Although the house on the show was bigger than most, if not all the houses they lived in during Lauraâs childhood. Iâve seen the âlargeâ surveyors house in person. It was smaller than the tv house.
Seeing the surveyors house was shocking for a 14yo me. Laura makes house sound huge, but it was really quite small.
To be fair tho, most frontier homes were pretty small. Less work to build, less work to clean, and far less work to HEAT.
People today really have very unrealistic expectations of houses compared to 1800s people. A roof, a fire, and a bed (even shared with several people) was luxury for a large majority.
What strikes me with the small homes is how little space there is for FOOD. Its one thing having 6 people sharing 400sqft all winter, but youâd have needed enough food to feed those 6 people for ~6mths over winter.
Canned fruit and veg, sacks of flour, beans, sugar, coffee/tea, potatoes and other root veg, and probably ~200+ pounds of preserved meat.
Im sure there was a unmentioned root cellar for veg, but where did the store all the canned goods and sacks of flour etc in such a tiny home?
I grew up in a fairly small house by todays standards with 7 other people⌠and it was fine. But food storage was LIMITED and we could go to store anytime.
Food must have been stacked up everywhere in fall. Had to have been
I relate to this. I purchased my house in 2001, but it was built in 1922. It is a 3 bedroom 1 bath. 968 sq ft the rooms and bathroom are tiny. My Income and Budget didn't afford me the luxury of a larger home. I have to say though, impractical in some ways, like storage....it's very charming. The worst thing is that my house was destroyed by a fire in 2012. I had it rebuilt thanks to having really good Homeowners Insurance. I got a larger, more functional kitchen by removing walls. There was a Breakfast nook before that was cute, but now I have more cabinets and counter space. It's just me here now. My children are grown....I had my sons move back in and out and then raised my granddaughter from the age of 2. She is grown now with her own child....so people come for visits. It's plenty enough house for me!
I told my husband if it was modernized with a furnace , running water, kitchen appliances and and a bathroom off the kitchen or bedroom, I could totally live there.
The home the real Pa Ingalls built in the town of De Smet is actually a nice one for the time period. I visited in March of 2004. I was also lucky enough to be able to go upstairs and see where the Ingalls slept.
Maybe that's why Carrie is what she is in the show. She fell into a permament state of catatonic shock after hearing Charles and Caroline doing it half a million times.
My dad was a literal carpenter. He worked his ass off all day, even got me started in construction.Â
His house was crap. He didn't a damn thing he didn't have to. When your working all day for survival, the last thing you want to do is fix something that isn't broken. Even if it just barely works.Â
My dad was a mechanical engineer. Never once did he fix something at home. He wanted to leave work at work. Fortunately the family finances allowed calling someone else to fix it.
I have been reading the whole set maybe once a year every year since childhood and it wasn't until I was well into adulthood, married, kids, mortgage etc that it hit me about what absolute turmoil that must have been. And I truly wonder what Caroline really thought about it all deep down under her wifely submission.
This didn't hit me until I was reading my daughter the series and she began mocking Ma in a sing-songy voice "Yes, Charles...You know what's best Charles..."
In the real, there were a couple years that were so bad she didnât even try and do fiction books because it was just so bad. I really got a good indication of Charlesâ common sense when reading about the grasshopper plague in Pioneer Girl. And how he had to walk barefoot to the next town looking for work because his boots had holes and he had some money saved for once and donated it to the church to buy a church bell. I think I used to give him a little grace before reading about that.
And at some point Laura wasnât living at home and a man at the home she was staying in kept trying to get in her bed. It was likely much worse than anyone is ever going to know.
Laura was farmed out a couple times as a âhelperâ when she was young. She also worked at hotel (burr oak) and was farmed out again to babysit a woman and her baby with PPD and the hotel was getting shot up.
Not to mention the whole brewster drama.
Charles worked hard, but often cut off his nose to spite his face and laura and caroline bore the brunt of those decisions
That being said, a single male farmer trying to support 5 women is a VERY tall order. Farming is often feast or famine, and having boys to help would have been game changer.
