Very much a part of that narrative. Part

6:20

of the reason we.

6:20

Came out on the road was to try

6:22

and walk in Laura's shoes and

6:25

see at least some of what she saw.

6:28

But we also came out.

6:29

Here to get a better sense of the role Laura

6:31

plays in our understanding of this history.

6:34

As we drove further west, it became

6:37

more apparent to us how Laura is connected

6:39

to American myth making and

6:41

the sometimes violent prioritizing of

6:43

the white experience.

6:49

Well, I see it.

6:51

If you drive into the heart of the Black Hills and

6:53

follow the many, many signs pointing

6:56

the way, you will eventually come upon

6:58

Mount Rushmore's just

7:00

hollen than I.

7:02

That was entirely my first response

7:04

to I thought, it looks little to me.

7:07

I expected to be blown away.

7:08

By Mount Rushmore is an iconic

7:10

American image carved into

7:13

granite. It's shorthand for the permanence

7:15

of the American idea of democracy, a

7:18

tribute to its own greatness, a

7:20

mascot for America, if you will. It's

7:23

also carved into an extremely sacred

7:25

place for Native Americans. And

7:27

while we all know what Mount Rushmore looks like, to

7:30

encounter it in the midst of the lush landscape

7:33

of the Black Hills underscores both

7:35

its absurdity and the

7:37

violation of Native American land by

7:39

the US government.

7:41

There's no reason for that to be there.

7:46

Other than, Hey, we're here now, so

7:49

fuck you to everyone who was here before.

7:55

In eighteen sixty eight, with the signing of the Fort

7:57

Laramie Treaty, the US government

7:59

agreed that the Black Hills would remain exclusively

8:02

Native land, but

8:04

once gold was found in the Hills a few years later,

8:07

the US broke the treaty and

8:09

white settlers flooded the area. By

8:12

the nineteen twenties, the Black Hills

8:14

was a tourist destination for many. To

8:17

further capitalize on this, the faces

8:19

of four American presidents were carved

8:22

in the face of a granite formation known

8:24

to the Lakota people as six

8:26

Grandfather's Mountain. When

8:29

the monument was finished, this cliff

8:31

was renamed Mount Rushmore. In

8:34

nineteen eighty, the US Supreme

8:36

Court ruled that the US had unlawfully

8:39

taken control of the Black Hills and

8:41

offered more than one hundred million dollars

8:43

to the Sioux Nation, but

8:45

the Sioux refused the money.

8:48

To this day, they reject it and

8:50

insist they want their land back.

8:56

A little bit more.

8:57

I mean, look at this side without the presidents,

9:01

Like, look at George Washington's profile up

9:04

there.

9:04

It's just here.

9:05

You up, get out, George.

9:09

It's so it's so sterile.

9:11

Also because you cut through and

9:14

it's white compared to the red and everything.

9:17

You could just tell, Wow,

9:22

it's kind of like a permanent billboard for America.

9:25

It's like you carved a billboard for

9:27

America into the Hills.

9:30

The Ingles family have a direct connection to

9:32

the fate of the Black Hills. Mount

9:34

Rushmore was completed in nineteen forty

9:36

one. By this point,

9:39

Laura's younger sister, Carrie was

9:41

married to a man named David N. Swansea,

9:43

who was known as the person who named Mount

9:45

Rushmore, and Carrie's step son

9:48

Harold, helped carve it. But

9:51

Laura's connections to the Black Hills goes back

9:54

even further than that, to

9:56

something called the Gordon Stockade.

10:00

Yes, that's a stockade,

10:02

right though, Oh oh my god, your destination

10:05

is all the right. The

10:09

Gordon Party was a private expedition that

10:11

illegally ventured into the Black Hills

10:13

in eighteen seventy four, looking

10:16

for gold. The reason

10:18

they did so is because a few months

10:20

earlier, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer

10:22

had been sent there to scout a good spot

10:24

for a military post and

10:26

reported back that there was lots of gold.

10:29

The Gordon Party set out shortly thereafter,

10:32

and once they reached their destination in October

10:34

eighteen seventy four, built

10:36

a stockade and settled in.

10:38

For the winter.

10:40

Hardcore Little House fans will recognize the

10:42

Gordon stockade from the book These Happy

10:44

Golden Years. When Laura's uncle Tom

10:46

visits the Ingles family and desmet in

10:49

the chapter titled Springtime, Laura

10:51

comes home and finds a vaguely familiar

10:54

man at the table. That man is Tom Kuiner,

10:56

Ma's youngest brother, who Laura hasn't

10:59

seen since she was a child. Uncle

11:01

Tom tells the family of his experience as

11:03

a member of the Gordon Party, when he was

11:06

one of the quote first

11:08

white men that ever laid eyes on the Black

11:10

Hills. After

11:12

surviving the winter, the Gordon

11:14

Party was forcefully removed by the US

11:16

cavalry for illegally settling on Native

11:19

land, and when Uncle Tom gets

11:21

to this part of the story, it

11:23

gets a big reaction out of paw Paw

11:26

was walking back and forth across the room. I'll

11:29

be darned if I could have taken it, he exclaimed,

11:32

Not without some kind of scrap.

11:35

We couldn't fight the whole United States Army, Uncle

11:37

Tom said sensibly. But I

11:39

did hate to see that stockade go up and smoke,

11:42

I know, Ma said, to

11:44

this day, I think of the house we

11:47

had to leave in Indian Territory, just

11:49

when Charles got glass windows into it.

11:54

As a kid.

11:55

PA's anger in this scene is the only

11:57

thing that stood out to me in a chapter that I was

12:00

otherwise bored by. But

12:02

as Ma points out, pause

12:04

anger mirrors the outrage the Ingles felt

12:06

at being removed from Indian Territory. The

12:10

lesson in both these instances seems to

12:12

be that white people have a right

12:14

to land simply because they want

12:16

it, and in the Black Hills,

12:19

the history of this prioritization of

12:21

white men and the decimation

12:23

of Native people's land was

12:25

impossible to miss.

12:27

One west.

12:28

Three miles after

12:31

leaving the Black Hills, Emily and I continued

12:33

on three hundred miles northwest to

12:36

a spot that represents one of the most extreme

12:38

versions of this erasure, The

12:40

Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument

12:43

in southeastern Montana.

12:45

Little Bighorn Battlefield three

12:47

miles.

