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| A young Laura fan visits the barn kitties at Ingalls Homestead, De Smet, South Dakota. |
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| Perhaps the irresistible cuteness of this lamby will encourage the reader to forgive my long absence. |
"Where have you been??"
...So, it has been a terribly long, looooong time since I have posted a blog entry. My apologies. There's really no excuse, other than being really, really busy. And occasionally, a bit discouraged.
Aren't we all?
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| Who's that girl? |
That said, no time like the present to get back into the swing of things.
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| Within spitting distance of Rose's birthplace, De Smet, South Dakota. |
It's 3 February 2013 and I am ashamed to admit I have started many posts over the last 15 months or so, but generally found such dissatisfaction in my own ability (or lack thereof) to construct viable paragraphs that I grew disgusted with the thought, and put my little blogspotty ideas in the lower back corner of a nearly-forgotten mental closet and only now have rediscovered their usefulness.
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| The site of the real Little House on the Prairie. (Reconstruction) Near Independence, Kansas. |
To that end, I submit to the reader's forgiving nature and offer a few of the above-referenced blogfodder topics, which I will endeavor to undertake in the next few entries, in the hope that someone may find satisfaction in the presentation. Upcoming subject areas are as follows, and, as always, questions, comments, and suggestions are most welcome from any who should happen to stumble upon this corner of the web.
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| RR line in Genesee Country, near Wheatland and Caledonia, NY. |
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| Behind the town house on Highway 14, just east of De Smet. |
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| 2nd Barry Corner School, Pepin, Wisconsin. This was built a few years after the Ingalls family left Pepin; Laura and Mary attended the FIRST Barry Corner School. The building has been moved from its original location, and is now a private residence, but still standing in Pepin. |
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| Endless Sky. |
I also expend a great deal of energy rummaging through antiques dealerships, looking for just the right props to add to my collection. The artifacts (and a few carefully chosen reproductions) play a big role in many of my presentations--particularly those in schools and libraries--where the audience gets up close and personal with items which they might not be able to handle in most other venues.
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| Artifact display for a game with students in Vermont. The legendary grooved slate is the larger one with the dark maple frame, leaning against the glass washboard. Almanzo's popcorn popper and photograph are directly in front of it. |
I like to show the audience what Laura and her family really looked like, so these photocards from various LIW homesite museum stores are very handy. Sometimes we play a game where items are numbered and everyone has to guess what each object is, and how it is used. While much of my research is local to New England, I have spent many hours in archives, cemeteries, Ingalls and Wilder homesites and other historic locations around the country.
2~Yes, you heard right. Cemeteries. Not to be morbid, here, but cemeteries are fascinating to me. And, having an ongoing quest to identify traces of Ingalls and Wilder family and friends also means hunting down their final resting places. There are literally thousands of relatives to sort through, and I have identified many cemeteries with vast numbers of headstones and memorials to those who are kin to the families in question. Cemeteries can tell us a lot about the people who lived in a town. Not just their religious beliefs and burial practices, but the priorities, values, economic station, civic involvement and politics of its various citizens. I will post some of the most intriguing headstones at a later date.
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| My own design, just to make you ask questions. |
For now, feast your eyes upon a bit of independent silliness which I created to quell the bru-ha-ha of last election season and keep 'em guessing. It was a hit with folks from both sides of the aisle, and plenty 3rd partiers as well!
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| Wagon on the other side of the cabin at LHOP Museum, Independence, KS. Not as efficient as my VW, but similar in size. |
Part (A) is the good part. In the time between my last post (October 2011) and the present, I have embarked upon 3 long-distance research/presentation trips, and several brief, or at least shorter-than-the-others, excursions. Upon re-reading that entry, I find I have also not told much, if any, of my 2011 adventures, either! Between work, research, presentations and more research, in a period of 21 months (May 2010 to Jan 2012), I logged 90,000 miles on the Jetta. That's 90k, folks. No, you did not read that wrong, nor did I mistype...and I do not, in any way, exaggerate. Just ask my mechanic. I suspect I am largely responsible for his kids' college funds.
Don't believe me? Let me explain.
My day job for much of the last 3 years involved a daily 180+ mile commute. Except for July, 2011, when I spent the month driving from my home in New Hampshire to all the northern LIW sites, then farther west to Pierre, Midland, Deadwood, Keystone, Custer State Park, and Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota. Then, I went back to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, for a couple of gigs, and then back across to De Smet, SD again. Then, I headed south, through Nebraska and down to Wichita, KS, then over to Independence and the REAL Little House on the Prairie Museum. From there, I headed to Bartlesville, Oklahoma for a quick stopover (there is a Frank Llyod Wright-designed highrise in that town) before continuing to Springfield, then Mansfield, Missouri, where I visited Laura & Manly's Rocky Ridge Farm. After a couple of days, I headed north through a lot of Missouri, eventually winding up in Indiana again for a visit to the corset lady in Fort Wayne. After that, I stopped near Cincinnati to visit family, then trucked on home to NH in time for an important family birthday celebration. 6,302.2 miles in 28 days. Phew! And that was just ONE trip.
