Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) was a well-known traveler, writer, and Renaissance woman of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Laura, referred to in West from Home, is referred to by her nickname in the Wilder family, Mama Bess so as not to be confused with Almanzo's sister Laura.

Bess was born in the log cabin around Pepin, Wisconsin in 1867. The family eventually up rooted and traveled across Minnesota in Kansas by covered wagon. The family eventually settled in the Dakota Territory.

The travels and adventures of the Ingalls family are well known due to nine books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The first of those books, "Little House in the Big Woods," was published in 1932. Since that time, the adventures of the Ingalls family have been immortalized through books and several television series.

Bess began to teach school at age fifteen. Three years later, at...