Today was our last little house site of the trip.
Rocky Ridge Farm is the farm Laura and Amanzo bought when they moved from De Smet, ND to Mansfield, MO when their daughter, Rose, was 7. They lived here for the rest of their lives.
Today was Wilder Day, so it was a lot more crowded than any of the other sites have been. As I suspected, the museum here has most of the actual things that exist from her life. Unfortunately, they don't allow pictures inside the museum. So I'll just tell you about the things I was most excited about lol.
Pa's fiddle, obviously!!!! After all the entire point of our timing ever since Labor day has been based on being here TODAY to hear the fiddle!
Ma's pearl handled pen.
The lace that Ida Brown slipped into Laura's hand as a wedding present.
The little china box Laura got off the Christmas tree on Walnut Grove.
Also was fun to learn that Rose shared my love of BIG coffee cups and see a couple of hers.
After the museum we went up to the farm house to tour it.
When they first bought the farm there was a one room cabin. They lived there the first winter then added a second room. The following spring they moved to new room to it's current location and added a second room and an attic bedroom. That became the first phase of this farmhouse.
Again, no photos were allowed inside. The original 2 rooms eventually became the kitchen, with counters built extra low so they were easy for 4 ft 11 in. (or 5ft depending what you read) Laura. And a dining room with built in storage and a pass thru window from the kitchen. Later they added a bedroom, music room, and parlor with a very cool library nook to the main floor and a proper staircase and another bedroom upstairs.
After we toured the farm house a shuttle took us to the rock house.
After Rose was grown and successful she purchased a house plan or kit (depending who you ask lol) from the Sears catalog. She had the rock house built for her parents because she thought they needed a more modern house.
Again, no pictures allowed inside. It's a cute little house. Love the big living room windows and there are great built in shelves and wall niches throughout. After about 7 years Laura and Almanzo moved back to the farm house because this house didn't feel like home. I can't say that I blame them. The farmhouse has a bigger, nicer kitchen and the awesome library nook. And while they were living in the rock house Rose lived in the farm house and added a bathroom on so now it had indoor plumbing too. They spent the rest of their lives in the farm house. They used the rock house as a rental for awhile then sold it.
(Random picture of Little Bit)
Next we took the shuttle into town where there were street vendors and other festivities going on. Nothing too exciting . . .we did go to the town historic society museum. Saw a few more of Laura's things there, again no pictures allowed. As Ashlyn pointed out, while I totally understand no flash, the Smithsonian allows pictures why do all these little museum think they're more important? I especially found it absurd at the historic society where they provided free coffee that you could drink while wandering through the exhibits. So obviously the no pictures rule wasn't to keep from damaging historic items. Anyway . . . Lexie ended up talking to a lady whose parents knew the Wilders. Her mother worked at the bank. Said Laura took care of all their financed. And her father did some electrical work for them. Said Laura tried to tell him how to do the wiring and he said later that if he'd done what she said it would have caused a fire.
After lunch we went back to the farm house to see Pa's fiddle played! The man who played it said it was what was known as a seed fiddle because Pa won it for buying enough seed. Another site we were at, I don't remember which, said nobody knows where Pa got his fiddle, so nice to hear at least one theory lol. Obviously it wasn't a very fancy fiddle but it's held up well. He said the only thing they've changed is putting new tuning keys on it. I assume they've also replaced the strings, probably multiple times.
I also took a video of him playing but the app I'm using won't let me add a video so I'll do it as a separate post straight in blogger.
After he played Pa's fiddle they had the final part of the fiddle-off that had been going on all day. That was fun to watch.
And thus ends our Little House tour. The one major site we didn't go to was the Wilder home in NY. We're hoping to hit it during another trip to Boston and/or PEI.
In the morning we'll start heading north east with stops along the way.
Rocky Ridge Farm is the farm Laura and Amanzo bought when they moved from De Smet, ND to Mansfield, MO when their daughter, Rose, was 7. They lived here for the rest of their lives.
Today was Wilder Day, so it was a lot more crowded than any of the other sites have been. As I suspected, the museum here has most of the actual things that exist from her life. Unfortunately, they don't allow pictures inside the museum. So I'll just tell you about the things I was most excited about lol.
Pa's fiddle, obviously!!!! After all the entire point of our timing ever since Labor day has been based on being here TODAY to hear the fiddle!
Ma's pearl handled pen.
The lace that Ida Brown slipped into Laura's hand as a wedding present.
The little china box Laura got off the Christmas tree on Walnut Grove.
Also was fun to learn that Rose shared my love of BIG coffee cups and see a couple of hers.
After the museum we went up to the farm house to tour it.
When they first bought the farm there was a one room cabin. They lived there the first winter then added a second room. The following spring they moved to new room to it's current location and added a second room and an attic bedroom. That became the first phase of this farmhouse.
Again, no photos were allowed inside. The original 2 rooms eventually became the kitchen, with counters built extra low so they were easy for 4 ft 11 in. (or 5ft depending what you read) Laura. And a dining room with built in storage and a pass thru window from the kitchen. Later they added a bedroom, music room, and parlor with a very cool library nook to the main floor and a proper staircase and another bedroom upstairs.
After we toured the farm house a shuttle took us to the rock house.
After Rose was grown and successful she purchased a house plan or kit (depending who you ask lol) from the Sears catalog. She had the rock house built for her parents because she thought they needed a more modern house.
Again, no pictures allowed inside. It's a cute little house. Love the big living room windows and there are great built in shelves and wall niches throughout. After about 7 years Laura and Almanzo moved back to the farm house because this house didn't feel like home. I can't say that I blame them. The farmhouse has a bigger, nicer kitchen and the awesome library nook. And while they were living in the rock house Rose lived in the farm house and added a bathroom on so now it had indoor plumbing too. They spent the rest of their lives in the farm house. They used the rock house as a rental for awhile then sold it.
(Random picture of Little Bit)
Next we took the shuttle into town where there were street vendors and other festivities going on. Nothing too exciting . . .we did go to the town historic society museum. Saw a few more of Laura's things there, again no pictures allowed. As Ashlyn pointed out, while I totally understand no flash, the Smithsonian allows pictures why do all these little museum think they're more important? I especially found it absurd at the historic society where they provided free coffee that you could drink while wandering through the exhibits. So obviously the no pictures rule wasn't to keep from damaging historic items. Anyway . . . Lexie ended up talking to a lady whose parents knew the Wilders. Her mother worked at the bank. Said Laura took care of all their financed. And her father did some electrical work for them. Said Laura tried to tell him how to do the wiring and he said later that if he'd done what she said it would have caused a fire.
After lunch we went back to the farm house to see Pa's fiddle played! The man who played it said it was what was known as a seed fiddle because Pa won it for buying enough seed. Another site we were at, I don't remember which, said nobody knows where Pa got his fiddle, so nice to hear at least one theory lol. Obviously it wasn't a very fancy fiddle but it's held up well. He said the only thing they've changed is putting new tuning keys on it. I assume they've also replaced the strings, probably multiple times.
I also took a video of him playing but the app I'm using won't let me add a video so I'll do it as a separate post straight in blogger.
After he played Pa's fiddle they had the final part of the fiddle-off that had been going on all day. That was fun to watch.
And thus ends our Little House tour. The one major site we didn't go to was the Wilder home in NY. We're hoping to hit it during another trip to Boston and/or PEI.
In the morning we'll start heading north east with stops along the way.
posted from Bloggeroid
No comments:
Post a Comment