But wait! There's more...
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| GCV&M Laura Ingalls Wilder Days Pageant Contestants prepare to show off their finest prairie garb. |
A few days later, I headed west again, driving across almost the entire length of Upstate New York to present first-person programs all weekend at Genesee Country Village's LIW Days. There I also hosted the Children's Pageant, where kids dress up in their best "Laura and her Sisters" or "Almanzo & Friends" gear. The 2011 Event featured Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush (The "Carrie Twins" from TV's Little House).
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| My 2pm program at GCV&M: "A Yankee Woman is a Curiosity." |
Sometime soon, I'll tell you more about Genesee Country Village and Museum, and their annual Laura Ingalls Wilder Days event, which has been a fixture at the museum since Alison Arngrim (TV's "Nellie Oleson") visited for a booksigning and Q&A at the first Laura Days in 2008. You'll get a recap from each year, including 2012's Genesee visit with LIW biographer William Anderson, and the TV teachers, Charlotte Stewart ("Miss Beadle") and Lucy Lee Flippin ("Miss Eliza Jane Wilder") in a future post.
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| Gretyl at the border of Pa's hometown, Cuba, NY. |
On the way home from Genesee, I stopped in Cuba, NY (Charles "Pa" Ingalls' birthplace) to do a little detective work...
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| Lake Cuba |
...and met some very generous souls who offered assistance in the archives and gave some very helpful local directions.
Later in September, it was north to Burke, NY and Almanzo Wilder Farm's Harvest Festival.
The profile picture you see on this blog was taken on the porch of the beautifully restored farmhouse where Almanzo and his siblings were born in the village of Burke, which is near Malone, along the Canadian border and within sight of the St. Lawrence River.
~3 U.S. Travel, Part (B). Which is the not-always-so-enjoyable-as-part-A-part. As fate would have it, in late January 2012, I managed to find almost the only ice storm to visit New England over an otherwise unseasonably warm and mild winter, which resulted in a mild concussion and a totaled VW. I was on my way back from a wonderful day of Mrs. Wilder visiting with the students and patrons at the Cavendish-Fletcher Library, which is located not far from the birth and burial towns of Laura's beloved Revered Edwin Alden.
After 3 presentations with many wonderfully engaged and enthusiastic participants, including children, librarians, parents, and teachers, I carefully packed my many treasures in their boxes and changed into street clothes. Before I could finish packing for the ride home, the gentle shower turned into sleet, and soon the storm dug in its heels and covered the entire region in a sheet of ice so treacherous I was wishing for skate blades instead of snowtires. Wincing at the thought of a 4-hour or longer trek home, but without any alternative, I bundled up and got behind the wheel. Dummy.
Four miles or so along the road, up a winding mountainside, I struggled to maintain enough traction to keep from sliding backwards. Unexpectedly, as I crested the hill, the road straightened out and leveled off all at once. Gretyl, propelled by the now-unnecessary force of the accelerator coupled with an automatic transmission is the wrong gear and absolutely no safe way to apply the brakes, was headed straight for a wall of granite.
I knew I had to steer but feared overcorrecting and careening down into the trees. So I took a chance at braking while turning the wheel HARD to my left, hoping to spare myself as much as possible by forcing the passenger tail to clip mountainside and, I hoped, the car would settle in the dirt shoulder. All I could think was, this is going to hurt.
I had to tell myself:
Don't be chicken...
DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO.
...NOW!
Miraculously, I was able to steer just enough to avoid the head-on collision, but the right rear quarter panel slammed violently into the rock surface and the car spun to a landing halfway in the road. I recognized immediately that I had to try to move the car a little to get out of the way of oncoming traffic, which would be heading on the decline and either slam right into me or veer into the steep, forested embankment on the other side, just as I had feared would happen to me a moment earlier. So, I got out and assessed the damage. Gretyl was still humming, lights on and everything, but I couldn't see much. Checking the tires, I found they were still straight and inflated, so I got back in and crept her over to a wider section of the shoulder.
I sat there, stunned, and not sure what to do. For a moment, I almost thought I might try to make it home. I couldn't see any damage except for the loose quarter panel and some of the plastic shrouding from the undercarriage was in the road. Another driver came along behind me, stopped to see if I was okay and then left. I still wasn't sure what to do, but contemplated the options. It was cold and wet and slippery as...well, you know. The road was essentially a skating rink. I considered whether I should keep heading home or get a tow truck. In the fog of adrenaline, I wasn't sure if I was hurt. I decided I should at least report the accident, just in case. They really needed the brine trucks out to treat this road before something worse happens to someone else. I dialed 911, and the operator wanted to know where I was. I couldn't remember the route number, even though I was only a few minutes away from the library. Strange. I always know what road I'm on. The library. I couldn't remember the name of the library. I couldn't remember the name of the town. Oh! and, Wow. Am I hurt? I don't know. Do I want an ambulance? I don't know. Can I get home? I don't know. What was the question again?