12:52

In June eighteen seventy six, the Seventh

12:55

Cavalry, led by Custer was

12:58

famously defeated by the Cheyenne, Lakota,

13:00

and Arapahoe tribes led

13:02

by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. There

13:05

are a lot of complicated reasons that led

13:07

to the Battle of the Little Big Horn, including

13:10

numerous treaties the government made about control

13:12

of the Black Hills that were not honored, and

13:15

we've included resources in the show notes for further

13:17

reading on this. Even

13:19

though the Lakota, and Cheyenne

13:21

and arapa Hoe triumphed over Custer

13:23

in the Battle of Greasy Grass, as

13:25

it is known in Native American culture, it

13:28

was in many ways the last stand

13:31

of Native American independence in the West.

13:34

In the aftermath of.

13:35

The battle, most of the remaining Native

13:37

American tribes were violently pushed onto

13:39

reservations.

13:41

Today, it's widely.

13:43

Recognized that Custer's decision to ignore

13:45

orders and go into battle was

13:48

foolish and unnecessary. And

13:50

yet, despite this failure, which

13:53

resulted in the decimation of the Seventh Cavalry,

13:56

for many decades Custer was

13:58

still centered as the hero in this story. Until

14:01

nineteen ninety one, the location of

14:04

the battle was known as Custer

14:06

Battlefield National Monument.

14:09

It is wild, the

14:11

Iron, Lost Cup, the pool,

14:14

and yet this is still named Custer does

14:16

It's still glorified.

14:18

There's no way to spin this.

14:21

Like.

14:21

It takes some amazing myth

14:23

making to make this seem heroic in

14:25

anyway, Not even

14:28

Rose Wilderland.

14:28

I mean, this is like Rose level.

14:30

Of yeah, rewriting

14:33

history, the gas lighted Yeah.

14:36

The Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument

14:38

is located on the Crow Reservation. Every

14:41

hour at the visitor center, one of the

14:43

park rangers gives a talk. There

14:45

is also a bus tour of the site run

14:48

by the Crow Agency.

14:49

My name Story Chevis, you guys

14:52

tour guide today.

14:53

The bus tour takes you right out into the fields

14:55

where the battle took place and looking

14:57

out over all the waving open grassland.

14:59

It's not that hard to imagine yourself back

15:01

in eighteen seventy six.

15:03

After the right, we're passing the Little Big Porn

15:05

River. This is the only place in the whole

15:07

world you'll get to see a reenactment on the actual

15:10

battle site. They have that every year on

15:12

the anniversary you just basicedify Foople

15:14

weekends. We'll also have seven Pobury

15:17

reenactors who will spend about two

15:19

weeks, you know, living exactly the way that

15:21

those soldiers will have.

15:22

Pretty interesting.

15:25

Afterward, Emily and I stopped at the visitors center

15:28

hoping to catch one of the park rangers talks.

15:31

Since we'd arrived, we'd only encountered

15:33

older, white male rangers, But

15:35

when we got to the talk, we met Ranger

15:38

Tanya Gardner, who was not

15:40

what we were expecting in

15:42

more ways than one.

15:43

The battles the Little.

15:44

Big Horn, Why did this battle take place?

15:47

What events set up to this battle?

15:51

Or I'd like to begin where I'd love to begin this

15:53

in fourteen ninety two Colma

15:55

South, the Ocean Blue here what this

15:57

is up until eighteen

16:00

sis.

16:02

It was immediately clear that Ranger Tanya

16:04

wasn't just going to tell us about this battle.

16:07

She was going to tell us how this battle was just

16:09

one episode in the century's long resistance

16:12

of Native Americans against colonization.

16:15

It's the nineteen hundreds.

16:18

There are legal documents being signed out

16:20

here land deals in

16:22

the form of what we're called treaties between

16:24

the people who are here, and the United

16:27

States government.

16:29

When we got back to New York, we

16:31

couldn't stop thinking about Ranger Tanya's

16:33

talk, so we called her.

16:36

I'm Tanya. My maiden name is plain Feather,

16:38

and I'm my married name is Gardner,

16:41

and I'm married.

16:41

To a Cheyenne.

16:42

I'm I'm from Lodgegras, Montana.

16:45

Are you the only park ranger

16:47

who is local or who is Native American?

16:49

There?

16:50

There's a few that work there,

16:52

but not like the seasonal rangers

16:54

there. I'm the only one, and there's

16:57

been like I don't know how many countless

16:59

seasons where I've been only female.

17:01

It had felt to both Emily and I when we were at

17:04

the site that Tanya was shouldering the

17:06

enormous responsibility of

17:08

giving context to an event that had

17:10

been simplified to almost cartoonish

17:12

proportions in American history, a

17:15

history that, like pause outrage over

17:17

being removed from quote Indian territory,

17:20

centered the white experience as the only

17:22

one of value. What had struck

17:24

us most strongly about Tanya

17:27

was that she'd immediately gone to the origins

17:29

of the myth making behind both Custer

17:32

and America.

17:34

The event that led up to this battle I always start

17:36

with, didn't start in

17:39

eighteen seventy six. We're going to go all

17:41

the way back to fourteen

17:43

ninety two Columbus South the Ocean blue,

17:46

and he discovers America

17:49

and all the misconceptions that

17:51

we have there with just that statement and

17:55

not knowing and not having that right

17:58

information in our history books. Where the

18:00

way that they hold him up to this high

18:03

you know, he did all these great things

18:05

and he really didn't. That's where the

18:08

seed of that stuff.

18:09

I was curious whether Tanya received any sort

18:11

of pushback when she did her talks. She

18:14

told us the response very much shifts

18:16

depending on the age of the visitors, and

18:18

that younger age groups that have had access

18:21

to more diverse cultural narratives

18:23

have a much different take.

18:26

It goes with different age groups, and I

18:28

think that people that are my age,

18:30

they come up and they're like, oh, this, yes,

18:33

this was crap. You know this, I

18:35

can't believe. You can't really tell you know what you

18:37

really want to tell.

18:39

Older generations, on the other hand, feel

18:41

a much closer connection to Custer.

18:44

You have a lot of baby boomers,

18:46

and they're kind of like the last kind of old

18:48

school I would call them that there's

18:50

still in love with Custer. There's a tremendous

18:53

amount of people out there that are custom Bucks. They

18:55

think he was right and he was

18:57

honorable. But we have to think back to

18:59

that time when they didn't

19:01

have all these different types

19:03

of heroes, so you know, they looked

19:06

to the types of things like.

19:08

A war hero.

19:10

This idea of needing a hero is

19:12

where Custer overlapped directly

19:14

with Laura. For me, Tanya's observations

19:17

reminded me of something doctor w Reese

19:19

had said when we talked to her.

