Renee Graef to speak at Hoover Presidential Library

Late breaking news. The Hoover Library is hosting a special Laura Ingalls Wilder event featuring illustrator Renee Graef. Graef will be at the Hoover Library Oct. 24th. She will present to school children from 10-11:30 and speak at a special lunch in the Hoover library from 12:00 to 1:30. The luncheon cost $20 a person. To make reservations contact Mary Evans at 319-643-6031. I’m not sure if they still accepting schools or not, but the luncheon information just came out.

Renee’s presentation will guide students through the creative process of illustrating a children’s book. Included will be an introduction to the Wilder papers at the Hoover Library, Graef will draw for students, and fiddler Keith Haworth will play 19th century music.

Belle Mansfield Update

Belle Mansfield Update This is located near the corner of North Broad and North Broadway.

Belle Mansfield Full Statue

Here is the the full image of Belle Mansfield. It’s in the center of the green space at the college. They didn’t provide a place for people to pull over and park so that you could easily visit it.  There are all different panels in the cement around the statue so you can read the whole story. Thanks to my Mom who kindly drove around the block while I took these photos. I must say although the directions are nonexistent, everyone we asked in town knew about it and directed us to them.

Belle Mansfield Close Up

I would like to see a statue like this to Laura Ingalls Wilder somewhere. It’s really a very nice statue.

Pepin Laura Days 2

It continued to rain and I ducked into the Train Depot Museum. Nothing new there, but if you haven’t visited before they have a couple of good Laura letters on display. They are also located next to the larger set of real public bathrooms located in the park. So use the Depot as a marker to find them on your first visit. The kids hands on crafts and activities are based out of the picnic shelter at the top of the hill behind the Depot.

Kids Crafts at Pepin

They had corncob dolls, paper hats, strings of paper dolls, etc. I got some popcorn and a hot dog (one of the snappy kind in real cases, at both stands FYI) for lunch. Then I passed by the blue barrel kids train and the Laura’s Vittle House (which fundraises for the event – ear corn, 1/2 chickens, and snappy hot dogs).

Laura

The Little Miss Laura Contest and later the fiddle contest is on the stage and the guided tour (another thing I had to cut for time constraints so I don’t know if Mike Gleue was doing it again this year) loads directly behind the stage.

My next stop was the Little House Store in Lund. They always have a few things you won’t see anywhere else. This year’s find was a color it yourself poster of the Wilder hack on the way to Mansfield, very cool. You get to the store by going to the birthplace cottage then driving past it. The road Ts, you turn left and go a little further (roughly 2 miles total past the cabin) and there it is on your left. I stopped in the cabin on the way back where the Plum Creek Quilt Group hosts a quilt display in the birthplace and a hands on 4 block sewing project for kids. Back in town, I stopped by the Pepin Arts Center http://www.pepinartdesign.org to see Midge Bolt’s Around Pepin County display that consisted with images from the late 19th century around town floating on a film, looking like ghosts to current images taken in the same place so they merge perfectly. It was great and if I had an extra $375 at least one would have come home with me. My favorites were of a woman on the Stockholm pier and the Pepin Depot where it originally sat. If you are by Pepin this month, take a look.

I ate supper with the reinactors. The rain forced them to cancel their candlight demonstration and bonfire, but they had the traditional music group perform over on the stage. (Sadly they didn’t know Old Dan Tucker, I asked.) I finally went back to my room and was glad to have a whirlpool tub to warm up in, next year I won’t so I hope the weather is better.

Sunday morning Pepin gets a late start. I walked around the Laura Days grounds and everything was still shut down. I had breakfast at the Homemade Cafe which was really good, but only open for breakfast and lunch. Then said goodbye to Kitty and checked out. I stopped by the Pepin Museum, still closed at 9 and found the perfect place to take a photo next year. This year it was cloudy and rainy all the time, so I didn’t take many exterior shots. I hope you’ve enjoyed these and that I see you at Laura Days in Pepin next year.

Pepin Laura Days

Unfortuanately, Mansfield and Pepin now have their Laura Days on the same weekend and since it’s roughly 14 hours of driving between them, you can do one or the other, but not both. I’ve spoken for the last 3 years at the Pepin Public Library during the event and I think it’s a good choice, you can’t listen to Pa’s original fiddle, but you can listen to a primo traditional fiddle contest and hear some great fiddle music.

Sandra Hume, editor of the Homesteader, was in Pepin on Saturday and she reinforced for me just how much of the Pepin Laura Days is family friendly and a great place for little Laura fans and their siblings.

I had already given up on was my boat ride on Lake Pepin. As I mostly want to go to take pictures and the forecast was for clouds and rain, I had given up on that early in the week. It’s on my list for next year and if you are interested I was looking at: http://www.wecoachyouwin.com/sailing.htm
I did pick up a brochure, so if next year sounds sunny, I can have some new lake view photos. I arrived later than I originally planned and so I missed seeing the Latane blacksmith shop (they spend the weekend in the traditional crafts demonstration area) which had been on my list for this year.