Then the headache came. That is, if you can call the sensation of your entire skull expanding to the point where it bursts through your face a "headache."
State troopers arrived before the ambulance, so they started taking some kind of report. I have no idea what I told them but it probably sounded something like, "I knew it was going to hurt so I hit the brakes and cut the wheel really hard and it worked." My head now splitting from the miners working inside my sinus cavity to bore a tunnel straight through my skull, I couldn't imagine what was coming next. Why, oh, why must that officer keep asking me questions I can't answer? How fast was I going? Crawling. Up the hill. Trying not to slide backwards. Then everything flattened out and in an instant the car was moving way, way, waaaay too fast. Didn't we already cover this?
When the firetruck got there with the EMTs right behind, the trooper reluctantly backed off. Someone put a brace on my neck as another person somehow maneuvered into the back seat to keep me still while all the hardware was attached. During this process, one of the EMTs came right up to me and called me by name--sort of. He was a parent who had attended my program! His greeting to me? "THIS wasn't in the books, Laura!" It was comforting to have a friendly face give me a reason to chuckle through the unbelievably painful process of being extracted from the car while immobilized with a neck collar and strapped on a backboard. Someone gave me a blanket. My car was absolutely stuffed. The seat couldn't be moved any further back due to a box wedged on the floor behind it, and they didn't want to bend my legs to move me forward, so it took forever to get me out of the car. Add to that the skating rink road surface, and it was quite the challenge to then transfer me into the ambulance.
As soon as I was in the ambulance, I had to talk the crew out of cutting my clothes off me, because I had made the mistake of telling them my legs felt numb. It was January, and I was outside in an ice storm. Of course I was numb. The collar kept my head completely immobilized, so all I could see was the ceiling. Maybe they can see something I can't. They thought I might have a spinal injury, or at least a broken something-or-other. They didn't want me to move at all. I closed my eyes and tried to think of music and prairies and kittens and warm Dakota winds.
As it turns out, I escaped the whole incident relatively unscathed, save for various bumps and bruises and a concussion that kept me feeling rather incoherent for weeks afterward. But, as I was being loaded into the ambulance, I suspect everyone on the scene must have thought I'd entirely lost my marbles, as I kept asking that they please, PLEASE make sure my car was locked. Some of my most prized possessions were in that car, and I didn't want to think of how arduous and expensive it would be to replace all the artifacts! Nevermind injuries. I wanted to check on my treasures! They must have thought I was completely, utterly, certifiably, cra-zy.
And that might just be due to the fact that I'm...
~4 Nuts about "Laura" artifacts. Really. Some chicks dig shoes or purses. I dig (and collect, and display) 150-year-old household items mentioned in the Little House books. And when I find a good one, I cherish it. Kind of like the way I cherish my chariot. Keep reading; I promise it will make sense eventually.
Throughout my brief stay in the hospital, and for the next few days while waiting to be well enough to venture to my friend J's mechanic shop to survey Gretyl and determine her fate, I wondered about one item in particular. The most fragile item in the lot--my oversized antique school slate with the handwriting-practice grooves on one side, which was packed in the wooden box closest to the point of impact--was a piece I stumbled upon almost providentially some years ago. In fact, I happened upon it a mere three days before my very first paid Meet Laura presentation. I caught sight of it and immediately new it was perfect for displaying while talking about Mary and how she learned to write to her sighted friends after she herself had gone blind. The grooved side makes for a wonderful tactile experience when visitors run their fingers over the surface, and to this day I have never seen its likeness anywhere else. Indeed, the day I found it, I was elated to have the chance to examine this mythical object I had read of but never seen in all my years of antique hunting and museum artifact study. A bargain at only $18, it was unquestionably coming home with me right that very minute. Now, because of the accident, I had to brace myself for the likelihood that my darling little grooved "Mary" slate had succumbed to the fury of the impact.
Absurd, given recent near-death experience, I know. But stay with me here...