19:21

Part of what I was realizing when

19:24

I left our reservation and went to graduate

19:26

school was how ignorant people

19:29

are about who Native people

19:31

are.

19:32

Doctor de Wie Reese is a scholar and educator

19:35

who runs a website called American

19:37

Indians in Children's Literature.

19:40

And that became very clear at

19:42

the University of Illinois because it had a mascot

19:45

that was quote unquote an Indian.

19:47

And when I got to Illinois and there was this mascot,

19:50

and people would invite me to come to

19:52

their civic organization or

19:55

whatever it was, and

19:57

they wanted me to dance, and they wanted me to

19:59

story and I said, well, I'm not a dancer. I

20:02

don't dance that way. We

20:04

dance in a spiritual way at a

20:06

certain time of the year in a certain place, and so no,

20:08

I won't dance. And they said, well can you?

20:11

Can you tell stories? And I said no, I'm not a storyteller

20:13

either. I am a professor. I want to be

20:15

a professor. Nobody wanted

20:18

that. They wanted someone to perform

20:20

Indians for them, and I thought, what is

20:22

going on? These are in theory, very

20:25

very smart people in this area.

20:27

But it was.

20:28

It was so it spoke to the power of the mascot.

20:34

A mascot and how do we

20:36

wield mascots?

20:38

Anyone who's been to a sports game knows is

20:40

with bluntness and little space

20:42

for anyone else. The

20:45

Dictionary definition of a mascot is quote

20:48

a person, animal, or object that

20:50

is believed to bring good luck, or

20:52

one that represents an organization. A

20:55

mascot is an image we rally behind

20:58

that represents a way of being and

21:00

one that gives us identity.

21:03

This idea of mascots was very.

21:04

Much on our mind when Emily and I went to the Laura

21:07

Ingalls House in Mansfield, Missouri, last September

21:09

to attend Wilder Days. We're much

21:12

like the pageants people loved

21:14

dressing up as Laura.

21:16

Plenty of girls in prairie outfits,

21:19

but there's a handful of men, I

21:22

would say, in.

21:24

Their fifties and sixties, wearing some

21:26

guys wearing suspenders.

21:28

In Yah.

21:30

Of all the ways I'd considered Laura, it

21:32

was only after this conversation with Doctor

21:35

Reese and our trips out west

21:37

and down South, but I began

21:39

to think of her as a mascot for

21:42

many things, as a representative

21:45

of some sort of ideal. A

21:47

girl with enormous agency, frontier

21:50

woman who lived with and against nature,

21:53

a woman who had it ventures and wrote

21:55

them down. She was an

21:57

image I hoisted up as proof of identity,

22:00

an evidence of what was possible. I

22:03

didn't put her on a T shirt or a baseball cap,

22:06

but I stabled a whole lot of yarn braids to

22:08

my hats. Laura

22:10

as the mascot for the team I wanted

22:12

to be on felt a lot closer

22:15

to my own experience. But

22:17

to understand who I was willing to leave behind

22:20

in order to be a member of this team. What

22:23

this mascot of Laura's pioneer girlhood

22:25

erased was something

22:28

I had to come to terms with.

22:44

I grew up completely obsessed with the Little

22:46

House Books.

22:47

It all starts with Laura Ingalls right,

22:50

my.

22:50

Little House Books for Christmas gifts, inscribed

22:52

to me by my mother.

22:54

I was six years old, and I loved those books.

22:56

I still do.

22:58

Considering Laura under the guys of a mascot

23:01

felt like the missing piece and the larger Little

23:03

House puzzle. Mascots

23:06

are created by organizations. Many

23:08

hands go into their making.

23:11

Part of the magic of the Little House Books, and

23:13

one of.

23:13

The reasons people including me, have

23:16

such passionate feelings about them is

23:19

because they are so successful at creating

23:21

intimacy. We're not reading

23:23

about Laura, We're living with Laura,

23:26

and yet we know this is not the

23:29

case.

23:30

The Little House Books.

23:31

And their entire legacy were very

23:33

carefully crafted by Laura, indefinitely

23:36

by Rose, then to a lesser

23:38

extent, by the book publishing industry.

23:41

Then they were crafted again by Hollywood. Laura

23:44

the writer may have just wanted to recounter life,

23:47

but Laura Ingles, the character, very

23:50

intentionally represents something larger.

23:55

This raises an important question if

23:58

Laura is a mascot for a team? What

24:01

are the other teams and who

24:04

was representing them? What

24:06

stories about girls and women in this part of the country

24:09

are we not telling. A

24:12

few years ago I stumbled across a story

24:14

about the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Included

24:16

was in aside that the Cheyenne believed a

24:19

Cheyenne woman named Buffalo calf Road Woman

24:22

may have been the person who caused Custer's

24:24

death.

24:26

This astounded me.

24:27

Why was this not a more well known fact, especially

24:31

considering the cultural footprint of Custer. I

24:34

asked Tanya if she knew about Buffalo calf

24:36

Road Woman. It turns

24:38

out Buffalo calf Road Woman

24:40

is quite famous in Cheyenne history.

24:43

She's also known for being part of the Battle

24:46

of the Rosebud or she picks

24:48

up her brother because the Chaya's called that the battle or the saved

24:50

her brother. That's what they refer to the Battle

24:53

of the Rosebuda, the.

24:55

Battle of the Rosebud, or the

24:57

battle where the girls saved her brothers, the Cheyenne

24:59

referred it took place a week before

25:02

the Battle of the Little Big Horn, during

25:04

the battle when all hope seemed

25:06

to be lost for the Cheyenne, Buffalo

25:09

Calffrod Woman went out onto the battlefield

25:11

by herself to save her fallen

25:13

brother. This action rallied

25:16

the Native American forces and they defeated

25:19

the US cavalry led by George Crook. This

25:22

is why the Cheyenne named the battle after her.

25:26

That's where I shine the light on her is

25:28

in the Battle of the Rosebud, because they

25:31

actually named it after her.

25:34

Whether or not it was Buffalo calff Road Woman

25:36

who was responsible for Custer's death, maybe

25:39

secondary to why we don't know who killed

25:41

him. The Cheyenne

25:43

passed down their history orally, not in

25:46

written form, but after the Battle

25:48

of the Little Big Horn, many participants

25:50

went silent for fear of retribution. It

25:53

was only after a century of self impost

25:55

silence that the Cheyenne revealed

25:57

Buffalo caff Road Woman's role in the battle.

