Little House on the (Urban) Prairie

"A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.
She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her women servants." - Psalm 31:10, 15

I've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's books in the hope that I will learn both to appreciate domestic life and pick up some tips along the way about how to run a house. I was surprised to discover that even Laura got discouraged about housekeeping. Writing about when she was pregnant with her second child, she lamented, "There was so much to be done and only [Laura] to do it. She hated the farm and the stock and the smelly lambs, the cooking of food and the dirty dishes. Oh, she hated it all, and especially the debts that must be paid whether she could work or not." I was surprised by the break in Laura's consistently positive attitude through all the ups and downs of she and Manly's first years of marriage. I found her brief complaint reassuring, though. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder had some bad days!

Source: modernpioneermom.com

Ma's tireless work to maintain a home first in The Big Woods and then on The Prairie, though, have really inspired me. She started the day by making breakfast before daylight, worked all day, and then sat and stitched or mended by firelight while Pa played his fiddle. This was a woman who knew how to work! Her are some things I've picked up from Ma:

1. Seasons matter. It seems that the Ingalls always knew what the changing weather meant for their lives. During a late snow one year, Pa said, "It's sugar snow!" Laura had never heard of sugar snow. It turned out that Laura's grandpa had tapped the maple trees for their sap, which would be made into syrup and brown sugar. A late snow meant that the trees would bud late and thus the sap would run longer. Laura's whole family came together to process the extra syrup and divide it up among themselves. The day's work ended with a dance with all the neighbors to celebrate and share the bounty. What a different perspective on late snowfall!

Another time, Pa harvested the oats. He cut the heads off some of the stems and gave the long straws to Ma. She carefully sorted the straw and wove the thinnest straw into hats for Laura and Mary, the thicker straw into hats for herself and Pa, and the thickest, roughest straw into work hats for Pa.

I really like the idea of ordering life by the seasons--by planting and harvest time and even by unexpected snows. How much stress to we put on ourselves by fighting the weather? When snow comes, we get up before daylight and go out with our salt and our shovels to take on the snowy obstacles keeping us from the things we "have" to do. We eat fresh produce all year round, paying no attention to when plants produce their fruit. If we want a straw hat, we go buy one. We establish routines that don't change for the weather, for the seasons, or for the unexpected.

2. Beauty matters. Ma always wanted everything to be pretty. She had a china doll that she carried wherever they traveled and set carefully on a shelf or mantel. She shredded carrots to use carrot juice to make her butter a nice, soft yellow. Although Laura may not have been as enthusiastic about housework as her mother was, she always wrote very lovingly of all the details that made both her childhood home and her married home beautiful. That careful attention to detail and to beauty is what makes a house a home, what makes a space welcoming and inviting.

3. There's a reason it's called "homemaking," not "home-doing." Both Ma and Pa were always making things. Pa built Ma a beautiful rocking chair. Ma made Pa, Mary, and Laura nice clothes and quilts. Pa plowed and planted fields. Ma tended the garden.

In our consumer-driven society, I am beginning to understand Pinterest's unending pages of DIY projects. People were meant to create things, not merely consume them. Managing a house is not just about cleaning dirty dishes and clothes day after day. It's about creating--creating welcoming spaces, creating order out of chaos, creating nutritious food, creating routines, creating unique items for family members. I've been thinking a lot about what I might be able to create, and so many things--like clothes, food, household items, furniture--are so much easier to buy now than they were in Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood days. Creating things I don't know how to make when I can buy them in the store seems like an exercise in futility, especially when I'm not very crafty or decorative. However, I can write. Creating a record of thoughts and memories that I can share with others and revisit in the future is an act of creation that I can engage in now. And I am slowly learning to create other things and will continue to learn in the future.


I've only finished Laura Ingalls Wilder's first two books (and skipped ahead to read the last one which was published much later). I am looking forward to continuing to learn about life in the Ingalls household. I am especially interested in Ma's character. She seems very steady and hardworking, both traits that I could use more of in my own life. She has inspired me over the past few weeks to work harder and more intentionally to run our household.

Source: Nazarene Theological Seminary

I was thinking of Ma this morning when I got up at four o'clock (while it was still night) to put soup in the crockpot for a community lunch at the seminary today!