...Thankful that I was alive and reasonably well, I told myself that it would have to be counted as something of a minor setback. Certainly nothing to fret over, just as I imagined a patient Caroline Ingalls would have said to soothe a foolish daughter who might be overreacting just a wee bit to an overall inconsequential loss after escaping a much more ominous threat. I reasoned with myself that, yes, it would be another disappointment added to an already stressful and unhappy situation, but I would just have to resolve to count my blessings that it was a slate that was shattered and not every bone in my body. Honestly, what was I bellyaching about? Cars and things can be replaced. Health and life are a bit more fragile and irreplaceable when lost. With that, I closed my eyes tightly as I lifted the trunk lid. Looking at the contents, it was clear how the boxes had been tossed violently into the sides of the trunk and each other. The vintage wooden Coca-Cola box. The one with the hand-grip openings and the hinged lid. That was the box the slate was in, rolled in layers of tiny bubble wrap and placed gingerly on top of various reference books and folders of worksheets for the kids. I placed one hand on top of it, and then the other, testing the bundle, trying to determine how bad the damage was. Nothing shifted as I began to lift the odd-shaped mass that I was certain would disintegrate as I painstakingly unwrapped it, layer by layer. When I got to the wooden frame, I gasped.
The slate was intact.
It actually had remained intact! It was all I could do to contain my joy and not immediately drop this precious thing on the concrete garage floor. What I was certain must have been crushed already was now in danger of slipping out of my astonished hands. My mechanic smirked at me, but his assistant Ken shushed him before he could make any wisecracks. While J is a good friend, and has been helping me nurse along my various overworked chariots for more than a decade, he has never entirely understood my nerdle ways. Ken, on the other hand, is a bit of a geek himself, and, having heard the story of the slate's significance shortly after I first acquired it, understood--he just instictively knew--why such a simple thing could make me so happy in the face of other, much more pressing, problems. You know, conundrums like, could Gretyl be saved, and just how much would the insurance company pay out on a ten-year-old car with 209,000 miles on her? I didn't care. At that moment, all I knew was that THE SLATE SURVIVED. And so would I, no matter what the news.
So, yes. The accident was frightening and the concussion painful. But not entirely a loss, and not entirely without some good things. I was able to work from home for a time. The headaches became somewhat managable (eventually). The insurance adjuster was kind. He was impressed with how clean and well-maintained Gretyl was. He admired how I had obviously kept her in good repair and clearly treated her with respect. The 209k on the odometer didn't trouble him. All the parts worked, and my presence of mind just before impact had prevented the airbags from deploying, which not only spared me further abrasions and possible eye and respiratory damage, but also kept most components in the engine compartment in good enough shape to be sold for parts. I actually ended up with a check for slightly more than I had paid for the car 21 months earlier.
It was hard, parting with this car that had been a companion to me on the longest roadtrip of my life. It was the prettiest, most well-appointed vehicle I'd ever owned, and I'd lost her to the elements while doing the very work that makes me happiest. But there was no choice.
As a complete vehicle, she was no longer safe, and could not really be made right. But as an organ donor of sorts, she would help many other proud, adventurous drivers get many thousands more miles of silly roadtrips out of their own Jettas. Perhaps some of those drivers were big ol' history geeks like me, with a yen for exploring country roads in out-of-the-way places. It was time to say goodbye. And I had to do it right.
I climbed into the driver's seat one more time, strapped myself in, turned the key and just sat there for a few minutes, radio tuned to the best station on the dial. I removed the CD from the stereo and took the last few personal items out of her compartments, making certain to take the owner's manual and registration paperwork with me. I patted Gretyl's dash and thought out loud what a great car she'd been and all the adventures we'd had in our short time together. I wished her well and stroked the steering wheel, beeping the horn just as I took the key out of her ignition one last time. A quick goodbye hug to the roof, door, and hood, with another, lingering pat to the trunk lid, and I turned away with salt in my eyes as I sent her to the Great Autobahn in the sky...knowing she'd done her best to protect me in a crisis and proud of her for it.
It seems silly and overly sentimental, I know. Anthropomorphism of a car. Perhaps a little ridiculous? Fine. But I appreciated Gretyl's sacrifice and wanted to be sure she knew it wasn't in vain. She handled that accident like a real trooper, throwing herself in the line of fire to spare another. It goes to show that we all have things to be thankful for, even if we might not notice it. It goes to show that even a native New Englander with over 750,000 miles of driving experience can end up in a perilous situation no matter. Most of all, it goes to show that Mother Nature simply ALWAYS has the upper hand, and we need to respect it. Just like Laura did.
Postscript to the story? All is well now, and I was able to find a suitable, and startlingly similar, replacement for Gretyl. Hansel is another 2002 Jetta 1.8T (but with a grippier manual transmission as opposed to his predecessor who sported the first--and possibly the last--automatic transmission I've ever owned!) and has already logged another 40k in less than a year...perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he also took me to South Dakota. And not once, but twice! July and November were big travel months, and I'd say my new-to-me little boy has stretched his legs amply enough to prove he's as road worthy as his sister was!
5~Meet Laura Ingalls Wilder/Dakota Yankee Research...and Presentations.