26:01

After the battle, the United States time

26:03

is going to spread noxense, going after anyone

26:06

that's not on the reservation. And then if they are

26:08

on the reservation, they're still going to come after you. And

26:12

anybody associated with

26:14

Custer Battle that you know, that's what it's called

26:17

back then, would be horribly

26:20

persecuted. So they didn't talk about it.

26:22

Nobody did.

26:26

The story of Buffalo Caffrod woman has

26:29

all the heroic elements of an epic

26:31

American tale, far more

26:33

than Custer, and yet she

26:36

remains nearly anonymous in mainstream

26:38

culture. Women not getting

26:40

a fair shake from history is hardly

26:42

new. One of the reasons

26:44

so many of us, and I include

26:46

myself here in the strongest terms, cling

26:50

to Laura is that she is a strong female

26:52

role model, and for most

26:55

of history there have been very few of

26:57

those. The devotion

26:59

so many of us feel towards Laura is

27:02

not surprising, but

27:04

it becomes a concern when this sort

27:06

of devotion takes up so much

27:08

space that it doesn't leave

27:10

room for other narratives.

27:21

I mean, Emily, what is your take on how empty it is?

27:25

It's very empty.

27:26

We on the Wyoming

27:28

side we were seeing like ruins of ranches

27:31

or active ranches, and now there's absolutely

27:33

nothing.

27:35

This stretch of the country is notorious

27:37

for modern day reasons, having nothing

27:40

to do with Custer or the so called

27:42

Old West.

27:44

In late twenty nineteen, the Crow tribe

27:46

declared a state of emergency. Tribal

27:49

chairman aj not Afraid cited a list

27:51

of issues, including the failure to address

27:54

the murdered and missing women crisis.

27:56

In a story published earlier this year tied

27:59

to a docuseries called Murder and Bighorn

28:02

about the epidemic, the

28:04

Guardian reported quote, Montana

28:07

has one of the worst missing or murdered

28:09

rates for Indigenous women in the country.

28:13

Driving back and forth on this road, I thought

28:15

a lot about who is deemed worthy of a story,

28:18

and this led me to consider even more

28:21

how the story of Laura is wielded. What

28:24

does Laura's appeal say about what we want to

28:26

believe and who are we willing

28:29

to leave out for that comfort Because

28:32

to many people, Laura is

28:34

very comforting.

28:35

She fulfills these basic traits

28:38

that we need, oh, you

28:40

know, putting a baby to sleep,

28:42

or reading somebody a book, or just

28:45

you know, even though nothing about

28:47

the books that actually happens, it

28:50

is comforting.

28:51

That's Lizzie Skernick, writer and

28:53

children's literature professor at NYU.

28:56

There's nothing comforting about like living in a

28:58

mud hut.

28:59

She's able to make everything

29:03

comforting and cozy.

29:05

And I think that is a fundamental

29:08

desire of human beings.

29:11

I have read the Little House Books hundreds

29:14

of times when I was

29:16

a kid, the worst parts of the

29:18

books only flagged to me as evidence

29:20

that Ma was invested in Laura not

29:23

enjoying herself, similar

29:25

to how I sometimes felt about my own mother, and

29:29

that Paw was exciting, which

29:31

was similar to how I felt about my own father

29:34

as a child. As

29:36

a grown up, I recognize the racism

29:38

in the books, and

29:41

I also recognize that so

29:43

many cultural things we loved growing

29:45

up are very problematic.

29:50

This is something that came up on our road trip a

29:53

lot. On

29:55

our second night in man Cato, after a long

29:58

day of interviews, we just I had

30:00

to order room service and camped

30:02

out in front of the TV.

30:05

Much to our delight, a childhood

30:07

favorite of Joe.

30:08

And Minds was showing sixteen

30:10

Candles, a sleepover staple

30:13

that neither of us had actually seen in years.

30:17

It does not hold up, to

30:19

put it mildly, but

30:21

Joe especially had a strong reaction.

30:23

I mean, I'm like almost ready to start a petition to

30:25

make sixteen channels not being put out.

30:27

Of the times.

30:28

Wow, we need to put the mic out.

30:32

Okay, what a one

30:34

eighty Joe. I was so horrified

30:37

by that movie. I do not want and

30:40

I can actually see different

30:43

themes in my own life, and I was like, oh, all

30:45

right, you know whatever, you get black out drunk,

30:47

and like, who knows what happens. I

30:49

don't think that movie should be on television anymore.

30:53

There is no getting around the fact that looking

30:56

at some of the things that made us who we are can

30:58

be painful. Even with all this

31:00

knowledge, it remains impossible

31:03

for me not to understand Laura as

31:05

a source of good in my own life. What

31:07

she gave me in terms of possibility,

31:10

an example of how to be complicated,

31:13

a girl who loves it venture and clothes,

31:16

who loves problematics, sometimes damaging

31:19

parents, and maybe most importantly,

31:22

how to be a writer. I

31:25

was able to love these things because

31:27

the damaging parts of the book didn't feel

31:29

like they were doing damage to me, and

31:33

even if they were, how much

31:35

I loved the rest of it made

31:37

up for that. And then, during

31:40

the recording of the Problem of Laura episode,

31:43

I read out loud the parts of the books that Little

31:46

House comes under fire for the most. As

31:49

I said the words out loud, I was

31:51

shocked to discover that I actually

31:54

felt physically ill. She

31:57

says to Pa quote Paw,

32:00

get me that Little Indian Baby. I

32:03

want it, I want it, she begged.

32:06

Oh what if

32:08

doing this.

32:09

Episode makes me never read Little House again?

32:12

My reading this out loud has

32:15

actually been way more upsetting to me than

32:19

the reread. And

32:21

it was not easy for the producers in the room

32:23

either.

32:24

Pah, when I look at you, guy, when you're like this stressful

32:28

to listen to this.

32:30

There is, after all, a difference

32:32

between reading and saying, between

32:35

sliding over the parts with your eyes that are

32:37

a problem and putting them out

32:39

in the world with your own voice. And

32:42

the saying out loud part was where it

32:45

turns out the buck stopped for

32:47

me.

32:47

My god, this episode is really upsetting.

32:50

It's so much different to say it out loud.

32:55

Maybe that's the thing. Everyone should have to read these books

32:57

out loud. I

33:00

considered it.

33:01

I realized I'd only read the books

33:03

to myself all these years that

33:05

I had been able to internalize Laura without

33:08

much mediation. I

33:11

immediately thought back to doctor Reese and

33:13

her belief that The Little Housebook should be taken

33:16

out of children's classrooms.