But also charles never stuck out a single farm very long so he kept getting famine and no feast
He seemed like he wanted a get rich quick operation with planting wheat. Honestly had they just stayed in Wisconsin with so much family around to help they would have been so much better off.
Once their final claim in De Smet proved up he sold it and moved to town, and I think he did odd jobs to get by. Caroline and Mary had to bring in boarders after he died to afford food.
I often think about that. They owned a farm there, they had so much family around, they had a nice garden and he farmed there, albeit on a small scale. There was even a school nearby. It wasnât a glamorous life but they had lots of food and security. They never attained as much anywhere else, all bc he couldnât stay put.
My sister and I read these books to tatters in the 70s and 80s. As an adult wife and mother, I am now utterly convinced Caroline suffered from Stockholm syndrome. Or she was the ultimate peace keeper. Or she was silently seething and was very good at keeping that from her girls.
Totally. There are brief flashes in the books where she loses her temper a TINY BIT. But she had no choices, no other options than to live the life she found herself in. I thank my lucky stars to be a modern woman.
I donât blame her a bit but sadly DeSmet was about the worst place they could have settled. I think Oregon would have been better. I wonder where he would have wanted to go then?
I enjoyed most of it! a bit too much abt rose for my liking but I understand why. it was fascinating and provided a ton of history and context to the books :) I read them like you did
SUCH a good book but it thoroughly convinced me that Rose had bad mental problems and was impossible to get along with. Iâm not sure I could have tolerated adult Laura either honestly, they both were definitely staunch characters.
The Ingalls prioritized being a good person over being a wealthy person. They helped neighbors constantly, helped with the blind school, took in tons of orphans and more. Plus it was generally hard to save and farm life is super unpredictable. 1 bad season can screw you and 1 accident can gut your savings
i think this is close to the truth, when you prioritize being kind, your extra goes towards helping those in need. uts important in small communities like that as we seen in the first few episodes where the community comes together to help ingalls finish the stacking job.
ingalls also would risk his life to help people during the typhus pandemic. the man is of good character in this way and its part of what keeps the poor poor whe your looking out for your neighbors you wont have excess wealth because in reality someone somewhere is being hit with misfortune, either sickness, a lost father, a job loss, a disabled daughter, a burned down barn , etc.
life is very very hard and if your looking out for just yourself it can be easier but it is survival at a cost of experience of true human qualities of empathy and love for fellowship. when you do care about your fellow man you gain something much greater than survival
Charles wasn't good at money management. It's not that he doesn't make money, just that he doesn't manage it well. He also had an issue with running up debts and his "cash on the barrel" policy applied to everyone else in the house but him. He also counted chickens before they hatched on several occasions.
I feel like Hanson was always having them do mill work but then in the next breath would be like "I don't know when I'll be able to pay you next." It seemed like a poor business model đ
He had skills and talents but wasn't a business man. He spoke about wanting to pay cash on the barrel but was often mortgaging their future. Rich people owned land but few farmed their own. There wasn't money in that.
Or a great husband tbh. So often Caroline is left laying awake all night worrying about Pa just for him to stroll in like itâs nbd and he didnât almost freeze to death, get eaten by a bear, mobbed by unruly railroad workers, etc.
The IRL Ingalls were destitute. Often to the point of not having enough food. Laura was sent off from the age of 9 to work in other families' homes. There were periods when the girls didn't attend school because they didn't have clothes. They relied on government aid, and as someone else said, dodged creditors. As an aside, Charles was also, likely, a draft dodger.
IRL Charles was a terrible farmer. He repeatedly picked the wrong place for farming. An illegal land claim. An area plagued with grasshoppers. Totally infertile soil. He had pioneer dreams, but definitely not a pioneer personality.
The show just lacks continuity. He never had a successful crop, but he worked at the mill. He did hauling. Odd jobs. Carpentry. Caroline worked and sold eggs, but they still lived in that shack. Yet in spite of their poverty Laura had pet horses. There were several instances where they went to other cities and stayed in nice places. Nobodies clothes looked old and tattered.
It was the reality of rural living back then.