Well, yes. Meet Laura Ingalls Wilder, LLC is a growing enterprise, and my presentation schedule has been filling up steadily with increasing opportunities each year. Programs are nearly always, but not exclusively, about Laura Ingalls Wilder...her life, experiences, landscapes, work, family, ambitions, occupations, values, interests, and the world in which she functioned. I have been afforded the occasional opportunity to present on relevant but somewhat more tertiary subjects, and this is something I'm seeking to expand, that I might reach a wider audience.
Many people automatically assume that Laura=Kidstuff. They would be wrong, but they do it anyway. There are so many topics I enjoy exploring with groups, and I welcome the chance to do this with adults as well as children at any time. Some of these topics include antique books, household systems and statistics, and Victorian clothing. Others include social standards and customs, medical practices, education, and occupational opportunities across gender and economic lines. Because of this, I decided it was necessary to establish a second, sister-business to Meet Laura; one which features my other areas of study and which will open up possibilities for my work as it enhances the scope of my professional portfolio. Thus, in July 2011, after much contemplation and brainstorming over the course of my marathon trek through some 21 states, Dakota Yankee Research was born.
I am always interested in bringing people together to discuss American history, particularly the social and cultural aspects of such, whenever possible. While I challenge myself to relate everything to Laura in some way (even a tiny connection is intriguing), it is not mandatory that every discussion be relevant to the Ingalls and Wilder families. If you have a topic you want to explore that is within the realm of American culture and thought from Settlement to mid-20th Century, I'm game! Sister website will be unveiled this spring. Meanwhile, a new facebook page launches today: www.facebook.com/Dakota Yankee. Please join me in all sorts of geekery, pondering the wonders of American culture and values, practices, beliefs, inventions, customs, clothing (a particular favorite!) and the like.
And while we're on the subject, let's take a peek at our final topic of the day...
6~My short term research project. Currently I've been tracing the path of the Ingalls, Wilder, and associated families from first appearance in New England to the marriage of Laura and her Manly.
This is a project of daunting proportions when undertaken on the scale I seek to fulfill. I envision multiple volumes in the long term, but right now I am still in the early (year 3 of this project) stages. My focus for the time being is finding the extant evidence of the various branches of the family as they wended their way through New England, Canada, New York and into the West. This means making positive identifications of property owned, businesses operated, homes built, babies born, marriages performed, places of worship attended, contracts signed, civic and social organization/participation recorded, school boards represented, institutions dedicated, people memorialized and final resting places marked--you name it. If it is part of the family, it is part of the story.
And there will be much more posted about it here in the upcoming months.
I hope to have the first phase completed in time for presentation at the next LauraPalooza conference, slated for July 2015...location TBD.
While I am working on this, I will occasionally post tidbits, photos, fun facts, and various interesting findings, so check this space or my facebook page: www.facebook.com/meetlaura for details.
So, that's just about everything. Thanks for sticking with me through this catch-up exercise.
Bessie and Manly both have birthdays coming right up, so I have a special something planned for a celebration/commemoration of sorts in this spot, in the very near future.
If you have suggestions for topics you'd like me to discuss here, please leave a comment or email me: info@meetlauraingallswilder.com.
Later in September, it was north to Burke, NY and Almanzo Wilder Farm's Harvest Festival.
The profile picture you see on this blog was taken on the porch of the beautifully restored farmhouse where Almanzo and his siblings were born in the village of Burke, which is near Malone, along the Canadian border and within sight of the St. Lawrence River.
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| My 1891 Visiting Suit, with my pink "work and play" calico sunbonnet and reticule. I was repairing the poke bonnet I usually wear with this outfit (thus, not pictured) while relaxing one evening in New York and noticed the period furnishings at my temporary lodgings would make a cute photo. |
~3 U.S. Travel, Part (B). Which is the not-always-so-enjoyable-as-part-A-part. As fate would have it, in late January 2012, I managed to find almost the only ice storm to visit New England over an otherwise unseasonably warm and mild winter, which resulted in a mild concussion and a totaled VW. I was on my way back from a wonderful day of Mrs. Wilder visiting with the students and patrons at the Cavendish-Fletcher Library, which is located not far from the birth and burial towns of Laura's beloved Revered Edwin Alden.
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| Wearing the 1891 suit, plus a reproduction sontag (also called a "bosom's friend") while presenting a winter session on a chilly day at Cavendish-Fletcher Library. Blissfully ignorant of the ice storm, ER visit and Gretyl's last miles, all still to come, later that evening. |
After 3 presentations with many wonderfully engaged and enthusiastic participants, including children, librarians, parents, and teachers, I carefully packed my many treasures in their boxes and changed into street clothes. Before I could finish packing for the ride home, the gentle shower turned into sleet, and soon the storm dug in its heels and covered the entire region in a sheet of ice so treacherous I was wishing for skate blades instead of snowtires. Wincing at the thought of a 4-hour or longer trek home, but without any alternative, I bundled up and got behind the wheel. Dummy.