33:17

Part of what was shocking to me as

33:20

I tried to have conversations

33:22

with people about the books

33:25

is that I had asked them to consider

33:27

that sentence the only good Indian

33:30

is a dead Indian, and I'd

33:32

asked them to think about

33:34

the impact that line has on that

33:37

Native child in the classroom, And

33:40

I asked them, would you really do that? You

33:42

know, would you really do that? And

33:44

they say yes, I mean, without hesitation,

33:46

it was yes, because that's the way

33:48

it was. That's the way they thought back then, and

33:51

had all kinds of rationalizations for that, and

33:54

none of the rationalizations centered

33:57

on the experience of that Native child.

34:00

And that was really hard because part of what

34:02

I think that we as a society

34:05

think is that we send our kids to teachers

34:07

in schools. I mean, we're giving them our children,

34:11

and we trust in some way that

34:13

they are not going to be hurt by their teachers

34:16

and what happens in their clussures.

34:20

What I was left with was this question, is

34:23

the fact the Little House Books brought me glynnis

34:28

a lot of joy enough

34:30

to justify the violence they had the power

34:32

to inflict on others. After

34:35

the break, we're going to talk through

34:37

how and where we think the Little House Books belong

34:40

and also hear from listeners on whether

34:43

they too are thinking about Laura and Little House.

34:45

Differently, what

34:52

would you say to me that I struggled

34:55

to let go of my love for these books even as I recognize

34:57

the harm that they do.

34:59

I would tell you, and this is something that I actually

35:01

do in my workshops, is that I share

35:03

my own attachment to the Five Chinese Brothers.

35:07

You know, I can like smell that book when I

35:09

say the title, because it's one that I read, and

35:11

what you know, in first grade I learned to read

35:14

this is one of the books I read. I thought it was

35:16

awesome. But then when someone asked

35:18

me to reconsider the book and the images that they

35:20

were in there, I'm like, yeah, you're right, and

35:23

I own that and I admit that, And

35:25

so I talk about that and

35:28

how it kind of stings, It kind of hurts, and you feel

35:30

kind of stupid because, yeah, why didn't I see that before?

35:33

But it does take a conversation

35:36

to be able to see something and start the journey

35:38

of letting go of a particular

35:40

book.

35:42

I decided the best people to have this conversation

35:45

with were Joe and Emily, the

35:47

two women who had come out on the road with me more

35:50

than a year ago to try and figure

35:52

out how I felt about Laura.

35:56

So, guys were at

35:59

the end of the Wilder podcast,

36:02

which we started eighteen

36:04

months ago.

36:06

We have read all the.

36:08

Books, We've talked to, all of the people,

36:11

we have driven around the country, We've

36:14

done hundreds of hours of interviews,

36:17

and so I thought this would be a

36:20

really good time for us all to sort

36:22

of sit down in separate

36:24

locations and sort of talk through

36:27

what we've learned and if our thinking

36:29

has changed.

36:30

How does everyone feel?

36:33

Well, Glynn, I think you're the first

36:35

person that should answer that, because

36:38

when we started this whole wild

36:41

journey, you weren't

36:43

sure exactly what you were going to find

36:45

and whether after

36:48

you've found whatever it was,

36:51

you would still be able to love Laura in

36:54

the same way. And after

36:56

all of this, after this journey

36:59

of epic proportions, literally

37:02

literally, how do you feel

37:04

now?

37:05

I still I have such deep love

37:07

for Laura the person, like

37:09

the individual writer who sat

37:12

down and wrote it. But I

37:14

think coming to terms with

37:16

the fact that these books are

37:18

not just a

37:21

story that came directly out of her head as she

37:23

was experiencing it, and really understanding

37:26

that these books were a

37:28

production of more

37:30

than a few people, some of them very unlikable,

37:33

and Laura has very unlikable

37:36

parts of her, and so I really sort

37:38

of split my thinking between the

37:40

person and the product.

37:43

I really like what you just said about splitting

37:47

your feelings, and I think

37:49

that's a very modern way of

37:52

looking at creative

37:54

production at a brand. And that's

37:57

what I think about a lot

37:59

when I think about celebrities or when I think

38:01

about influencers, And all right,

38:03

can I enjoy this movie

38:06

that has been made by a director

38:09

who is terrible in real

38:11

life? Can I enjoy Michael

38:14

Jackson with my kids, knowing

38:16

what I know about him as a human?

38:19

And so I think that this is a bigger thing

38:22

that so many of us scrapple with with

38:24

art.

38:25

Can we enjoy art.

38:27

If we discover things

38:29

we don't like about the human being behind

38:32

it, because all human beings are flawed

38:34

in different ways.

38:36

Yeah, And the interesting thing in this case is

38:38

I'm struggling less with Laura the individual.

38:41

I recognize that she was complicated and had

38:43

a lot of problems, but that's less

38:46

difficult for me to accept because that just

38:49

feels like every human than

38:51

her art, which I am struggling with.

38:54

And part of what's so complicated

38:56

about that that we've talked about is her art is

38:59

so much about her.

39:00

That speaks to.

39:02

Something that has come up from a lot of listeners

39:04

too when we criticize Laura, which is

39:06

she was a person of her moment. She

39:09

was writing what she knew at the time, and

39:13

when I think about the individual, I can recognize

39:16

there's some truth to that, although lots

39:19

of people in the nineteenth century

39:21

knew that Indian removal was bad, and

39:23

we have to hold her to today's standards

39:25

because she exists as a relevant

39:28

thing in twenty twenty three. So

39:30

I keep thinking of it like you're allowed

39:33

to look at an antique car and say, well, it

39:35

was built in nineteen twenty three, but it doesn't mean

39:37

it doesn't have to pass inspection to be allowed

39:39

on the road. And I feel like what we've been

39:41

doing with Laura is holding her up

39:43

to twenty twenty three inspection to say

39:46

should you still be on the road.

39:49

Essentially, you know, do you pass this inspection?

39:51

And if you don't, what do we do about

39:54

that.

39:54

I am so aware of all the

39:57

good she brought to my life,

40:00

but my life as

40:03

a little white girl in suburban

40:05

Toronto with highly educated parents

40:08

and a wealth of resources is

40:10

not everyone's life. I might love

40:13

my nineteen twenty three car, but is it dangerous

40:15

to be on the road like it's it's yeah.

40:17

I don't think you shouldn't drive.

40:19

That car right right?

