I am not a writer, except in my heart.  If I could just tap into a little organization, maybe I could write a scholarly treatise on Laura Ingalls Wilder that would astound the Laura world.  Beginning a few years ago, I became obsessed with becoming a LIW scholar.  The thing is, though I am not adept enough yet to write about her, I read Laura forums avidly and comment occasionally.  I subscribe to a Laura publication called "The Homesteader," and long to attend Laurapalooza (this is a real thing). I've observed one very important point in all this: there are only a few of us obsessed ones.  For example, the same people routinely blog about her on "Beyond Little House.com," the most popular web site.  And guess what, these aren't just random obsessed Laura people.  These are her latest scholars, which makes their readership and commentary about her life that much more important.  Recent authors, such as Erin Blakemore, Wendy McClure, and Kathleen Kelly Fergusen, who in the past two years have published books about LIW, routinely comment on the site, and are the leading contributors to Laura "read-alongs" (more on that later), and all things Laura.  It is like living out my obsession with total strangers who are not total strangers really at all.  Simply because we've never met doesn't mean much.  Afterall, none of us ever met Laura, either, and yet we all seem to know her pretty well. 

Though I can't remember exactly when my love of her childhood books turned into something more serious, I can remember exactly what it was.  In my hunger for finding out more about her, I found literally dozens of biographies and informational books about her at my local library.  And what's more, I found quite a few writers who had had this same hunger for Laura, and went about satiating it in roughly the same pattern:  Obsession - Frantic Reading of everything ever published about her - Awakening/Understanding of her effect on pioneer history, women, love, faith, life -  and ultimately, writing a book about their own journey to find themselves through her.  This journey almost always acompanied a physical journey from each of her home sites (and there were many), where gift shops, reenactments of her life, and reconstructed buildings shed more light on who this Laura woman actually was. 

In following this pattern myself, I stumbled across a compilation of articles Laura had written herself in her forties - twenty years before she ever wrote her first Little House book - and found that she was a farm journalist for The Missouri Rouralist, in her hometown of Mansfield Missouri (where she and her husband, Manly, eventually carved out there married life).  I couldn't believe my eyes as I read these articles!  Her monthly contribution was entitled "As a Farm Woman Thinks" and included farming advice, for sure, but also very deep and moving thoughts about the value of thrift and simplicity in a world fast becoming modern.  She wrote about her thoughts on war at hand, political theory, and her non-liberal feminist views.  Here was the adult version of the fascinating girl I had read about as a child!  It was here that my literary interest in her became mature. 

Also, imagine my further surprise, when, a few weeks later, I learned that the Little House series was full of fiction, and was not actually the way things actually were.  The close-knit family ties were real, as well as the poverty and hard times, but Laura left out the death of her baby brother, and a subsequent very unhappy venture to Iowa, both of which were too sad, according to Laura, to put in a children's book.  Once I got over the shock of these two omissions in particular and got to know Laura via biography, they hardly mattered anymore.  Nothing had changed in my view of the books, and Laura was probably right to leave certain things out.

What I need to do is not write a scholarly treatise (at least not until I pursue my Masters in English, anyway) but explore my own "Laura World."  I have explored in depth my inner Laura world, but I need to do the Laura pilgrimage - geographically speaking - and visit all of her home sites.  Sometimes I have read what authors wrote about her and been disappointed, or thought to myself, "you've got it all wrong!"  But the only way to know is to go there myself.

Anyone want to join?