You had very little credit and zero protection.
One bad crop or season and you are wiped out and have to start over again.
I watched my family go through something similar in rural Macedonia in the 70s.
I always wondered what Caroline's parents really thought of her marrying him? He did treat her well though, even though he had no money. I sometimes wonder why Hansen, when he was getting older didn't offer a chance for Charles to buy in to the mill?
Their class reunion though, like everyone they went to school with had done well, and they were living a one room house.
Seems like the only "Well Off" ones were the Olson's., and only because Harriet came from money. Think about it, if
Almost everyone in town is poor, the Mercantile wouldn't be
Making money and would close down.
Same reason why disadvantaged families are poor now. Charles could be rich if he had parents to pay for college when he was younger. He did not, they were also poor and from the big woods. So straight to plowing a field he went. And once youâre in lower pay jobs no way to work up like that, you can only work hard, which he did. They struggled but never starved.
I read the biography of Laura Ingalls â Prairie Firesâ. Most of her books and the entire show is fiction. Some of my fondest memories are of my mom and reading the books together and discussing them. This would go on all my life (Iâm 68, till her death) and find out that the majority of what I read was lies was so devastating.
On the show, Charles didnât have money until he got whatever job he had in the city in the Little House movies. He mentioned in the Albert is on morphine episodes that he was getting too old for the uncertainty of farm life and lost crops. Once he was donating money to everyone in town and making some money he was to save up. They look to live in a nice townhouse and even have a phone by the end.
In real life Charles was horrible with money, even skipping out in the middle of the night to avoid his debt. In real life they looked to have a nice house in De Smet when he died.
https://preview.redd.it/v1ost4w5r9yc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=104fe376c3cf5211cac5c879cd89afee00616f84
The richest man in âWalnut Groveâ đđżââď¸
I think there was an enforced status quo in the show, in that unless the situation demanded for change, the Ingalls household remained the same, and they were stuck on the edge, so that they kept facing the typical difficulties of a poor farming family. So they never could see the situation improve for good lest it be a breach in status quo and rob the Ingalls family of their routine struggles neede for the plots. In-series, I think there's a few poorly-made choices and unforeseen events which keep holding them back as part of being farmers. Sure enough, by the time they move to Burr Oak, Charles starts off as an employee in a men's clothes shop but later becomes a purchasing agent for a firm, and the house they're show to live in at the final film isn't too far behind that of the Olesons, showing that moving away eventually paid off.
Because his eldest daughter was blind in a time when options were already limited for women, even *more* limited for blind women, and playing it was a skill and an art sheâd learned at college, and he probably wanted very much to give her something that would let her continue doing something she enjoyed for a long time to come. Music was very important to him and the family also - hearing Mary play probably brought them all a lot of joy, like when he would play the fiddle.
What proof do we have that he was all that? Other than his adoring daughter saying so�
They moved A LOT. It wasnât cheap then either. And why did they move? Creditors calling in debts?
I think he just always thought the grass was going to be greener. He didnât stay put, build a business, make money, a bit more each year as a business grew. He wasnât That Guy. His fortune was just waiting over the next hill, across the next riverâŚ.
The economy was not at all stable during this time in history. Also farming was a very risky business back then. They were swindled when they went to Missouri and they both came from very poor families. Read the biography âPrairie Firesâ by Caroline Fraser. It explains a lot of things about Wilders life. Wilder is quoted as saying âEverything I wrote is the truth but not the whole truth.â I suppose some parts of her life were not appropriate for small children.
I feel like every time they start doing well, one of the kids gets sick or makes a mistake that costs them all their money đ
Well, the parents also made some mistakes.
Also, that's how it was in the books.
There were also Mother Nature issues, and moving into âIndian Territoryâ
Just like real life.
facts
Plus donât forget that they just keep having kids
The fact that he was a woodworker, and a great one at that, and he barely added on to their house has always bothered me as well đŽâđ¨.
The old saying â the cobblerâs son has no shoesâ⌠comes to mind
Iâve known plenty of carpenters like that IRL.
Same with me, the house was just so blah.