Four miles or so along the road, up a winding mountainside, I struggled to maintain enough traction to keep from sliding backwards. Unexpectedly, as I crested the hill, the road straightened out and leveled off all at once. Gretyl, propelled by the now-unnecessary force of the accelerator coupled with an automatic transmission is the wrong gear and absolutely no safe way to apply the brakes, was headed straight for a wall of granite.
I knew I had to steer but feared overcorrecting and careening down into the trees. So I took a chance at braking while turning the wheel HARD to my left, hoping to spare myself as much as possible by forcing the passenger tail to clip mountainside and, I hoped, the car would settle in the dirt shoulder. All I could think was, this is going to hurt.
I had to tell myself:
Don't be chicken...
DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO.
...NOW!
Miraculously, I was able to steer just enough to avoid the head-on collision, but the right rear quarter panel slammed violently into the rock surface and the car spun to a landing halfway in the road. I recognized immediately that I had to try to move the car a little to get out of the way of oncoming traffic, which would be heading on the decline and either slam right into me or veer into the steep, forested embankment on the other side, just as I had feared would happen to me a moment earlier. So, I got out and assessed the damage. Gretyl was still humming, lights on and everything, but I couldn't see much. Checking the tires, I found they were still straight and inflated, so I got back in and crept her over to a wider section of the shoulder.
I sat there, stunned, and not sure what to do. For a moment, I almost thought I might try to make it home. I couldn't see any damage except for the loose quarter panel and some of the plastic shrouding from the undercarriage was in the road. Another driver came along behind me, stopped to see if I was okay and then left. I still wasn't sure what to do, but contemplated the options. It was cold and wet and slippery as...well, you know. The road was essentially a skating rink. I considered whether I should keep heading home or get a tow truck. In the fog of adrenaline, I wasn't sure if I was hurt. I decided I should at least report the accident, just in case. They really needed the brine trucks out to treat this road before something worse happens to someone else. I dialed 911, and the operator wanted to know where I was. I couldn't remember the route number, even though I was only a few minutes away from the library. Strange. I always know what road I'm on. The library. I couldn't remember the name of the library. I couldn't remember the name of the town. Oh! and, Wow. Am I hurt? I don't know. Do I want an ambulance? I don't know. Can I get home? I don't know. What was the question again?
Then the headache came. That is, if you can call the sensation of your entire skull expanding to the point where it bursts through your face a "headache."
State troopers arrived before the ambulance, so they started taking some kind of report. I have no idea what I told them but it probably sounded something like, "I knew it was going to hurt so I hit the brakes and cut the wheel really hard and it worked." My head now splitting from the miners working inside my sinus cavity to bore a tunnel straight through my skull, I couldn't imagine what was coming next. Why, oh, why must that officer keep asking me questions I can't answer? How fast was I going? Crawling. Up the hill. Trying not to slide backwards. Then everything flattened out and in an instant the car was moving way, way, waaaay too fast. Didn't we already cover this?
When the firetruck got there with the EMTs right behind, the trooper reluctantly backed off. Someone put a brace on my neck as another person somehow maneuvered into the back seat to keep me still while all the hardware was attached. During this process, one of the EMTs came right up to me and called me by name--sort of. He was a parent who had attended my program! His greeting to me? "THIS wasn't in the books, Laura!" It was comforting to have a friendly face give me a reason to chuckle through the unbelievably painful process of being extracted from the car while immobilized with a neck collar and strapped on a backboard. Someone gave me a blanket. My car was absolutely stuffed. The seat couldn't be moved any further back due to a box wedged on the floor behind it, and they didn't want to bend my legs to move me forward, so it took forever to get me out of the car. Add to that the skating rink road surface, and it was quite the challenge to then transfer me into the ambulance.
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| I actually did try to take my mind off the pain by thinking of how sweet this little girl was, and how her Mama (long skirt in doorway) let her play with the kitties 'til her heart was content. |
As soon as I was in the ambulance, I had to talk the crew out of cutting my clothes off me, because I had made the mistake of telling them my legs felt numb. It was January, and I was outside in an ice storm. Of course I was numb. The collar kept my head completely immobilized, so all I could see was the ceiling. Maybe they can see something I can't. They thought I might have a spinal injury, or at least a broken something-or-other. They didn't want me to move at all. I closed my eyes and tried to think of music and prairies and kittens and warm Dakota winds.
As it turns out, I escaped the whole incident relatively unscathed, save for various bumps and bruises and a concussion that kept me feeling rather incoherent for weeks afterward. But, as I was being loaded into the ambulance, I suspect everyone on the scene must have thought I'd entirely lost my marbles, as I kept asking that they please, PLEASE make sure my car was locked. Some of my most prized possessions were in that car, and I didn't want to think of how arduous and expensive it would be to replace all the artifacts! Nevermind injuries. I wanted to check on my treasures! They must have thought I was completely, utterly, certifiably, cra-zy.
