We went to De Smet today. If you know me at all, you will understand
what this means to me … and that there will be many, many pictures. I half jokingly say that answers to all of
life’s problems can be found in either the Bible or Little House books. I keep them all close at hand. This “little town” in South Dakota was the final
settling place of Ma and Pa Ingalls and family.
It is the setting for “The Long Winter”,
“Little Town on the Prairie” and “These Happy Golden Years.” It is where Almanzo courted Laura and they
married and lived for a while. It is
probably the biggest of the “Little House” tourist sites.
We drove about 45 minutes to get
here and went straight to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society
center. We were just in time for the
9:30 tour. This included the Surveyor’s
house where the Ingalls first lived when they got here (original house,
different locale), the school that Carrie and Laura attended (currently being
restored in a new locale) and a replica of the Brewster school where Laura
first taught. Oh – we also drove over to
Ma and Pa’s house in town that Pa built and they moved into after Laura married
and moved out. I think they were done
with farming. I couldn’t take pictures
inside the houses, but could in the schools.
They had hands on activities in
every place we toured. There was dill to
smell, a clothes ringer to try, a sewing card to practice on and irons to
change out the handles on in the surveyor’s house. There was hay to twist and wheat to grind in
the schoolhouse. There was also a desk
that the girls were asked to “keep on rocking!”
In the Brewster school they got to sit in the desks and had chalk slates
to write on. At the final house they
could look at stereoscopes, play the fiddle and make a bead bracelet.
We finished all this around noon
and ate lunch back at the camper (parked perfectly level in the LIWMS parking
lot!). Then the girls played in the
Discovery Center until we made them leave.
They loved it. There was dress
up, school desks, chalkboards, primers, a sewing machine, braille lessons, etc… It was a little piece of heaven for them!
We went back to the gift shop and
to the little museum exhibit in the back.
This had one case for each book with personal items relating to each of
the books and their unique stories.
There were also two cases of Garth Williams original artwork for the
books.
After we completed our historical
tour, we drove down Main Street and stopped at the Loftus Store. I believe this is the original site and
building (I could be wrong about that) of the store owned by Mr. Loftus who
purchased the wheat that Almanzo and Cap risked their lives to bring back
during The Long Winter. Mr. Loftus then
sold it to the townspeople.
Next we drove over to the cemetery
to find the Ingalls’ graves. This seemed
a little morbid to me, but at the same time, I feel like they are family so it
didn’t seem too intrusive. Besides, I
wanted to say thanks.
Then we had a little
adventure. We drove out to the homestead
site about a mile south of town. They
have a campground there, but they also have a pioneer experience sort of thing
that costs $10 a person. It’s mostly
stuff the girls have done before. I’m
sure it would have been fun, but it wasn’t directly related to the Ingalls and
the house tours had cost $30 plus $30 for camping fees. We can’t drop $90 a day on touristy
stuff. It was going to be too hard to be
camped on that little hill overlooking all the fun stuff we couldn’t do. The lady there told us the city park
campground was $9. Seriously? We headed back to town. This campground is funny. I think there are 5 electrical hookup spots,
no water, but they have decent bathrooms with a shower. We also discovered they have free public
wi-fi! The campsites are right along the
side of the road. The park is pretty and
has a huge playground that the girls played on for most of the afternoon and
evening. I really like the variety of
the places and campgrounds we stay in.
Keeps life interesting.
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