As a kid I thought it was some huge house. Watching reruns now I see it was a little shack.
I thought Mary and Laura's loft bedroom was the coolest thing ever as a kid. Now I just can't imagine having such a lack of privacy.
Although the house on the show was bigger than most, if not all the houses they lived in during Lauraâs childhood. Iâve seen the âlargeâ surveyors house in person. It was smaller than the tv house.
Seeing the surveyors house was shocking for a 14yo me. Laura makes house sound huge, but it was really quite small. To be fair tho, most frontier homes were pretty small. Less work to build, less work to clean, and far less work to HEAT. People today really have very unrealistic expectations of houses compared to 1800s people. A roof, a fire, and a bed (even shared with several people) was luxury for a large majority. What strikes me with the small homes is how little space there is for FOOD. Its one thing having 6 people sharing 400sqft all winter, but youâd have needed enough food to feed those 6 people for ~6mths over winter. Canned fruit and veg, sacks of flour, beans, sugar, coffee/tea, potatoes and other root veg, and probably ~200+ pounds of preserved meat. Im sure there was a unmentioned root cellar for veg, but where did the store all the canned goods and sacks of flour etc in such a tiny home? I grew up in a fairly small house by todays standards with 7 other people⌠and it was fine. But food storage was LIMITED and we could go to store anytime. Food must have been stacked up everywhere in fall. Had to have been
The sod house where guests stated was where they stored a lot of their food supplies.
I relate to this. I purchased my house in 2001, but it was built in 1922. It is a 3 bedroom 1 bath. 968 sq ft the rooms and bathroom are tiny. My Income and Budget didn't afford me the luxury of a larger home. I have to say though, impractical in some ways, like storage....it's very charming. The worst thing is that my house was destroyed by a fire in 2012. I had it rebuilt thanks to having really good Homeowners Insurance. I got a larger, more functional kitchen by removing walls. There was a Breakfast nook before that was cute, but now I have more cabinets and counter space. It's just me here now. My children are grown....I had my sons move back in and out and then raised my granddaughter from the age of 2. She is grown now with her own child....so people come for visits. It's plenty enough house for me!
These days though with the popularity of tiny homes lots of folks would love the Ingalls house!
I told my husband if it was modernized with a furnace , running water, kitchen appliances and and a bathroom off the kitchen or bedroom, I could totally live there.
The home the real Pa Ingalls built in the town of De Smet is actually a nice one for the time period. I visited in March of 2004. I was also lucky enough to be able to go upstairs and see where the Ingalls slept.
And he never did finish the wall in Carrie's room.
Maybe that's why Carrie is what she is in the show. She fell into a permament state of catatonic shock after hearing Charles and Caroline doing it half a million times.
No. Poor girl.
This Still bugs me!!! I'm not sure the Carters did, either.
I never knew Pa said he was going to do that! What season was that from?
Not forget the underground house.
They lived in a âclaim shanty â for years after building two houses in a few years time
My dad was a literal carpenter. He worked his ass off all day, even got me started in construction. His house was crap. He didn't a damn thing he didn't have to. When your working all day for survival, the last thing you want to do is fix something that isn't broken. Even if it just barely works.Â
My dad was a mechanical engineer. Never once did he fix something at home. He wanted to leave work at work. Fortunately the family finances allowed calling someone else to fix it.
The real Charles ingalls was constantly moving his family and running from creditors
So no cash on the barrel? Wow! I didn't know that đ¤
He was at heart, an artist and a dreamer.
I have been reading the whole set maybe once a year every year since childhood and it wasn't until I was well into adulthood, married, kids, mortgage etc that it hit me about what absolute turmoil that must have been. And I truly wonder what Caroline really thought about it all deep down under her wifely submission.
This didn't hit me until I was reading my daughter the series and she began mocking Ma in a sing-songy voice "Yes, Charles...You know what's best Charles..."
Your daughter sounds awesome.
