50 years of The Ingalls Family: who was the real Laura Ingalls who inspired the character of the series

It is very common for anyone who has any idea what the Ingalls family is to refer the name Laura Ingalls with Melissa Gilbert.

Today, at 59, the American can say she was one of the most resonant actresses of the Seventies and Eighties for playing a character who was much more than a simple innocent girl.

Laura Ingalls is a fiction, but also a real woman who lived in the mid-19th century in the American Midwest.

The Ingall family (from the original title: Little House on the Prairie) is the adaptation of a group of autobiographical novels written by Laura Ingalls herself and titled Little House on the Prairie (Little House on the Prairie).

The nine novels in the series narrate events inspired by the author’s personal experiences during her childhood in Wisconsin and the United States Michele Landon It is a free adaptation of these stories.

Who was Laura Ingalls and why is she so famous?

Laura Ingalls She was a writer who became famous for writing and publishing one of the most popular literary sagas in the United States. Her career as an author, contrary to what one might think, was late. She started writing when she was 65 years old.

Laura Ingalls Wilder She was born on February 7, 1967 in Wisconsin, a state from which her family moved when she was just a child. She lived her early years in Kansas and returned to her hometown at the age of 7. The experiences she went through since returning to Wisconsin are ones that she would later capture in her most famous work.

His father, Carloand his mother, Carolina Quiner, maintained a virtually nomadic life in the United States, which meant that little Laura had a changing and discontinuous upbringing. Of course: just by going from here to there she didn’t stop being a brilliant student.

Before he turned 16, Ingalls began working as a teacher in one-room schools. She did so until three years after he joined, in 1885, she married Almanzo Wilderthe man who would accompany her throughout her life and with whom she would soon settle in Dakota.

A beginning full of misfortunes

The beginning of their relationship gave rise to a series of misfortunes that marked the beginning of his adult life.

After the birth of his daughter Rose, the couple gave birth to a boy in 1889 who died twelve days after his birth. They hadn’t been able to give it a name yet.

Almanzo, for his part, he fell ill with diphtheria and was partially paralyzed from the waist down. As time passed, the man recovered from this disease, but was forced to use the cane until the end of his days.

Their barn also mysteriously burned down, and little Rose accidentally burned down their house.

As if this wasn’t enough, the drought experienced at that time in the area of ​​the United States where they lived plunged them into poverty, so much so that they had to move to Almanzo’s parents’ house.

The rebirth of the Ingalls

The family’s fortunes began to change when in 1894 they settled in Mansfield, Missouri, and rented a house that years later, thanks to the financial help of Almanzo’s parents, would become their property. THE Rocky Ridge Farm.

As soon as they moved in, they made money only from the carts of firewood which they sold to the city for fifty cents on the dollar. After seven years of economically stable life, his apple orchards literally began to bear fruit.

And that’s how their economy flourished and Laura was invited to write for a local media outlet – the Missouri Ruralist-. Rose liked her work for that newspaper so much that he convinced her to write her memoirs. The rest is history.

Laura Ingalls, the writer

Laura began her writing career with the series Little House on the Prairie in 1932. He titled his first novel “The House in the Forest”.

That book was followed by seven others. “Those Golden Years,” the last he published during his lifetime, was published in 1943. Decades later, in 1971, the ninth part of the series, “The First Four Years,” was published posthumously.

His most famous book of all, the one that brings the most content to the famous television series, is the third: “Little House on the Prairie”, from 1935. The text narrates in the third person the story of little Laura Ingalls who lives with her family in a rural area of ​​the United States.

Laura’s death

When Rose left her parents’ home, the couple retreated into the Rocky Ridge Farm. Almanzo and Laura lived peacefully in that place until the man’s death in 1949.

Laura will spend the next eight years living alone, accompanied by her friends and receiving constant affection from her fans.

The author died three days after her ninetieth birthday, on February 10, 1957. The year before Laura had become seriously ill with undiagnosed diabetes and suffered from heart problems.

She was buried next to Almanzo in Mansfield Cemetery, the same place where her daughter will also rest since 1968.

The Ingalls Family: The Series

The television show that popularized Laura’s story in South America came to TV in 1974 on NBC. There were a total of 204 episodes spread across 9 seasons. It lasted until 1983.

The story followed the dramas of a large American family on the northern frontier in the 19th century.

March 30, 2024 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of the pilot episode. The one that would change Laura Ingalls’ story forever.