Bessie Wilder: The Real Woman Behind the Little House Books

Literary legend has long held that Laura Ingalls Wilder penned each of her famed Little House series into the pages of a Big Chief tablet as a humble Missouri farm wife with no previous experience as a writer. How those handwritten pages went from the table of her Missouri farmhouse to New York publishers is usually forgotten or not even considered but there is much more to Laura's story.

In the small town of Mansfield in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, Laura Ingalls Wilder was better known as Bess Wilder. Her husband Almanzo Wilder called her Bess or Bessie; her one daughter Rose referred to her as "Mama Bess." "Laura Ingalls Wilder" was her pen name - it was not a name she used in everyday life.

That daughter Rose is the real key to the success of the books. Rose Wilder Lane was an established journalist and freelance writer. Her stories appeared in the popular magazines of the time, big name publications that included The Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies Home Journal. She had two successful commercial novels, both published in the 1920's and other novels that did not do quite as well.

After the stock market crashed in October 1929, the writing market narrowed. Publishers were wary about publishing works that might not sell in an economy that had suddenly fall to all time lows. With her career in jeopardy, Rose returned to the family farm in Missouri where just two years later, her mother's first book, an autobiography titled Pioneer Girl began making the rounds of publishers.

It was not an overnight wonder; Laura Ingalls Wilder or Bessie Wilder had been writing for publications like The Missouri Ruralist for years. Her down home, folksy style columns about farm life had a following among other farm wives and women nationwide.

When Pioneer Girl was rejected, Laura turned her hand to converting her memories into fiction. If Pioneer Girl had been published, the well loved children's author would never have found fame but would have remained an obscure historical footnote.

In a book published in 1995, A Ghost In The Little House: The Life of Rose Wilder by William Holz, the long standing idea that Rose Wilder Lane may have had more than a simple role in her mother's books was presented. Yet, other biographers of Laura Ingalls Wilder say that this was not the case. In the biography Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder, writer John E. Miller maintains that although Rose helped with connections and what he calls "light editing", the prose attributed to Laura Ingalls Wilder is her own.

The truth may never be fully known. Historically, what is fact is that Rose returned home when the publishing market weakened. During her time back on the farm, her mother's autobiography transitioned into a series of books slanted for children about her life growing up in the 19^th century. Miller describes the creative collaboration between mother and daughter in a way that gives Laura much more creative control and talent.

In his biography, he states that Laura wrote the first draft of each story by hand, then often a second or third. That final handwritten draft went to Rose who typed the pages and edited them with a pen. Rose often expanded scenes or added to them. Sometimes she changed timelines.

Copies of the manuscripts still exist and it's obvious that additional changes were made but whether these were by Laura, Rose, or editors in New York remains unknown.

The first novel in the series, Little House in the Big Woods received minimal editing while Little Town on the Prairie and The Long Winter received the most editorial scrutiny.

As the books were published and grew in popularity, Bessie Wilder began to have two facets to her life. One was the role she had carried for years as Almanzo's wife, Rose's mother, and a farm wife active in the local community. The second was her persona to fit her pen name of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Today, so many decades after the first Little House book appeared, the real Laura is lost in the fictional accounts of her life. Readers often forget that the books, although based on Laura's life and experiences, are indeed fiction. Some events - such as Laura's baby brother Freddie's tragic death - are not mentioned in any of the books. Periods in which the Ingalls family suffered hard financial times also fail to appear in the completed books.

With Rose's help and guidance, the books become much more than a mirror of Laura's early life but a series of fiction narratives that were closely interwoven with the truth. The popular television show inspired by the books veered even farther away from the truth, allowing the Ingalls family to take root in Walnut Grove, Minnesota which was actually just one of many stops in their itinerant life on the frontier.

Despite the success and acclaim that the novels received, Bessie Wilder's friends and neighbors in Mansfield didn't seem to realize the scope of her fame until quite late in her career.To them, she remained Almanzo's or "Manly's" wife, the woman they knew from ladies club meetings and church socials. She was still the wife that set a board table for traveling salesman and other visitors and her daughter Rose was considered to be the famous Wilder.

Whether Rose minded as her mother's fame eclipsed her own is another unknown factor. Letters in which Rose urges her mother to heed her advice and to listen to her voice of experience remain. Without Rose Wilder Lane's connections and own success, its debatable whether or not her mother's books would have found the same niche in publishing.The simple, yet rich narratives of the Little House books are not just the gentle memories of a Missouri farm wife but the writings of a woman who was already an established writer and the mother of a successful fiction writer.

Although this knowledge does not take away from the enjoyment of the books, it's vital to know so that readers can appreciate the full talent and broad scope of the woman known as Laura Ingalls Wilder who continues to inspire youth with her stories of pioneer life.

Perhaps Bessie Wilder would like her readers to know just who she was in real life, who she was and how she lived before she became Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Visitors today can visit a recreated Little House on the Prairie near Independence, KS, a recreated Little House in the Big Woods in Wisconsin, and Rocky Ridge Farm, where the Wilders lived near Mansfield, Missouri.

There her many fans may gain insight into the woman, the established writer, who sat down to write the first drafts of her popular novels on the lines of a Big Chief tablet.

was an established journalist and freelance writer.Her stories appeared in the popular magazines of the time, big name publications that included and She had two successful commercial novels, both published in the 1920's and other novels that did not do quite as well. After the stock market crashed in October 1929, the writing market narrowed.Publishers were wary about publishing works that might not sell in an economy that had suddenly fall to all time lows. With her career in jeopardy, Rose returned to the family farm in Missouri where just two years later, her mother's first book, an autobiography titled began making the rounds of publishers.