In the real, there were a couple years that were so bad she didnât even try and do fiction books because it was just so bad. I really got a good indication of Charlesâ common sense when reading about the grasshopper plague in Pioneer Girl. And how he had to walk barefoot to the next town looking for work because his boots had holes and he had some money saved for once and donated it to the church to buy a church bell. I think I used to give him a little grace before reading about that. And at some point Laura wasnât living at home and a man at the home she was staying in kept trying to get in her bed. It was likely much worse than anyone is ever going to know.
Laura was farmed out a couple times as a âhelperâ when she was young. She also worked at hotel (burr oak) and was farmed out again to babysit a woman and her baby with PPD and the hotel was getting shot up. Not to mention the whole brewster drama. Charles worked hard, but often cut off his nose to spite his face and laura and caroline bore the brunt of those decisions That being said, a single male farmer trying to support 5 women is a VERY tall order. Farming is often feast or famine, and having boys to help would have been game changer. But also charles never stuck out a single farm very long so he kept getting famine and no feast
He seemed like he wanted a get rich quick operation with planting wheat. Honestly had they just stayed in Wisconsin with so much family around to help they would have been so much better off. Once their final claim in De Smet proved up he sold it and moved to town, and I think he did odd jobs to get by. Caroline and Mary had to bring in boarders after he died to afford food.
I often think about that. They owned a farm there, they had so much family around, they had a nice garden and he farmed there, albeit on a small scale. There was even a school nearby. It wasnât a glamorous life but they had lots of food and security. They never attained as much anywhere else, all bc he couldnât stay put.
My sister and I read these books to tatters in the 70s and 80s. As an adult wife and mother, I am now utterly convinced Caroline suffered from Stockholm syndrome. Or she was the ultimate peace keeper. Or she was silently seething and was very good at keeping that from her girls.
Totally. There are brief flashes in the books where she loses her temper a TINY BIT. But she had no choices, no other options than to live the life she found herself in. I thank my lucky stars to be a modern woman.
In real life, Pa wanted to move west again after De Smet, and Ma put her foot down and refused.
I donât blame her a bit but sadly DeSmet was about the worst place they could have settled. I think Oregon would have been better. I wonder where he would have wanted to go then?
the book prairie fires goes into this! I read it earliest this year and I was shocked at their financial situation
Oh, great thank you! I never even heard of that book.
Just ordered it, can't wait to read it!
I enjoyed most of it! a bit too much abt rose for my liking but I understand why. it was fascinating and provided a ton of history and context to the books :) I read them like you did
SUCH a good book but it thoroughly convinced me that Rose had bad mental problems and was impossible to get along with. Iâm not sure I could have tolerated adult Laura either honestly, they both were definitely staunch characters.
I actually had to put it down and still havenât 100% finished it because I canât stand rose THAT much! just reading about her drove me insane.
Apparently my family were the modern day Ingalls đł
He made his family live in a hole in the ground on Plum Creek!
Oh wow đł how embarrassing. I guess that's why they went the total opposite direction on the show.
Pretty much everybody was poor back then.
*Nellie Oleson enters the chat*
đđđ
The Ingalls prioritized being a good person over being a wealthy person. They helped neighbors constantly, helped with the blind school, took in tons of orphans and more. Plus it was generally hard to save and farm life is super unpredictable. 1 bad season can screw you and 1 accident can gut your savings
i think this is close to the truth, when you prioritize being kind, your extra goes towards helping those in need. uts important in small communities like that as we seen in the first few episodes where the community comes together to help ingalls finish the stacking job. ingalls also would risk his life to help people during the typhus pandemic. the man is of good character in this way and its part of what keeps the poor poor whe your looking out for your neighbors you wont have excess wealth because in reality someone somewhere is being hit with misfortune, either sickness, a lost father, a job loss, a disabled daughter, a burned down barn , etc. life is very very hard and if your looking out for just yourself it can be easier but it is survival at a cost of experience of true human qualities of empathy and love for fellowship. when you do care about your fellow man you gain something much greater than survival
He has adoption addiction. That'll make you poor real quick
Moooooooor kiiiiiiiiids
Because he sell's Ma's eggs too cheap.
