Lord is My Shepherd and Walnut Grove Humor

Normally I don’t do stuff about the “Little House on the Prairie” TV show, but one thing I always like to pass on about any show is where you can go to see where it was shot.  I came across a reference in a local paper to the filming of The Lord is My Shepherd episode. This is the one with Ernest Borgnine where Laura tries to convince God to let her change places with her dead baby brother. According to the “Modesto Bee” back on Sept. 3, 1974, exteriors were shot at Donnell’s Vista overlooking Donnell’s Reservoir and near Kennedy Meadows. Here’s a link to Tuolumne County (where both are located) today.
http://www.thegreatunfenced.com/

Now for the humor. The article says those two locations were chosen “because both places resemble mountains near Plum Creek”!

Alexander G. Clark

Alexander G. Clark is an important figure in both Iowa and American history. He was an African-American who helped lead the fight to grant African-Americans the right to vote in Iowa in 1868 (first state outside of New England to do so) and also fought for school desegregation decades before the Brown decision. His leadership was recognized on the national level when he was granted the ambassadorship to Liberia (the United States helped to create this settlement in Africa for American born slaves to start their own country). While mostly forgotten after his death, a small band of visionaries are fight to make sure he isn’t forgotten for good  read more about their efforts.

http://tinyurl.com/aa4rnz

Musical Launch Announced

The AP recently issued a news release giving more information about the national tour of the Little House on the Prairie musical.

Giving the most information about the cast (they are keeping most of the Guthrie productions leads) is this article from Broadway World.com
http://tinyurl.com/b9qzee
The tour will start off back in the Twin Cities, this time at the Ordway in St. Paul AND they are for once giving hard dates both of the run and even when you can buy tickets. It will be on the Ordway’s Main Stage from Oct. 13-25, 2009 with tickets going on sale September 13th, unless you buy season tickets. See the Ordway’s information at this link below.
http://tinyurl.com/cjvdju

The Marshall Independent’s story involves an interview with the Nicole Elzenga and Amy Ankrum of the Walnut Grove Museum to put an interesting twist on the national story.

Read it here:  http://tinyurl.com/djdonx

This makes the number of stops announced four (Denver, New Jersey, Toronto and St. Paul), but still no schedule on the official musical website.
http://www.littlehousethemusical.com/

Check back here for more information as it is announced.

Book: Founding Mothers

Founding Mothers : The Women who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

Here is another audio book. Unlike David McCullough, I had no high expectations about the work of the author going into this one, so I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. While collections about women are becoming more common, I remember about 10 years the Hoover National Historic Site wanted to do an exhibit on the mothers of Presidents and had to come out with their own book because they couldn’t find one. The collections about women still tend to be general and brief. It’s still hard to find books about generations of women, generations of men, sure, but women are far more rare.  This book looks at the Revolutionary Generation with a focus on the women and the men relegated to the supporting mentions that women usually inhabit. Oh, you run into the likes of George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton throughout the book, but the focus is on the women and their role in the Revolution. While many of the names are from leading ladies of the day, other women, like the ones who created a decorated bridge for Washington to cross the Delaware on the way to New York for his inaguration are not generally noted by history. Roberts not only gave biographies of women, but describes how they are connected and interacted with each other. She describes not only their achievements, but their shortcomings. The main women involved are Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Eliza Pickney, Mary Bartlett, and Martha Washington.  All of whose names you should recognize. If you don’t and even if you do, I highly recommend this book.

Danbury Fair

Oh, say are you going to Danbury Fair?

I’ve been having an ongoing project of reading all the versions of the Bill Anderson series, as I find older ones for my collection. A recent reading of the original version of “Laura’s Rose” popped to my attention that she showed bread at the Danbury fair. Unfortunately the fair went out of business back in 1981 (it’s now  Danbury Fair Mall ), but I’m pleased to find another connection to Rose in the community.

http://www.danburyhistorical.org/DanburyFair.html

Musical Goes International

Little House on the Prairie (the musical) has gone international in its tour with a stop in Toronto. Read the news release here:

http://tinyurl.com/b4b4c2

The production will appear at the Princess of Wales Theater.
http://www.mirvish.com/OurTheatres/Princess.html

So far no firm dates or run time, but it promises to be in “early 2010.” Still no update to the musical’s website.

New Edition of Laura Wilder of Mansfield

The newest edition of the Lore announced that an updated and expanded version of this Anderson title will be released in May 2009. It will also have additional photos. Can’t wait to see it.