And that might just be due to the fact that I'm...
~4 Nuts about "Laura" artifacts. Really. Some chicks dig shoes or purses. I dig (and collect, and display) 150-year-old household items mentioned in the Little House books. And when I find a good one, I cherish it. Kind of like the way I cherish my chariot. Keep reading; I promise it will make sense eventually.
Throughout my brief stay in the hospital, and for the next few days while waiting to be well enough to venture to my friend J's mechanic shop to survey Gretyl and determine her fate, I wondered about one item in particular. The most fragile item in the lot--my oversized antique school slate with the handwriting-practice grooves on one side, which was packed in the wooden box closest to the point of impact--was a piece I stumbled upon almost providentially some years ago. In fact, I happened upon it a mere three days before my very first paid Meet Laura presentation. I caught sight of it and immediately new it was perfect for displaying while talking about Mary and how she learned to write to her sighted friends after she herself had gone blind. The grooved side makes for a wonderful tactile experience when visitors run their fingers over the surface, and to this day I have never seen its likeness anywhere else. Indeed, the day I found it, I was elated to have the chance to examine this mythical object I had read of but never seen in all my years of antique hunting and museum artifact study. A bargain at only $18, it was unquestionably coming home with me right that very minute. Now, because of the accident, I had to brace myself for the likelihood that my darling little grooved "Mary" slate had succumbed to the fury of the impact.
Absurd, given recent near-death experience, I know. But stay with me here...
The slate was intact.
It actually had remained intact! It was all I could do to contain my joy and not immediately drop this precious thing on the concrete garage floor. What I was certain must have been crushed already was now in danger of slipping out of my astonished hands. My mechanic smirked at me, but his assistant Ken shushed him before he could make any wisecracks. While J is a good friend, and has been helping me nurse along my various overworked chariots for more than a decade, he has never entirely understood my nerdle ways. Ken, on the other hand, is a bit of a geek himself, and, having heard the story of the slate's significance shortly after I first acquired it, understood--he just instictively knew--why such a simple thing could make me so happy in the face of other, much more pressing, problems. You know, conundrums like, could Gretyl be saved, and just how much would the insurance company pay out on a ten-year-old car with 209,000 miles on her? I didn't care. At that moment, all I knew was that THE SLATE SURVIVED. And so would I, no matter what the news.
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| Some of my favorite artifacts; nearly all of which, among others, were with me on the night of the accident. Pictured here, inside the wooden box, are several schoolbooks, from as early as 1828 (2nd from far left), as well as a copy of The Independent Fifth Reader (black spine w/gold embossed title, center), an 1894 edition of Emerson's Representative Men, and a book from the Ingalls Memorial Library. The black silk reticule with hand-painted roses (center), is the first prop I ever purposefully acquired for use in Meet Laura educational programs. |
So, yes. The accident was frightening and the concussion painful. But not entirely a loss, and not entirely without some good things. I was able to work from home for a time. The headaches became somewhat managable (eventually). The insurance adjuster was kind. He was impressed with how clean and well-maintained Gretyl was. He admired how I had obviously kept her in good repair and clearly treated her with respect. The 209k on the odometer didn't trouble him. All the parts worked, and my presence of mind just before impact had prevented the airbags from deploying, which not only spared me further abrasions and possible eye and respiratory damage, but also kept most components in the engine compartment in good enough shape to be sold for parts. I actually ended up with a check for slightly more than I had paid for the car 21 months earlier.
It was hard, parting with this car that had been a companion to me on the longest roadtrip of my life. It was the prettiest, most well-appointed vehicle I'd ever owned, and I'd lost her to the elements while doing the very work that makes me happiest. But there was no choice.
As a complete vehicle, she was no longer safe, and could not really be made right. But as an organ donor of sorts, she would help many other proud, adventurous drivers get many thousands more miles of silly roadtrips out of their own Jettas. Perhaps some of those drivers were big ol' history geeks like me, with a yen for exploring country roads in out-of-the-way places. It was time to say goodbye. And I had to do it right.
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| Gretyl waits patiently as I struggle to capture an image which will convey the sheer vastness. National Grasslands, South Dakota. |
I climbed into the driver's seat one more time, strapped myself in, turned the key and just sat there for a few minutes, radio tuned to the best station on the dial. I removed the CD from the stereo and took the last few personal items out of her compartments, making certain to take the owner's manual and registration paperwork with me. I patted Gretyl's dash and thought out loud what a great car she'd been and all the adventures we'd had in our short time together. I wished her well and stroked the steering wheel, beeping the horn just as I took the key out of her ignition one last time. A quick goodbye hug to the roof, door, and hood, with another, lingering pat to the trunk lid, and I turned away with salt in my eyes as I sent her to the Great Autobahn in the sky...knowing she'd done her best to protect me in a crisis and proud of her for it.