40:21

It has to be updated. And I also

40:23

think, like the flip side of that is, I

40:26

can't unlove something that had

40:28

a positive effect on me to

40:30

the degree she did. I can only recognize

40:34

that I loved her so

40:37

much. I was willing to gloss

40:39

over and not be bothered

40:41

by all the problems. But I still

40:43

you know, even reading parts of the book. I mean, parts

40:45

of them are really upsetting, as we heard,

40:48

but it's just like there is a

40:50

magic to them. I get why I love

40:52

them. I still love them.

40:54

I think you're allowed to still love them.

40:55

I think you're allowed to still love them and to

40:58

also think critically

41:00

about them and to talk critically about

41:03

them.

41:04

How do you guys feel, Joe, you came to this with

41:06

very little knowledge, so you have the coldest eye on this

41:08

of the three of us.

41:09

You know, what I really enjoyed

41:12

during this journey was experiencing

41:14

the magic. It was actually really fun to experience

41:17

the magic through your eyes, but as

41:19

an outsider, I think the problems

41:22

were always just so so

41:25

clear to me with the TV show

41:28

with the books. But all

41:31

of that said, I

41:33

don't think that they shouldn't be read anymore.

41:36

I don't think they should be banned. I don't think they should be

41:39

taken off library shelves. I do

41:41

think that they should be approached

41:44

with critical discussion and a critical eye.

41:46

But I also think there's a lot of

41:49

good in there that

41:52

it would be a real shame to remove.

41:55

From the world.

41:57

Emily, what do you think You knew the show, You

42:00

were familiar with the books, but you love the show, so

42:03

yeah, yeah, I was a show lover.

42:05

But I've really done the crash

42:07

course in all aspects

42:09

of Laura. In the past year. I reread

42:12

all of the books. We took the

42:14

two week long and then extra weekend

42:16

road trip to all the sites, and to

42:18

keep going with your car passing inspection

42:21

metaphor, I think you have to make

42:23

sure that everything is up to your standards. But

42:25

then it's so important to go out

42:28

there and get on the road because if

42:30

we had made this all just in a

42:32

vacuum in the studio, like it

42:34

would be a completely different show. I think

42:37

like half the insights we got to we wouldn't have

42:39

even thought of because seeing how

42:41

Laura landed in every specific

42:43

place, from like seeing her embraced

42:45

at Laura's sites like Walnack Grove

42:47

and De Smet, but then going out

42:50

to Custer and being in the middle

42:52

of Native reservations and understanding

42:55

how this lands differently with different audiences.

42:58

Putting yourself in the shoes of people

43:01

who are not white and who have been harmed

43:03

by this narrative definitely has

43:05

made me come to the conclusion that I don't think

43:07

these should be taught in anything besides a

43:09

higher level literature class

43:12

or history class. I don't think they should be taught

43:14

to young kids in classrooms.

43:16

I think they can still be read. I really

43:19

hope that one day there will be additions

43:22

for children to understand all of the context,

43:24

so that that's what parents can read to

43:26

their children. But so,

43:29

yeah, I don't think they should be banned, but I do think

43:31

we should filter how they're understood.

43:35

Yeah, I think for me, the

43:37

more painful conclusion

43:40

I've come to. I've given this book set to every

43:42

friend that's had a child. It was my go

43:45

to you know, baby gift

43:48

for a long time, and I

43:51

wouldn't do that anymore. It's too

43:54

violent. In in perfect world, how I'd

43:56

like to see these books package because I don't think they should

43:58

be taken off shelves. I think we're we're seeing

44:00

books being taken off shelves and I

44:03

can't support that at all.

44:06

But I think the books need

44:08

to be packaged.

44:09

I think a lot of the Disney movies now, which come

44:11

when you start watching an old Disney movie, they come with

44:13

this It's almost like

44:15

a content warning of like, what you're about to watch

44:18

is really problematic, and we recognize that. I

44:20

think the books themselves need to be packaged

44:23

with enormous context

44:25

of who were

44:28

the Native Americans that

44:31

Laura watched leave quote

44:33

unquote Indian Territory and what is

44:36

their story? And it needs to be in the books

44:38

in a way that makes it just as engaging

44:40

as what you're reading. So I think it should be included

44:43

in every one of these box sets. But

44:45

I also think the largest solution to this is that,

44:48

and this is already happening. We know from

44:50

talking to Lizzie's college classes, the

44:52

spotlight needs to be moved away from Laura,

44:55

right, like Laura shouldn't occupy this

44:58

much space in children's classrooms or

45:00

in children's literature.

45:02

There needs to be so

45:04

much more space for the other stories.

45:06

And I think you know, Shena, one of

45:08

our other producers asked me earlier if I had

45:10

the choice of giving up Laura and substituting

45:13

her with someone who is less of a problem. And I think it

45:15

brings me joy right now to know that I can give

45:17

other books to kids with better representation,

45:20

like I can let go. That's what I think I

45:22

meant at the beginning of this when I say, you

45:24

know, when you love something, you have to let it go.

45:26

I can still love her.

45:27

Eight year old Glynnis loves her, but I

45:30

can find other things to give to other kids, and hopefully

45:33

they experience that degree of joy with stories

45:35

that are less.

45:37

Violent and less capable

45:40

of harm.

45:42

I guess I want kids to feel the

45:44

degree of joy and passion I felt, but

45:47

about better in different stories,

45:49

and so then that becomes, you

45:52

know, The challenge I think, certainly

45:55

for those of us devoted enough to Little House, is to

45:57

invest in finding what those others

46:00

stories are and providing those

46:02

stories. I don't have to be giving Little House

46:04

out to anyone. I can just have my Little

46:06

House memory and

46:09

don't need to pass it on, I guess is my

46:12

end result of this, which sort of makes

46:14

me a little sad, But it makes me not sad

46:16

too, because I think, oh, there's

46:19

other stuff there. There's other stuff out there,

46:21

and there's other joys for kids to have that

46:24

I just want them to have the joy.

46:25

It doesn't have to be about the same story

46:28

I had.

46:29

Yeah, And I think one of the things that really did

46:32

change my mind about Little House, and I think this

46:34

is true for a lot of our listeners too, is

46:37

when we started to talk about Rose and all

46:39

of the ways that she was involved in writing and editing

46:42

the books. And there was one

46:44

really key fact about

46:47

our favorite line now is now it

46:49

can never be a long time ago, which closes the

46:51

end of the first book, and it's

46:54

that a lot of scholars, like

46:56

Caroline Fraser particularly, think

46:58

that Rose might have written that line.