Thanks for the grant

It was recently announced that the Louis and Dorothy Coover Regional Grantmaking Program contributed a grant of at least $4,800 to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri. Unfortunately, the only news release I found only gave a range not a specific amount. Some of their donations were much higher and I home they were generous with Mansfield. Learn more about the foundation here:
http://www.cfozarks.org/

Look for Mansfield’s blink and you missed it mention in this article that gives the amounts. Yes, most of it is about a drug court, keep reading.

http://www.cassville-democrat.com/story/1501552.html

Mansfield Date Changes

Laura’s Memories, the Wilder pageant in Mansfield, used to be the hardest one to find dates for. Now they have a minimal webpage where you can find the dates. http://www.laurasmemories.com/

For those of you unfamiliar with the production, it’s staged in a built-in arena near Laura Ingalls Wilder Elementary. The seating is the most comfortable I’ve found at any Wilder pageant. The plot starts off with a take-off on Laura’s recorded conversation with Docia Holland (identified only as librarian in the play). As Laura remembers back over her life, stories from her childhood on play in her mind and on the stage behind her. It’s a musical and frankly I think the songs were better than the major production at the Guthrie last year. Be aware though that the cast shares the parts (for example, the same girl doesn’t play Laura all the way through, but does continue to appear on stage as other characters). Also, notice its early start time. They don’t use the dark for special effects, so it starts a full hour before the other two pageants (and they even offer afternoon performances sometimes). It ends early enough so driving to your hotel isn’t a challenge.

Long time fans will notice some changes in the date pattern this year. Usually they split the pageant dates between early or mid-summer and then re-stage it around Wilder Days. This year they’ve moved to the first two weekends in August and the first three in September, which I would think would be easier on the production. They’ve also got the date for Mansfield’s Wilder Day (most activities are on Saturday, although there is usually some Friday and Sunday spillover) set for Sept. 19th. This is the third weekend of September where for the last couple of years they were on the second. I hope this sticks because that takes them out of competition with Wilder Days in Pepin and means that I might have a chance to visit during the days again and hear Pa’s fiddle. Be warned Pepin is about 6 1/2 hours north of where I live and, depending on your route and road construction, Mansfield is about 9 hours south. Don’t try to do them both in one weekend.

This change in dates comes on top of Burr Oak’s earlier announcement of moving their Wilder Days from the second weekend in June to the last, moving them out of direct competition with Prairie Days in Independence. It’s getting more and more possible to not have to choose between events, assuming you have the time for multiple trips.

Book: Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough

I have read several biographies of Teddy Roosevelt. I don’t know of any particular reason. I guess part of it is the time he served is an interesting part of history and part is an on-going quest to understand him. It’s interesting because more so than any other figure I’ve read about multiple biographies on (except maybe Abraham Lincoln), people tend to try to make of Teddy Roosevelt what they want him to be and to judge him by modern standards. The one I read before this was particularly bad and tried their best to make him a modern Liberal Democrat, so maybe part of the positive glow on this book is reflected on how poor that one was.

This biography is the best on him I’ve read so far and no wonder considering David McCullough wrote it. He resisted the temptation to re-make TR for the most part. McCullough’s only slip in this regard of putting modern sensibilities on a 19th century man is his reaction to TR’s naturalist activities. At that time naturalists documented nature by killing and stuffing it. There was a whole culture of collecting natural specimans and I don’t think there was anything particularly odd about how he did it except that he had the money to go more exotic places than many did and that he attacked it with his characteristic gusto. McCullough admits that no one at the time reported it as something odd, but he still insists that it was somehow.

What makes this biography especially interesting and enlightening is that unlike most biographies on him, which focus on his middle years from the time he enters national politics on, this one starts with who his parents were before they met, their family backgrounds, their very different takes on the world, which they ultimately fused into one on everything but the politics of the Civil War (she was raised in the South and was a Southern Sympathizer throughout – he worked to help the soliders of the Northern army). Teddy idolized his father and was devoted to his mother and McCullough shows this impact on his later life. It wasn’t just a close family life, but his father’s interests, his choices for educating his children, and how the whole family used to take around the world trips that lasted years that impacted his future “by choosing these particular parents.” (Inside RWL joke)  It also talks about his time at college, his first marriage, his time in the west, and how his second marriage came about. It even talks about what his little daughter Alice was doing all that time he was gone. It certainly helps you understand his daughter Alice in a way no other biography I’ve read on him does. If you really want to understand how Teddy Roosevelt thinks, this is the book for you. McCullough might have taken a page from Rose Wilder Lane who called her biography of Herbert Hoover’s early life The Making of Herbert Hoover, this much more robust book is definitely “the Making of Teddy Roosevelt.” For those then ready to take on his later life, follow this up with The Lion’s Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and his Family in Peace and War by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

Alice Roosevelt is also a very interesting person. How many people do you know that have a color named in their honor (Alice Blue)? Just this morning I was recommended to read a new picture book about her,

Kerley, Barbara.

 

WHAT TO DO ABOUT ALICE?