Finally Coming “Home” to Rocky Ridge Farm-A Laura Ingalls Wilder Fan in Mansfield, Missouri
Written: Oct 30 '04 (Updated Dec 22 '06)
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The Bottom Line: Get to know the woman who wrote the Little House books and see how the pioneers in the late 19th century lived.
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| AliventiAsylum's Full Review: Laura Ingalls Wilder Home & Museum |
I’ve been a fan of the Little House books since I was about eight years old. I’d read each of them countless times. I’d been trying to talk my parents into taking me to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home in Mansfield, Missouri ever since I knew it existed. (Laura was the author of the original series of nine books plus a diary and collection of letters published later on). Finally, after all these years, I managed to visit a place that seemed to call to me throughout the years. Since it is such a special place, and visiting it was so important to me, I chose it as the subject of my 700th review for the site.
LOCATION
Rocky Ridge Farm, as Laura’s home is known as, is located in the small town of Mansfield, Missouri. This is located about 45 miles east of Springfield, Missouri. Coming from Springfield, you can take Route 60 east to Mansfield, then follow Business Route 60 south to Highway A. Rocky Ridge Farm is located right on Highway A.
If you are coming from the east (St. Louis) like we were, you can take Interstate 44 east to exit 129 for Highway 5 south. It’s about 40 miles until you arrive in Mansfield, all on country roads. Once you arrive in Mansfield, look for Business Route 60 south and take it to Highway A east, where you’ll find Rocky Ridge Farm.
The parking lot is across the street from the house and museum complex. There are restrooms in the parking lot.
PRICES & HOURS
The admission price includes the museum and a tour of the house where Laura lived for the bulk of her life, as well as a stone house on the other side of a hill from the main complex. Adults age 19 and over pay $8.00 admission. Seniors (65 & over) pay $6.00 admission. Students (ages 6 thru 18) pay $4.00 admission. Children under 6 are free.
The hours of operation are from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Saturday from March until November. Sundays the museum is open from 12:30 PM until 5:30 PM. During the months of June, July, and August the museum stays open until 5:30 PM. From November until March, it’s closed.
WHAT TO SEE
Where we purchased the tickets was also the museum. Here there is a good collection of artifacts. Some of them actually belonged to Rose (Laura’s daughter), Laura herself, or one of Laura’s relatives. Many artifacts are remnants of a time gone by collected here to give a sense of what Laura described in her books. Some of her original manuscripts are also here, preserved under glass. Pa’s famous fiddle is here and taken out once a year during the Rocky Ridge Farm Days Festivaland played.
I enjoyed reading some of the articles which Rose had written. Rose Wilder Lane was an
anomaly in her time; divorced and independent, she traveled the world as a war correspondent from the early 1900’s until her death in 1969. Some of her last writings were as a correspondent in Viet Nam during that war.
The tour is a guided one. We were taken into another building where a short video was shown as a re-enactment giving the history of the buildings at Rocky Ridge Farm. If you’ve ever read her novel On The Way Home, you’ll know the story of the family of Laura, Almanzo, and Rose from DeSmet, South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri. They arrived here with one hundred dollars and all their worldly possessions in a small wagon and had to build a life here virtually from scratch.
Next we were taken into the house. Nothing is supposed to be touched as great care has been taken in trying to preserve the furnishings for future generations to see. The house is small, and I just don’t mean size-wise. I had always heard Laura was a tiny woman, but I didn’t realize how tiny until we were in the house. She stood just four feet, eleven inches tall and Almanzo was about 5 feet six inches tall. The house shows it as everything is much lower than the “standard” sized we have become used to in pre-fab America. Everything was handmade, mostly by Almanzo, and all of this was after he had suffered a stroke back when they were living in South Dakota! They are truly an inspiring testimony to the pioneering spirit.
We visited the gift shop which had quite a selection of Laura’s books, plus all of the books which have been off-shoots of her original novels. I picked up two books here about Laura and Rose which I hadn’t seen before. I also picked up a beautiful blanket depicting all of Laura’s “Little Houses” which now sits on my couch at home.
We walked back to our car and drove about a quarter-mile further down Highway A to the turn-off for the stone house. This is a house which Rose built for her family at a cost of over $100,000 in the 1920’s! The idea was that it would make their lives easier, but Laura and Almanzo only lived here a few years before returning “home” to the white clapboard house on the other side of the hill. The house has only been purchased by the museum in recent years and is still undergoing renovation.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I am so happy we visited Rocky Ridge Farm. It truly felt like I was coming home to something that had been a part of my life all these years. I loved seeing things like Pa’s fiddle and the writing desk where Laura wrote her novels out, all in long-hand on pads of paper.
On the third Saturday in September each year is the festival in Mansfield and at the farm. Laura, Almanzo and Rose are buried in the cemetery in Mansfield and you can visit their graves. If you’re a fan of the Little House books (not the television series which I only just about tolerated because of the liberties it took with her story), seeing parts of her life which she talked about in her book left me feeling like I was somehow closer to her and to understanding what that life was like.
Rocky Ridge Farm kept us occupied for about 2 hours. All of the staff were very friendly and chatted with us about various things, including how the people in the surrounding area who knew Laura (she passed away in 1957) were growing less and less by the year. Laura was known for talking to schoolchildren and touring the libraries in the area to talk to people. These interesting pieces of information humanized the older Laura Ingalls Wilder to me the same way her novels humanized her to me as a child.
Website for Rocky Ridge Farm & Museum: http://www.lauraingallswilderhome.com/main.htm
A good website for information on Laura Ingalls Wilder: http://webpages.marshall.edu/~irby1/laura.htmlx
A great place to eat not too far away from here:
Lambert's Cafe
Another place to visit not too far away:
Fantastic Caverns
Do not stay here in Springfield, Missouri: Comfort Suites - Springfield, Missouri
My reviews of the books in the Little House series:
Little House in the Big Woods ~ Farmer Boy ~ Little House on the Prairie ~ On The Banks of Plum Creek ~ By The Shores of Silver Lake ~ The Long Winter ~ Little Town on the Prairie ~ These Happy Golden Years ~ The First Four Years
On The Way Home ~ West From Home ~ Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Donald Zochert ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder Country by William Anderson ~ Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder by John Miller ~ The Ghost in the Little House by William Holtz
© 2004 Patti Aliventi
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Patti Aliventi
Location: Mount Washington Valley, New Hampshire
Reviews written: 2075
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Now writing reviews to pay for the "out of network" costs of our health insurance...
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