Pepin, WI and Burr Oak, IA

Today we went to Pepin and Burr Oak.  Pepin was The Little House in the Big Woods and Pepin does not figure in any of the books, but the Ingalls family lived here while Pa worked several jobs.  According to the guide, the family ended up owing money to a Mr. Bisby, and so they had to sneak out of town in the middle of the night.  Charles Ingalls ended up squaring everything with Mr. Bisbee after earning some money in Walnut Grove, but I can see why this story would be a little embarrassing to include in a book for children.

The Pepin site is a modern copy of the historical cabin surrounding by fields growing beans and corn.  There is a forested area between Pepin and the site, but the cabin is not currently in the forest.  There is a museum in the town of Pepin.  The museum is made up of various Native American, pioneer-era, and 20th-century items that were given or loaned to the museum.  Much of the stuff is not directly related to Laura.  The museum is organized mostly at random and I was interested in the juxtaposition of items from different historical periods.

Grain cradle and Little House puzzle

Little House lunchbox and pig bladder

Here are some pictures from the cabin.  

This barn is across the street from the cabin

Burr Oak


The people who manage Burr Oak have a more polished presentation.  The only original site is the hotel where Charles, Caroline, and the girls all worked.  You pay at a nearby historical jail and they walk you over and give a guided tour.  They only have three artifacts that actually belonged to Laura (a calling card, handcrafted handkerchief and some "handiwork"), but they do have some possessions that belonged to other people who lived in the hotel.  There are some life-size dolls that are nice and quirky.

The curators of the hotel put up signs depicting "Laura's virtues," which are maxims culled from her writing, particularly responses to fan mail.  These tend to emphasize Laura's promotion of perseverance and self-reliance, which is pertinent to the question I asked when I started this project.  Laura is clearly portrayed as someone who wanted people to draw specific lessons from her writing.

While we are traveling, we are listening to Little Town on the Prairie.  The book has some interesting vignettes, but it is hard for me to say that they are any better than stories about "the good old days" that elderly people always seems to know.  Somehow these stories captured imaginations around the world, especially in Japan.

My wife thinks these stories have stood out from other pioneer narratives because they show that period in history the way people want to believe it was: hard, but also full of fun.  I am not sure this is the whole reason, but it is interesting to think about.