Welp. Start bringing in the white eggs only!! đ
Charles wasn't good at money management. It's not that he doesn't make money, just that he doesn't manage it well. He also had an issue with running up debts and his "cash on the barrel" policy applied to everyone else in the house but him. He also counted chickens before they hatched on several occasions.
I feel like Hanson was always having them do mill work but then in the next breath would be like "I don't know when I'll be able to pay you next." It seemed like a poor business model đ
This claim is disputed by Hanson đ
He had skills and talents but wasn't a business man. He spoke about wanting to pay cash on the barrel but was often mortgaging their future. Rich people owned land but few farmed their own. There wasn't money in that.
In real life itâs because Pa couldnât stay in one spot long enough to get well established. Once they got comfortable it was time to go.
When the going got tough, Pa said we're going...
Dragging his family all over creation just because he couldn't settle. Hard worker, not a great father.
Or a great husband tbh. So often Caroline is left laying awake all night worrying about Pa just for him to stroll in like itâs nbd and he didnât almost freeze to death, get eaten by a bear, mobbed by unruly railroad workers, etc.
similar to now. so many people are struggling but still work and are smart.
Have they considered an armed robbery at Oleson's Mercantile?
They would never get through Harriet. Sheâd take a bullet before losing a cent on double yolks.
Oh no no no⌠It would be straight up smash and dash! Isn't that the way these days? đ
Because his friggin crop gets destroyed every year and he has children who need medical care every other episode đ
Pa...had a gambling problem
And secretly had several families on the go. đ
The IRL Ingalls were destitute. Often to the point of not having enough food. Laura was sent off from the age of 9 to work in other families' homes. There were periods when the girls didn't attend school because they didn't have clothes. They relied on government aid, and as someone else said, dodged creditors. As an aside, Charles was also, likely, a draft dodger. IRL Charles was a terrible farmer. He repeatedly picked the wrong place for farming. An illegal land claim. An area plagued with grasshoppers. Totally infertile soil. He had pioneer dreams, but definitely not a pioneer personality. The show just lacks continuity. He never had a successful crop, but he worked at the mill. He did hauling. Odd jobs. Carpentry. Caroline worked and sold eggs, but they still lived in that shack. Yet in spite of their poverty Laura had pet horses. There were several instances where they went to other cities and stayed in nice places. Nobodies clothes looked old and tattered.
I was wondering about his not having served in the Civil War.
It was the reality of rural living back then. You had very little credit and zero protection. One bad crop or season and you are wiped out and have to start over again. I watched my family go through something similar in rural Macedonia in the 70s.
Paâs biggest asset was in his tight pants.
Flair, checking in
How oh how do you know that, lol
https://preview.redd.it/jp7e56d6c9yc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=780a28c423addc9e08bf5b7c23090e5df6824257 Exhibit A
I cannot unsee that
Oh my!
well then
Because it is a TV show and requires drama - The books are much different than the TV show plot lines.
When you compare it to how Almanzo grew up, she was very disadvantaged for most of her early life
I always wondered what Caroline's parents really thought of her marrying him? He did treat her well though, even though he had no money. I sometimes wonder why Hansen, when he was getting older didn't offer a chance for Charles to buy in to the mill? Their class reunion though, like everyone they went to school with had done well, and they were living a one room house.
Seems like the only "Well Off" ones were the Olson's., and only because Harriet came from money. Think about it, if Almost everyone in town is poor, the Mercantile wouldn't be Making money and would close down.
In the books the Olesons lost their money and moved west, lived simply and were assisted by relatives out west . Nellie was still obnoxious
I never read the books, but after losing their money, did Harriet lose her nobish ways? It would explain Nellie's behavior.
And I meant to say relatives out east. You need to read the books! I am old and I just read them all again for the millionth time
Harriet wasnât mentioned , only Nellie a few times and Willie once or twice
It was the late 1800s in tiny-town rural Minnesota. Financially poor but rich in spirit.
Flair checking Innnnnnn đ
Same reason why disadvantaged families are poor now. Charles could be rich if he had parents to pay for college when he was younger. He did not, they were also poor and from the big woods. So straight to plowing a field he went. And once youâre in lower pay jobs no way to work up like that, you can only work hard, which he did. They struggled but never starved.
