Steady Mom

postcards from de smet (Little House road trip)

Laura's family lived in the Surveyor's House in By the Shores of Silver Lake - it's the oldest building in De Smet

Steve and the kids walk in front of the Ingalls store site, where they survived The Long Winter (now the red brick building)

At the Loftus store Pa finally bought the wheat that kept the family alive that winter

The Ingalls family's burial plot (from left to right): Carrie, Mary, the infant son of Laura and Almanzo, Ma, and Pa

At the Ingalls' homestead

The size and location of the Ingalls' claim shanty (after Pa had built the final additions to it)




Attending an 1880's school session

Remembering De Smet, South Dakota - the Little Town on the Prairie:

"But there was something else here that was not anywhere else. It was an enormous stillness that made you feel still. And when you were still, you could feel great stillness coming closer." 

"Laura opened the door and peeped in. This house (The Surveyor's House) had board floors; not as comfortable to bare feet as the earth floor of the shanty, but not so much work to keep clean." 

~ By the Shores of Silver Lake

"Pa's store building was one of the best in town. It stood by itself on the east side of Main Street. Its false front was tall and square-cornered, with one upstairs window in it. Downstairs there were two windows with the front door between them."

"Now, girls!" Ma said. "A storm outdoors is no reason for gloom in the house."

“If only I had some grease I could fix some kind of a light," Ma considered. "We didn't lack for light when I was a girl before this newfangled kerosene was ever heard of."

"That's so," said Pa. "These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraph and kerosene and coal stoves--they're good things to have, but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.”

“It can't beat us!" Pa said.
"Can't it, Pa?" Laura asked stupidly.
"No," said Pa. "It's got to quit sometime and we don't. It can't lick us. We won't give up."

Then Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.” ~ The Long Winter

postcards from walnut grove (Little House road trip)

at the Sod House on the Prairie






the original fireplace mantle used in the Little House television show!


Remembering Walnut Grove, Minnesota and the banks of Plum Creek:

“All around that door green vines were growing out of the grassy bank, and they were full of flowers. Red and blue and purple and rosy-pink and white and striped flowers all had their throats wide open as if they were singing glory to the morning. They were morning-glory flowers. Laura went under those singing flowers into the dugout."

"It was one room, all white. The earth walls had been smoothed and white-washed. The earth floor was smooth and hard…The ceiling was made of hay. Willow boughs had been laid across and their branches woven together, but here and there the hay that had been spread on them showed though.”

"Where they waded in the shallow water a footprint would not stay. First a swirl like smoke came up from it and wavered away in the clear water. Then the footprint slowly melted. The toes smoothed out and the heel was only a small hollow."

"We must do the best we can, Laura, and not grumble. What must be done is best done cheerfully."

"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there no place like home."

postcards from pepin (Little House road trip)

collecting pebbles from Lake Pepin



setting up Trishna's Little House paper dolls inside their very own cabin!





The Ingalls paper doll family (Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura, & Baby Carrie) traveled the entire 2,200 mile journey with us in the van.

Remembering Pepin, Wisconsin and the Little House in the Big Woods:

"Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs."

"The house was a comfortable house. Upstairs there was a large attic, pleasant to play in when the rain drummed on the roof. Downstairs was the small bedroom, and the big room. The bedroom had a window that closed with a wooden shutter. The big room had two windows with glass in the panes, and it had two doors, a front door and a back door."

"It was seven miles to town. The town was named Pepin, and it was on the shore of Lake Pepin."

"They all sat on the warm sand near the wagon and ate bread and butter and cheese, hard-boiled eggs and cookies. The waves of Lake Pepin curled up on the shore at their feet and slid back with the smallest hissing sound."

"After dinner, Pa went back to the store to talk awhile with other men. Ma sat holding Carrie quietly until she went to sleep. But Laura and Mary ran along the lake shore, picking up pretty pebbles that had been rolled back and forth by the waves until they were polished smooth."

the hard work of making your dreams come true

"You're so lucky!" more than one person has told me when I described our recent Little House on the Prairie site tour and road trip in the midwest. 

And I am, we are--abundantly blessed and fortunate to be able to have the resources and time to pull off such a trip.

Yet it didn't drop into our laps either.

First came the dream. That was the fun part.

Then came the effort. The planning and logistics. How would we get there? Where would we stay each night? Where would we go each day? How long could we drive at a time without needing to stop? How would we finance this trip? 

After answering each question above, we needed to make reservations and arrangements for each leg of the journey.

On top of that, we've been preparing for months in our homeschool for the trip--rereading each of the Little House books, studying and tracking the sites, finding out what we would see along the way. Trying to make this an inspirational time for our kids and family.

Most of this counted as "happy work," but work it definitely was.

I told Steve from the beginning that this wasn't a "vacation" but a homeschooling adventure tour, and we were the tour guides. That helped me remember from the get-go that I would be "working" throughout. And after nine days of nonstop work, you expect to return exhausted.

I did.

I came back remembering that our dreams matter so much when it comes to where we head in our lives, but dreaming alone will never get us there.

Eventually we have to put action behind our visions of having children, adopting, writing a book, moving cross-country, starting a new job, traveling as a family, fill-in-the-blank here with your particular dream.

And that's where the effort begins.

A dream--of land, of freedom, of a better life for their children--drove the Ingalls family and countless scores of other pioneers westward. Something compelled them to move further on, to explore the unknown, to face head-on life-threatening challenges that most of us can't even begin to imagine. 

What a privilege to spend a week honoring and tracing their footsteps, their roads, their hard-won losses and victories.

Look for more photo posts of our trip coming soon! So many moments to share...

"No one has ever achieved anything from the smallest to the greatest
unless the dream was dreamed first."
~ Laura Ingalls Wilder