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| Touring Bessie's dream house, on the farm at Rocky Ridge, near Mansfield, Missouri. I'm proud to say that Gretyl took me here, as well as 8 other LIW sites. |
It seems silly and overly sentimental, I know. Anthropomorphism of a car. Perhaps a little ridiculous? Fine. But I appreciated Gretyl's sacrifice and wanted to be sure she knew it wasn't in vain. She handled that accident like a real trooper, throwing herself in the line of fire to spare another. It goes to show that we all have things to be thankful for, even if we might not notice it. It goes to show that even a native New Englander with over 750,000 miles of driving experience can end up in a perilous situation no matter. Most of all, it goes to show that Mother Nature simply ALWAYS has the upper hand, and we need to respect it. Just like Laura did.
Postscript to the story? All is well now, and I was able to find a suitable, and startlingly similar, replacement for Gretyl. Hansel is another 2002 Jetta 1.8T (but with a grippier manual transmission as opposed to his predecessor who sported the first--and possibly the last--automatic transmission I've ever owned!) and has already logged another 40k in less than a year...perhaps it has something to do with the fact that he also took me to South Dakota. And not once, but twice! July and November were big travel months, and I'd say my new-to-me little boy has stretched his legs amply enough to prove he's as road worthy as his sister was!
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| Dontcha wish your (wagon) was hot like me? ...Another bumper sticker I designed to fund my research. |
5~Meet Laura Ingalls Wilder/Dakota Yankee Research...and Presentations.
What, there's more?
Well, yes. Meet Laura Ingalls Wilder, LLC is a growing enterprise, and my presentation schedule has been filling up steadily with increasing opportunities each year. Programs are nearly always, but not exclusively, about Laura Ingalls Wilder...her life, experiences, landscapes, work, family, ambitions, occupations, values, interests, and the world in which she functioned. I have been afforded the occasional opportunity to present on relevant but somewhat more tertiary subjects, and this is something I'm seeking to expand, that I might reach a wider audience.
Many people automatically assume that Laura=Kidstuff. They would be wrong, but they do it anyway. There are so many topics I enjoy exploring with groups, and I welcome the chance to do this with adults as well as children at any time. Some of these topics include antique books, household systems and statistics, and Victorian clothing. Others include social standards and customs, medical practices, education, and occupational opportunities across gender and economic lines. Because of this, I decided it was necessary to establish a second, sister-business to Meet Laura; one which features my other areas of study and which will open up possibilities for my work as it enhances the scope of my professional portfolio. Thus, in July 2011, after much contemplation and brainstorming over the course of my marathon trek through some 21 states, Dakota Yankee Research was born.
I am always interested in bringing people together to discuss American history, particularly the social and cultural aspects of such, whenever possible. While I challenge myself to relate everything to Laura in some way (even a tiny connection is intriguing), it is not mandatory that every discussion be relevant to the Ingalls and Wilder families. If you have a topic you want to explore that is within the realm of American culture and thought from Settlement to mid-20th Century, I'm game! Sister website will be unveiled this spring. Meanwhile, a new facebook page launches today: www.facebook.com/Dakota Yankee. Please join me in all sorts of geekery, pondering the wonders of American culture and values, practices, beliefs, inventions, customs, clothing (a particular favorite!) and the like.
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| This blue summer print is a pigeon-breasted 1895 suit with a modified sleeve. Mutton sleeves were almost at the pinnacle of grandeur at this time, but Laura, ever our practical gal, would likely have preferred something a bit less fussy than the high fashion. In that spirit, the sleeve is puffed but not overdone, but the classic 1890s "S-" shape is absolutely in evidence. |
And while we're on the subject, let's take a peek at our final topic of the day...
6~My short term research project. Currently I've been tracing the path of the Ingalls, Wilder, and associated families from first appearance in New England to the marriage of Laura and her Manly.
This is a project of daunting proportions when undertaken on the scale I seek to fulfill. I envision multiple volumes in the long term, but right now I am still in the early (year 3 of this project) stages. My focus for the time being is finding the extant evidence of the various branches of the family as they wended their way through New England, Canada, New York and into the West. This means making positive identifications of property owned, businesses operated, homes built, babies born, marriages performed, places of worship attended, contracts signed, civic and social organization/participation recorded, school boards represented, institutions dedicated, people memorialized and final resting places marked--you name it. If it is part of the family, it is part of the story.
And there will be much more posted about it here in the upcoming months.
I hope to have the first phase completed in time for presentation at the next LauraPalooza conference, slated for July 2015...location TBD.
So, that's just about everything. Thanks for sticking with me through this catch-up exercise.
Bessie and Manly both have birthdays coming right up, so I have a special something planned for a celebration/commemoration of sorts in this spot, in the very near future.
If you have suggestions for topics you'd like me to discuss here, please leave a comment or email me: info@meetlauraingallswilder.com.