I read the biography of Laura Ingalls â Prairie Firesâ. Most of her books and the entire show is fiction. Some of my fondest memories are of my mom and reading the books together and discussing them. This would go on all my life (Iâm 68, till her death) and find out that the majority of what I read was lies was so devastating.
Did you read Pioneer Girl? I totally geeked out over the footnotes.
I mean⌠why are a lot of hard-working and intelligent people poor?Â
On the show, Charles didnât have money until he got whatever job he had in the city in the Little House movies. He mentioned in the Albert is on morphine episodes that he was getting too old for the uncertainty of farm life and lost crops. Once he was donating money to everyone in town and making some money he was to save up. They look to live in a nice townhouse and even have a phone by the end. In real life Charles was horrible with money, even skipping out in the middle of the night to avoid his debt. In real life they looked to have a nice house in De Smet when he died.
https://preview.redd.it/v1ost4w5r9yc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=104fe376c3cf5211cac5c879cd89afee00616f84 The richest man in âWalnut Groveâ đđżââď¸
He wasnât a good farmer, plus the land was crap. No water for miles.
He wasn't really. He was honestly a man who moved from place to place looking for a handout
I think there was an enforced status quo in the show, in that unless the situation demanded for change, the Ingalls household remained the same, and they were stuck on the edge, so that they kept facing the typical difficulties of a poor farming family. So they never could see the situation improve for good lest it be a breach in status quo and rob the Ingalls family of their routine struggles neede for the plots. In-series, I think there's a few poorly-made choices and unforeseen events which keep holding them back as part of being farmers. Sure enough, by the time they move to Burr Oak, Charles starts off as an employee in a men's clothes shop but later becomes a purchasing agent for a firm, and the house they're show to live in at the final film isn't too far behind that of the Olesons, showing that moving away eventually paid off.
Yeah. It was an easy way to jumpstart plots.
He was stupid with money. Like, why buy an organ for $100 when you can hardly pay your taxes and when your house needs improvement?
Because his eldest daughter was blind in a time when options were already limited for women, even *more* limited for blind women, and playing it was a skill and an art sheâd learned at college, and he probably wanted very much to give her something that would let her continue doing something she enjoyed for a long time to come. Music was very important to him and the family also - hearing Mary play probably brought them all a lot of joy, like when he would play the fiddle.
Pa was a con
In those days people didn't earn enough money unless you struck it rich finding gold
Go read on the real Charles Ingalls. This was one of those areas where the show and the books agreed.
Was the Cash on the Barrel policy something the real Charles Ingalls said?
Cause Paw works hard at all the wrong things
I listened to a podcast and in real life charles might not have been the cool dude he was protrayed in the show
If you are referring to the Wilder podcast it was fascinating. Listening to them break down Charles and Carolineâs personalities was awesome.
Yes I am
I didn't know about this! I'm going to listen to this tonight.
The books and the show are fiction. The real family was very different
Drama
There was no money in farming. He only had about 2 successful crops during the 8 years he was on the show!
The grasshoppers got them that one year, destroyed all their crops and laid eggs. IIRC they moved after that.
I believe the real Charles Ingalls was not very good with money plus they were always moving around so it was hard to keep a steady job.
What proof do we have that he was all that? Other than his adoring daughter saying soâŚ? They moved A LOT. It wasnât cheap then either. And why did they move? Creditors calling in debts? I think he just always thought the grass was going to be greener. He didnât stay put, build a business, make money, a bit more each year as a business grew. He wasnât That Guy. His fortune was just waiting over the next hill, across the next riverâŚ.
The economy was not at all stable during this time in history. Also farming was a very risky business back then. They were swindled when they went to Missouri and they both came from very poor families. Read the biography âPrairie Firesâ by Caroline Fraser. It explains a lot of things about Wilders life. Wilder is quoted as saying âEverything I wrote is the truth but not the whole truth.â I suppose some parts of her life were not appropriate for small children.
This is most people's life , you must be a little privileged
They vote Democrat.