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Cast members from the award-winning television show “Little House on the Prairie” are coming to the Lodge Between the Lakes this Saturday.
“Christmas, Prairie Style” will see cast members from the award-winning TV show “Little House on the Prairie” interact with residents and guests over a two-day period.
The event, which runs over the weekend, is being put on by Gravel Markets LLC. Gravel Road Markets has been producing events for the past eight years and has been the exclusive event producer for the cast of the “Waltons” and “Little House on the Prairie” for the past two years.
“We are very excited to be coming to Mountain Home, Arkansas, and bringing the cast of Little House on the Prairie with us,” stated Event Executive Producer, Jackson Bishop.
The “Little House on the Prairie” themed event will give residents the chance to meet and take pictures with Caroline Ingalls (Karen Grassle), Grace Ingalls (Wendi Lou Lee), Miss Beadle (Charlotte Stewart), Sarah Carter (Pamela Roylance), and Baby Rose Wilder (Jennifer Donati).
The meet and greet will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 18, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Nov. 19. Admission for adults is $10 and $5 for children ages 3-12.
In addition to the meet and greet, residents can purchase a VIP Dinner experience with the cast on Nov. 18 starting at 7 p.m. A VIP Breakfast experience is also available for the following Sunday morning, with breakfast starting at 8:30 a.m.
Tickets for the VIP Dinner and VIP Breakfast can be purchased at Eventbrite.com.
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder is a famous American author, who wrote the critically acclaimed “Little House on the Prairie” series from 1932 to 1943. The books were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.
Born to Charles Philip and Caroline Lake in 1867, Ingalls Wilder moved with her family to Wisconsin in 1869. After stopping in Rothville, Missouri, the family settled in the Indian country of Kansas, near modern-day Independence, Kansas.
According to Ingalls Wilder, her father had been told that the location would be open to white settlers. They quickly discovered that was not the case when arriving. The family would leave their homestead in the Spring of 1871 after hearing rumors of eviction by the Osage Indian reservation. The Ingalls had no legal rights to the land they were occupying.
The family would return to their land in Wisconsin, which would become the centerpiece for her first novel “Little House in the Big Woods.” The family would move again in 1874 to the banks of Plum Creek outside of Walnut Grove, Minnesota. The location would become the focus of her third book “On the Banks of Plum Creek.”
During that time, the family would live in a dugout sod house before moving to a new house built on the same land. Two summers of ruined crops would force them to move again two years later. They would stay with her uncle, Peter Ingalls, in South Troy, Minnesota.
Ingalls Wilder’s brother, Charles “Freddie” Ingall, would be born on Nov. 1, 1875. He would die nine months later. During that time, the family helped run a hotel in Burr Oak, Iowa.
Following the birth of her youngest sister, the family would return to Walnut Grove, where her father served as town butcher and a Justice of the Peace. He would take a railroad job in the spring of 1879. The job would take the family to the Dakota Territory, which formed the basis for “By the Shores of Silver Lake.”
While in the Dakota Territory, the family would file to form a formal homestead in De Smet, South Dakota. Ingalls Wilder would take several jobs when not attending school. She would also meet her husband Almanzo Wilder.
The time period is documented in “Little Town on the Prairie” and “These Happy Golden Years.”
In 1882, Ingalls Wilder accepted her first teaching position in De Smet and would teach three terms of school between 1883 and 1885. She would marry Almanzo Wilder in 1885. The two would adopt the nicknames Manly and Bess for each other.
Almanzo would achieve a degree of prosperity on his homestead before becoming partially paralyzed after suffering from a life-threatening bout of diphtheria. He would need a cane to walk for the rest of his life. The couple who have two children together, Rose Wilder, and an unnamed son who died 12 days after his birth.
In 1890, after a series of complications on their homestead, the couple moved in with Almanzo’s parents in Spring Valley, Minnesota before briefly moving to Westville, Florida in search of a climate suitable for Almanzo’s degrading health.
In 1894, the Wilder’s moved to Mansfield, Missouri and purchased an undeveloped property that would become Rocky Ridge Farm. The family would eventually find financial stability through the farm.
In 1911, Ingalls Wilder landed a columnist and editor position at the Missouri Ruralist after submitting an article. She worked at the paper until the mid-1920s. She would title her column as “As a Farm Woman Thinks.”
By 1924, after years of writing, Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, began encouraging her mother to improve her writing skills. At the time, the Wilder’s were relying on Lane, who had become a famous writer herself, for income, and the move to improve the author’s skills was seen as an attempt to secure a better retirement for the family.
The Stock Market Crash in 1929 would wipe both the Wilder and Lane family out. In 1930, Wilder asked her daughter for an opinion over an autobiographical manuscript she had written about her pioneering childhood. The two would work together to publish the book as “Little House in the Big Woods” in 1932.
Ingalls Wilder would write nine books in total with the help of her daughter. She passed away in 1957. Her books are now in the public domain.
“Little House on the Prairie,” the award-winning TV show based on Ingalls Wilder’s book series, would air for the first time in 1972 after former NBC executive Ed Friendly acquired the film and television rights to Wilder’s novels. The show would run until 1982.