I got into Pepin a little later than I like to on Friday for the very good reason that I stayed longer than I meant to in Burr Oak. That meant that I had to squeeze a few more things into Saturday than I liked and I missed out on a few of them for this year. One This year was the first year I actually stayed in Pepin during Laura Days.

Pepin Motel Room

It’s a hard weekend to get a room. Previously I’ve stayed at Anderson House in Wabasha which is a very cool historic inn and restaurant. You can check out a cat to go with your room if you wish. Each room is different with the nicer rooms being on the second floor and the cheaper ones on the third (no elevator). A photo of each room is available on their website. http://www.historicandersonhouse.com Stop by for a meal if you can’t stay there and pick the right table and you can even see the Mississippi. They should offer me a deal on my next stay, Sandra Hume and Dr. Laura stayed there on my recommendation last weekend.

This year I stayed in the Pepin Motel. It’s on Elm Street right in the heart of all the Laura Days action. There should be at least one room still available for next year, so get your name on the list now if you want to stay. http://www.pepinwisconsin.com/cgi-bin/viewmember.cgi?category_id=419
There is also the former Pepin Hotel which has been renovated and is now the Great River Amish Inn.

Great River Amish Inn

There are also many bed and breakfasts in town, and camping opportunities, which are chancey this time of year.

I got in to town so late on Friday that really all I had time to do was check-in and meet my Laura friend Linda Starbuck and her mother (who faithly have driven up from Iowa for the past several years to help with the quilting hands-on project at the cabin). We had supper at the Pickle Factory Restaurant. Good food and reasonable prices on the lakeside. Last year the waitresses wore bonnets for Laura Days. I didn’t get back Sat. or Sun., but they were talking about doing it again.

I got an early start on Saturday and was at the Pepin Museum before it opened. Normally they open at 10 am, but generously open early on Laura Days and I was in by a quarter after 8. I dropped off my collected things for them and they really loved the Lions Club Pepin pin I’d found them and put it right in the display case. The addition they are most excited about is a set of the Ashton Drake dolls minus

Ashton Drake Dolls at Pepin

Grace, that were still in their original shipping boxes. They now take pride of place in the display case as you enter the museum. They didn’t have too much else changed in the main museum, just some minor rearranging. However, several things that were previously out and available to be looked through are now under glass in the annex. They also have added a multiplex display unit (think flipping through posters at a store) and it has several articles that weren’t in the notebooks before and I hadn’t seen anywhere before. They even had one on Bill Anderson out of the Flint Journal which is almost impossible to find because their back issues were destroyed in a fire. They’ve also changed the replica school room adding benches to make up for the small number of desks. Also, in the gift shop, they’ve added a corncob doll kit.

Next up was checking in at the library and they very nicely let me make photocopies of several of items from their notebooks. Including one photo of what appears to be a very early gift shop at Mansfield. Again, I can’t strongly enough recommend that you take time to check in at Pepin’s very nice library. After all it was Pepin library board that headed up the effort to find the birthplace cottage and they have a very nice, if small display. http://www.pepinpubliclibrary.org

My program was moved up to 11 am this year and that schedule will hold next year when I present Laura Ingalls Wilder: What a Doll!. After my program Kitty Latane who wrote the book on the history of buildings in Pepin gave a great slide show that I enjoyed immensely. I especially was interested in her theory of which general store the Ingalls traded with. Also she explained that Pepin was surrounded by the Big Woods, but was actually a bit of open space known as Pepin Prairie before the town was built. She also confirmed that the building identified as the old store in the set of photos sold by Mansfield between the 1960s and the 1980s has been torn down. Come see her great photos for yourself next year on Laura Days Saturday at 1:30pm at the library.

Homesteader editor Sandra Hume and stalwart Laura fan Dr. Laura McLemore were also in Pepin for Laura Days and to go to the play at the Guthrie. We met up and I wish we’d had more time to visit. We listened to some of the Little Miss Laura contest in the rain and then headed down to the Traditional Crafts Demonstration. Kitty and her husband Tom demonstrate both days. Kittty was working on her tinware and had several hands on projects for kids to try and Tom was squaring up timbers by hand for a house he’s building. Kitty creates a new design of handmade cookie cutter every year and has put together a booklet listing them. Now it has a booklet documenting it, I had to get one this year.

Man with Pa like beard

Replicas of Laura

Other highlights of this year included a reinactor with the most Pa-like beard I’ve ever seen on a living person and a baby in a willow fence playpen. He was darling! Besides Kitty’s considerable efforts, the most Laura thing was a cabinet maker who says he’s been down to Mansfield to take measurements off the original lapdesk and recreated Laura’s. He only wants $250 a desk. You can buy a really nice period one for that, but his are available.