47:01

What do you think about that? I

47:04

mean, as a kid, Rose

47:07

would have devastated me. As a grown up,

47:10

I just recognized all the things Joe and I talked

47:12

about about having a great editor and complicated

47:15

relationships.

47:16

So knowing Rose came up with that line. At this point,

47:18

I just think I have mainlined

47:20

Rose in a way that I this is. You know, when I

47:22

talk about inhaling these books, I thought I was

47:24

mainlining Laura.

47:25

I was mainlining white a lot of Rose.

47:27

And of course Rose

47:30

is responsible for the line that sums

47:32

up the entire book.

47:33

She enabled Laura to be a genius,

47:36

and that is.

47:39

Extraordinary, and it

47:41

might be that she articulated a truth about

47:45

Laura better than Laura did. So

47:48

it kind of, to be quite honest with you, it feels

47:50

sort of perfect that a woman who refused

47:52

to be associated as a writer of the book, who

47:55

tried to undermine her mother at every turn, is

47:57

also responsible for the truest

48:00

line in the entire series.

48:01

So it's like, that's a perfect

48:04

distillation of this entire series.

48:06

To be it is the perfect

48:08

essence of I like what you said,

48:11

that was already in Laura's work,

48:13

and then Rose just was able to package

48:16

the essence of it.

48:17

There's no Laura, there's

48:19

Rose and Laura.

48:20

So in my DNA, when

48:22

I talk about Laura's in my DNA, like

48:24

Rose is in there too.

48:26

Great Should we move on to listener comments.

48:29

Yes, it's been so interesting to read

48:31

all the comments and reviews from people, and

48:33

it feels like they fall into one of two camps

48:36

of criticism, which is either I

48:39

still love Laura too much or we're

48:41

being far too critical of Laura. But

48:44

I'm really interested to know, you know, everyone who

48:46

sent in their voice memos, and we're so grateful for

48:48

everyone who did, whether they

48:50

have been experiencing a similar struggle

48:53

to what I've been going through over the last

48:55

year, and whether there's an

48:57

overlap in their respect

49:00

this with mine.

49:04

Hi.

49:05

My name is Karen.

49:08

I am a black female who

49:11

grew up in the seventies

49:14

and loved the Little House books, reading

49:17

Little Town on the Prairie and

49:20

The Menstrual Show.

49:24

When I was a child, I

49:26

always felt uncomfortable, but

49:28

back then I didn't have language for

49:31

what was happening to me. But

49:33

reading Prairie Fires and listening to this podcast,

49:37

I just see the racism

49:40

within those books and

49:44

am very torn about how I feel

49:46

about them now High

49:48

Wilder Podcast.

49:50

My name is Maddie.

49:51

I was raised in a very fundamentalist

49:55

homeschooling community, religious homeschooling

49:57

community, and it's

49:59

interesting as y'all were talking about

50:01

kind of these like libertarian ideals going

50:04

over your head as a child.

50:05

While I was reading them as a child, the.

50:07

Adults in my life who were encouraging me to read

50:09

these were drawing them my attention

50:12

to them and using it as an education like they

50:14

are being forced out of Indian territory

50:16

because big government is bad,

50:19

that kind of thing.

50:20

You know.

50:20

I still have family in these communities.

50:22

I am not a part of it anymore.

50:25

But I talked to my nieces who are being

50:27

homeschooled in that community, and you know,

50:29

talk to them a little bit about their experience

50:32

with the book, and they said that it's still

50:34

going on, that's still kind of the message

50:36

being attached with

50:39

the books. I think that it just adds a layer

50:41

of complication on how we should

50:43

be approaching these

50:45

books with children. I don't know

50:48

if I'll read them to mine, honestly, because

50:51

I don't know if I would want that propaganda

50:53

shared with them if they're not old enough to comprehend

50:56

it.

50:57

My name is Caitlin. I was born into a

50:59

family that or the Little House series.

51:01

Most of my ancestors lived in eastern

51:04

South Dakota at the same time she did. People

51:06

today talk about how important representation

51:09

is to kids, and I agree.

51:12

I think that's why I adored Laura so

51:14

much. There aren't many famous

51:16

people who come out of South Dakota, but

51:18

she was. She made me proud

51:20

of who I was and where I lived. She

51:23

was me, and if she could do great things,

51:26

so could I. Modern South Dakota

51:28

can be like the one Laura lived in, but can

51:30

also be much different. A lot

51:32

of your podcast has discussed the return

51:35

to the prairie esthetic, but the prairies

51:37

are emptying because of rural flight. There

51:40

is some sense of community, but it's mostly

51:42

reserved for those with the right last

51:44

name. Outsiders are

51:46

not very welcome. So

51:49

my opinion on Laura has changed with the times

51:52

and especially with this podcast. But

51:54

I still want to read these books to my kids someday

51:57

because our ancestors lived like Laura,

51:59

and I feel it's important to teach my

52:01

future children about their past. But

52:04

I feel that I now have a more

52:06

educated and mature view of the books

52:09

and now how to use it as an educational tool

52:11

rather than a propaganda tool.

52:14

Hello, my son

52:16

is getting married soon and his bride is

52:18

Indigenous, and I

52:21

imagined reading these things

52:23

to my future grandchildren

52:25

who would be indigenous, and it was pretty

52:27

horrifying to see

52:29

how it might be seen through their eyes.

52:32

Whereas before, when somebody would bring it

52:34

up, I would think, well,

52:37

you can't apply modern sensibilities

52:40

to the past.

52:41

People lived in their times.

52:42

There are things that our grandchildren will be

52:45

horrified by that we do every day

52:47

without thought. But

52:51

I don't think it's appropriate for children anymore,

52:53

and that sads me immensely.

52:56

I'm someone who loves the Little House

52:58

Books and I've written about them.

53:00

I've thought of myself as pretty

53:03

clear eyed about these issues in

53:05

the books, and I figured

53:08

I'd just done all that reconciliation

53:11

work. So I have

53:13

to say I really was not prepared for

53:15

episode seven to hit me the way it did,

53:18

you know, with the college class and just

53:21

hearing how the Little Housebooks how

53:23

they look to younger generations.

53:26

That was a little rough. But

53:28

also I get it.

