Little Author in the Big Woods by Yona Zeldis McDonough

 

    Prologue
    In 1839, Caroline Lake Quiner was born in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area. Some people said she was the first non–Native American baby to be born there. Her parents, Henry and Charlotte, were pioneers who had come from the east to settle the new land. It was not uncommon for pioneers to move many times. Sometimes they were pulled in a new direction by the promise of fertile or free land, or new job opportunities. Other times they were pushed away from a place by disease, drought, or other calamities.
    Even though Caroline’s early life was hard (and it became even harder after her father drowned), her mother, Charlotte, believed in the importance of education, even for girls. This was a very unusual idea for the time. Women were expected to tend house and raise children, so girls were taught to cook, clean, sew, and garden. “Book learning” was a luxury that most girls were not given. But Charlotte had been educated at a female seminary in Connecticut, and she wanted her daughters to have book learning too.
    Little Caroline was a star pupil. She loved to read, and she excelled at writing essays and poetry. A schoolteacher who boarded with the family praised Caroline’s compositions. So when Caroline told her mother she wanted to follow in her footsteps and become a teacher, she not only had Charlotte’s support, she had her blessing.
    At 16, Caroline finished school and passed the examination for her first teaching certificate. She was hired to teach at the very same school where she and her sisters and brothers had been students. Her salary was somewhere between $2.50 and $3.00 a week. Though the wages were modest, she was proud to be earning money of her own. She used her salary to buy clothes and to help her parents and siblings.
    Even out on the frontier, Caroline had a sense of grace and elegance. She may have been a country girl, but she didn’t have country manners. Her unusual poise caught the eye of a neighbor’s son, Charles Ingalls. They began “keeping company”—an old-fashioned term for dating—and were married in Concord, Wisconsin, on February 1, 1860. She had not yet turned 21 years old.
    Caroline understood that her new husband craved adventure. And he understood that, although she would indulge his craving and follow him willingly on his travels, her refined nature would set the tone for the life they led together. Wherever they went, Caroline was a lady.

    In 1863, Charles and Caroline followed some members of the Ingalls family to the Big Woods of Wisconsin, near the village of Pepin. Charles and his brother-in-law Henry Quiner built two rough-hewn log cabins, not too far apart from each other. It was important to have family nearby. They helped each other with the building and with other chores as well. The cabin Henry shared with his wife, Polly, was busy and noisy—they had three children. In contrast, the cabin shared by Charles and Caroline was a much calmer and quieter place.
    All that changed in 1865. Just as the Civil War between the North and the South was ending, Caroline gave birth to a baby girl she named Mary. Two years later, Laura came along. Now Caroline had two little girls and a bustling, noisy cabin of her own. But no matter where she went and what hardships she endured, she never lost that special sense of grace, and she imbued her daughters with her own rare spirit.
    As much as Laura loved her strong, cheerful blue-eyed father, who could play the fiddle and fix just about anything, she was deeply shaped by the women around her—her mother and her sisters, Mary, Caroline (born in 1870), and Grace (born in 1877). It was these strong, resourceful pioneer women who became her role models. And in the end, it was these same women who helped define and populate the fictional world of the Little House books, for which she became so well known and loved. Laura learned so much from her mother—lessons that lasted a