More tomorrow.

P.S. I just realized that I never mentioned the Burr Oak Director’s name, it’s Steve Luse.

Burr Oak – Spring Valley – Pepin

As I often advise people, Burr Oak, Iowa, Spring Valley, MN and Pepin WI make up a real nice Wilder weekend. I took myself up on my own advice this weekend on my way to Laura Days in Pepin. I hadn’t been to Burr Oak yet this summer or met their new director, as of March.

Burr Oak Tour in Masters Hotel

He led the tour himself and it was one of the better tours I’ve gotten there. Still using the “Sleep tight” myth, but other than that really good. The Masters Hotel looks like it’s gotten more love and attention this year in little things. The June Hawley card which had partially fallen apart had been fixed. The things about William Reed were put together in a notebook, not just piled up, and someone had added a couple of framed and matted informational displays. The museum itself hadn’t changed much, but they have found a strawberry butter mold,

Strawberry Butter Mold

like Ma’s in “Little House in the Big Woods” which was a very nice addition. They have totally rearranged the gift shop. They now have all the books in series order along the brick wall that makes up part of the vault. The ceramics display that was previously there is all gone. It seems like  they had fewer things than  before, but since it changed so much it’s hard to tell. The new item I found was a beautiful wooden bookmark with a Burr Oak tree on it. The letters are moved back to the corner and the named bricks display moved up higher on the wall. A simple device of adding Almanzo and Laura’s heights along the wall has proved very popular. The letters place in the front area has been filled by historic photos of Burr Oak. I was running late by then, so I didn’t stop anywhere else in town.

Chicken Salad Meal at Tea and Tarts

I had taken time earlier to eat at Tea and Tarts in downtown Decorah who I recommend as worth the drive to anyone. I had the chicken salad and the house tea. It’s two and a half hours from Burr Oak to Pepin by the fastest route and a little under an hour between Burr Oak and Spring Valley directly.

I’ll save Pepin for tomorrow and skip to my stop on the way back in Spring Valley. I didn’t stop at the museum because I’m hopefully going to get to see that when I come back later in the month. I can report that the barn is STILL standing and, praise be, they moved the stupid boat so you can get a decent photo. Royal’s grave was still in shadow. I had lunch with James Wilder family expert Sharon Jahn which was great fun and I learned a lot about Wilder family and Spring Valley history. Including the distant Wilder connection of why you might want to visit Howard, South Dakota, just to say you’ve been there. I hope to get a look at her notebooks and all the good research she and the Spring Valley Historical Society have put in researching the Wilder family.

Almanzo Wilder DVD

Update on the Almanzo Wilder DVD produced by Dean Butler. Official release date is September 25th, Malone expects to have them to send out for the people on the pre-order list (as soon as payment is made) by mid-October. Looking forward to seeing it then. Here’s the latest preview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq0HbQ7Kd0g

Holy Terror Days

There was a lot of interest this summer in the twins who played Carrie Ingalls on the Little House on the Prairie TV show coming to Walnut Grove MN (http://www.walnutgrove.org), but it turns out that they were also in Keystone for Holy Terror Days (named for a local gold mine). They have had several people come to Keystone, SD from the TV show and I imagine the crowds are generally less because I rarely hear much about it until after the fact. Carrie lived for many years in Keystone and although her house burned down in the 1970s, you can still see a display of her things at the Keystone Area Historical Society, including what the people in Keystone claim is the original china shepherdess.  Read about the event here:
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2008/09/04/news/local/doc48bf6e041e2d4960671169.txt

and the Twins visit here:
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2008/09/07/news/top/doc48c339c62dd07052573181.prt

Musical Tour is a Go

The Denver Post is reporting that the Guthrie musical will be coming to Denver on tour with Melissa Gilbert in the starring role.

http://www.denverpost.com/technology/ci_10469871

Beloit College List

Ready to feel old? I still remember when I saw my first childhood toy in an antique store. This is just as bad. Take a look at this year’s list of prospective of college freshmen this year. I’ll also add that to them “Little House on the Prairie” has never been a first-run, release show.  

http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2012.php

Book Festivals

Not having Festival of Books this year, but according to Caroline Austin at the University of Iowa, it’s on again for Fall 2009. The University’s Memorial Union, site of the annual event, was damaged by flood water back in June and is not yet up to hosting conferences. This is a real loss for the area because the area has already lost, due to staffing shortfalls, has already lost the conference sponsored for many years by the Cedar Rapids Community School District Librarians, Books Have It and So Do We. That conference was funded off the prize money for winning a national Encyclopedia Britannica prize for outstanding library media program during the 1970s. It was a great conference and the area can’t afford to lose another. I urge everyone in the area who loves authors and books to help the conference come back as a roaring success next fall. I’ll post the dates as soon as I know them.  Read about previous years events here: http://slis.uiowa.edu/~festival/FBYP.html