Biblio-biography, Chapter 6

One of the books that had an impact on my life was Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Millions of people know all about Laura and her family from the television show "Little House on the Prairie" that was broadcast from 1974-1982. I didn't own a T.V. during most of that time, but I have seen a few of the shows as reruns; it was a lovely show and did justice to the books. I read the whole series from Little House in the Big Woods to The First Four Years. There were ten books, ultimately, and, Little House on the Prairie wasn't the first one. I loved these books. I read, and re-read them. I read the entire series to all of my children.

My sister and I have contemplated traveling to the Midwest and doing the Wilder Circuit, in which you travel to the sites of the books in Wisconsin, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota and Kansas. In Mansfield, MN, there is a big festival each year to celebrate her life and the books. I imagine the town is filled with middle-aged women and nine-year old girls, kinda like Pony Penning Day in Virginia.

But, the one book in the series that really caught me was the story of her husband, Almanzo Wilder, as a child on a farm in upstate New York during the 1860's. I was taken by this book because so much of his life was similar to mine.

He lived on a farm.
He had to milk cows.
The weather was really cold.
He attended a one-room school.
His mother was an amazing cook.
He had pesky big sisters.
He craved a horse of his own.
In the summer they had to haul hay.
He had chores every day.
The family attended church every Sunday.
The similarities went on and on.

Of course, he was a boy, and I didn't have to cut ice blocks (but lots of winters we did haul water...) and I didn't have to sit and do nothing all day on Sunday, and we didn't use a horse and buggy for our transportation. Oh, and we had electricity and all that. But...There were just so many things in his life that resonated with my life, that I felt like we must have known one another.

In my previous school in Maryland, we had a yearly field trip to visit a county history site: a restored one-room school used in the 1880's. It is run by a group of retired teachers who were born and raised in that county, and so have a serious interest in teaching modern children about the history of our area. It was simultaneously foreign and familiar to the students when we visited. It was small, the rules so strict and the tools they used (quill pens and inkwells) are unusual, but the flag ceremony is the same, and the maps and pictures of presidents on the wall are so today.

Before or after our trips there, I would read the first chapter of Farmer Boy to the students. It told of Almanzo's experience at his one-room school with some mean, older boys who made a sport of beating up and driving out each school teacher who came to their village. The current teacher is determined to avenge his predecessor---his good friend--and so, unknown to Almanzo, has learned a few good skills from Mr. Wilder. As usual, when I started out the chapter, there were yawns and murmuring. It was just so removed from modern kids' existence that they had a hard time finding any reason to care. But as the chapter progressed, and then got to the exciting conclusion, they were hooked and insisted that I read more the next day.

You don't have to have grown up as a Farmer Girl to appreciate Farmer Boy, but it is one of my favorite books because it revealed to me that everyone can tell a good story, even if you grew up milking cows.