53:30

I think a lot of people who hold onto the books

53:32

a certain way really

53:34

try everything to avoid

53:36

those feelings. And I get that too, But

53:39

I'm thinking now that the more you let yourself

53:42

just have those feelings, the more

53:44

you realize how little

53:46

it really costs you to acknowledge the other perspectives

53:50

you know and just give them spacing your head. Okay,

53:53

So, I guess here's a metaphor. I

53:55

actually made a pigs bladder

53:57

balloon, and anyone who

54:00

who has done that knows how horrifying

54:03

it is in real life. I mean

54:05

like it looks like something like

54:07

a serial killer would play with. But

54:10

you can still hold that idea you had

54:12

when you were a kid of you know,

54:15

this pig ladder being just a fun

54:17

balloon that is inside a pig, like a

54:19

cracker Jack prize, and you

54:21

can let that exist alongside the

54:23

reality that it looks disgusting.

54:27

What's so interesting about all this listener feedback

54:29

is that we all seem to be struggling with

54:31

similar things, and it's you

54:35

know, further evidence

54:37

that it's hard to interrogate

54:40

the things you loved as a kid because it's so

54:42

it runs so deep and it can be painful.

54:45

So many of us are in the same place of wanting

54:48

to do so and struggling to do so,

54:50

and you know, coming up with

54:52

similar answers. Once

54:55

again, Little House is the zeitgeist

54:59

of of reckoning

55:01

with childhood love.

55:03

Once again. It's complicated.

55:05

Okay, well, Glennis, maybe one of

55:07

the final questions I have for you is

55:09

how do you think about yourself differently? Or

55:11

what did you learn about yourself making

55:13

this entire show.

55:17

I mean, really understanding the

55:19

degree to which I allowed

55:23

things to be acceptable simply

55:25

because I was so.

55:29

Relieved to see a.

55:31

Version of how I was in the world in a character

55:34

is upsetting and really makes

55:36

you consider. I don't know if selfishness

55:39

is the right word, but all the

55:41

things we let pass by because

55:43

of our own enjoyment and enjoy and

55:46

then subsequently flipping that and trying

55:48

to understand not just the pain

55:50

of not seeing a version of yourself in the world,

55:53

but the pain of seeing a terrible version

55:55

of yourself in the world, which is what happens

55:58

in these books to not people

56:00

and in so much of the narratives

56:02

we have, and thinking about, you

56:05

know, just what I was willing to tolerate for

56:07

my own pleasure into

56:10

some degree survival.

56:12

Is something I continue

56:15

to think about. But

56:18

I also think about this.

56:21

I lived in the Little House Books for most of

56:23

my childhood, and then the second I

56:25

could, I stepped through the map

56:27

on my parents' family room floor.

56:32

You can see Lake.

56:33

Preston, and

56:35

then right to the left of that is to Smith and

56:38

attempted to recreate what I had learned from

56:40

Laura. I wrote, I

56:43

traveled, I had and continue

56:45

to have adventures, and

56:47

I have a deep belief in the value of even the

56:49

smallest parts of these stories. I

56:53

took to heart some of the messages I found in Little

56:55

House about honesty, bravery,

56:58

adventure, and then we applied

57:00

it to the person who gave it to me in the first place.

57:03

And you've been listening to us do that. Thank

57:06

you for coming along for the ride. Laura

57:10

was a complicated, resilient, fascinating

57:14

person, and it's been strangely

57:16

wonderful to discover and accept that she

57:19

is a problem.

57:21

You want to hold on to her. You have

57:23

to hold onto that too, and

57:26

then keep going.

57:29

There are other stories, and

57:31

there are other nails, and

57:34

it might be time for this to be a very

57:36

long time ago.

57:43

Let's just maybe think of it.

57:44

Okay, I don't actually know where her grave is, but how big is this

57:46

grape song? It's just that for the ones that look flowered, maybe,

57:48

yeah.

57:54

Wilder graves that way. It says it over

57:56

there, oh

58:01

here?

58:01

Sure, though, I still go through the graveyard behind my house

58:03

and try and find people who were born in.

58:05

Eighteen sixty seven, because they were born and the same.

58:07

Year Laura was yeah, yeah,

58:14

Wilder, it's

58:16

just a big stone, that says Wilder.

58:20

Oh, here we go, they have more. Okay,

58:23

that was the backside. Apparently ninety

58:27

is a solid a yeah for what Laura

58:30

ingles and.

58:33

I mean months was ninety two.

58:35

Yeah.

58:37

It's like everything in.

58:41

Those books they could they were so close to death

58:43

so many times, but

58:47

she made it.

58:48

She made it right here.

58:50

I have to say I have no emotional connection

58:52

to people's graves, and

58:54

because I grew up behind your graveyard your

58:57

people are buried does not have resonance

58:59

for me where they lived.

59:01

Like, yeah, going to

59:03

dismess.

59:04

Is so much more emotional.

59:07

Or listening to pause fiddle and

59:09

visiting a grave.

59:10

I don't know.

59:11

Isn't that kind of crazy that we're standing on top of her

59:13

them.

59:14

We're not sitting on top We're standing on top of her remains.

59:17

This whole entire podcast is.

59:23

Standing on top of her right.

59:30

Wilder is written and hosted by me Glennis

59:33

McNichol. Our story editors

59:35

are Emily Meronoff and Joe Piazza.

59:38

Our senior producer is Emily Meronoff.

59:40

Our producers are Mary Do, She Knows

59:43

Zaki and Jessica Crinchich.

59:45

Our associate producer is Lauren Phillip.

59:48

Production help from Asavarey Sharma, sound

59:51

design and mixing by Amanda Rose Smith.

59:55

Our amazing theme song and additional music

59:57

was composed by Alice McCoy. We

1:00:00

are executive produced by Joe Piazza,

1:00:03

Nikki Aetore, Ali Perry and

1:00:05

Me. Final special

1:00:08

thanks to Ranger Tanya

1:00:10

Gardner, Heatherley McFarlane

1:00:12

and Pauline Facon from Bonzen

1:00:14

Studio in Paris, Laura

1:00:17

Ingles Wilder Home Association for

1:00:19

the recording of Laura's voice Upsalquate

1:00:22

tours at the Little Big Horn Battlefilip

1:00:25

National Monument, Doctor

1:00:27

DeBie Reese and Professor Lizzie Skernick,

1:00:31

and every one of you who sent in your thoughts

1:00:33

and feedback. As

1:00:35

always, please see our show notes for further

1:00:38

reading and links for the subjects we discussed

1:00:40

in this episode.

1:00:43

That's it for Wilder. Thank you

1:00:45

so much for listening.

1:00:47

We're going to keep posting on Instagram and TikTok,

1:00:50

so keep an eye out. There may be more bonus

1:00:52

content and news.

1:01:01

Spre