Lessons From Little House (Part 1?)

Okay, I will not deny that I am a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan.  She is my favorite human author (the Lord being my favorite author, because He gave us the Handbook for life that should be my guide in this life).  

Picture of Laura Ingalls Wilder on display at Ingalls Homestead--De Smet, South Dakota.

Lately, Evan and I have been on a Little House on the Prairie watching marathon.  Now don't get my wrong, I'm not a fan of TV, and I find little to almost nothing of value that is on most of the time.  However,  I find much value in Little House in the Prairie, the television series that Michael Landon produced during the 1970's and 80's.

As I've mentioned before, the TV series is very loosely tied to the books.  In fact, the books are not exact to Laura and her family's life.  There are things left out in the books such as the death of her infant brother, Charles Frederick.  In the TV series, the Ingalls do not move around and homestead as much as in real life.  Most of the TV series takes place in Walnut Grove, Minnesota.  Mary gets married on the series, but never in real life nor in the books.  


Okay, so enough with comparing and contrasting the books and the series!  I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even though the TV series doesn't correlate very much with the books, there is much value in the show.


When I watch each show, there is an important lesson we can all learn.  The glory and power of the Lord is woven throughout each episode, much unlike most any TV series on today.  Yes, I cry when I watch this show, and I am convicted.  Thank you, Jesus!  In bullet point form, here is a short rundown of just a few of the lessons/values taught in some of the episodes.  

Beautiful slough and farmland on the North/South Dakota state lines.  

• Most important:  Simplify.  They lived so simply back then compared to out western culture.  Because of this, they, I believe, had more time and reflection for the Lord.  They didn't have Facebook or TV or all of this materialistic stuff to keep up with and dust and admire.  They had small homes.  There were literally close to one another, sometimes for days if the weather was bad.  This kept the family close in other ways.  No iPhone or computer or other electronic to capture their mind and soul.  They enjoyed and cultivated relationships with their family intentionally and purposefully.  I'm sure they faced many challenges and life wasn't perfect, but they leaned on the Lord, one another, and their fellow neighbor...which leads to to....

• Over and over again in several episodes neighbors were there in a pinch to help.  While I do realize this is a TV show and things can seem exaggerated, I have no doubt that people were more "neighborly" back in the good old days.  One of the most beautiful examples of loving your neighbor was when Mary fell ill and needed surgery.  Ma and Pa took a train to Manchester, Minnesota to a hospital for treatment.  Mary's treatment was much more intensive than what was originally thought.  The hospital bookkeeper had no heart and expected payment immediately.  Well, the Ingalls were poor farmers.  They were common folk in the sense that they simply had enough to get by.  When Pa went back to Walnut Grove to sell the farm, he was met with another obstacle...no one had money to buy.  Mr. Edwards leaves his family behind to go with Charles (Pa) to find work to help pay Mar's hospital bills.  I have to wonder today how many people would give until it hurts to help their neighbor today?  While I do understand that the culture and way of life was different 150 years ago, we have no excuse to not love our neighbor as ourself as the Lord commanded.  

To be continued....

Love and Joy only Because He First Loved Me,

Shannon

De Smet, South Dakota

A few months ago, we did a Little House on the Prairie road trip, just the four of us (yes, we took Peaty).  Yes, these crazy Texans drove all the way from home all the way up to Minot AFB, ND.  Mileage total of 4,100 miles!  Yes, that's 4,100 miles of prairie loveliness for this Laura Ingalls Wilder fanatic!!!

As a continuation from my post about our first stop on our own little prairie tour near Independence, Kansas...I did promise to write and share more about our prairie adventures!  After we left the The Little House on the Prairie Museum, we took a very scenic route through the Flint Hills of Kansas--a scenic byway I suggest you not miss!  Kansas commonly is thought of as dull, flat, and not very attractive.  I completely disagree with that statement!  We found so much beauty and peace while driving throughout Kansas.  Part of the beautiful Flint Hills has been preserved.  We intentionally took this scenic route so we could stop at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.  Unfortunately, we got there after closing hours.  But we were able to walk around the front of the premises and snap a few photos and take in what Laura's prairie once looked like all over millions of acres of the United States.  

Going through Kansas, I can understand why Pa (Charles Ingalls) and others followed suit to homestead this beautiful state.  Not a tree in site, for the most part, which made for ideal farm land.

We stayed overnight in Manhattan, Kansas--home of Ft. Riley and Kansas State University, aka: K-State.  Nice town!  We plan to stay a night or two next time we venture up that way again.  However, not without our mountain bikes!

The boys looking at the river, on a trail we found in Manhattan, KS.

We crossed into Nebraska, which is miles and miles of corn.  The architecture of the barns are quite beautiful, and they were everywhere!  The barns we saw seemed similar in Nebraska, South and North Dakota.  I am sure that is because most settlers were of German or German/Russian descent, and also Scandinavian descent (especially up in North Dakota).  In what I have researched, the type of barns that I photographed the most were the gambrel style which is indicative of a German settler.  I'm going to do another post on barns and share photographs that I took while we drove up north.

We finally made it to our destination, De Smet, South Dakota--the home of the Ingalls Family.  They were the first family to settle in the town of De Smet.  Laura would live here with her family until she married Almonzo Wilder.  Most of Laura's books in her series took place in De Smet.

We had quite the shock of arriving at Ingalls Homestead to high winds, dark clouds, and temperatures barely above 60 degrees!!!  BRRRRR!!!!  And to think we were going to tent camp.  We opted for a stay in town (only a mile away) in a nice hotel.  While we were disappointed to not be able to camp out on the prairie, we should have known that way up north it's way colder than Texas!

We looked around for a few minutes, and decided to secure a hotel room and get dinner.  The next day we went back and spent a few hours at the homestead...in which I will write about in part two.  

And at this point, if you are still reading, thanks!  This was a long post!  But I want to share how wonderful this vacation was to our family.  You don't have to take a trip to a crowded, popular attraction to enjoy yourself.  I rather found it to be quite relaxing and amazing to take the back roads, to take in history, and to take out time exploring around different parts of the U.S. we had never seen.  Until next time...