Learning Mo About Laura

My co-worker Julie found this and pointed it out to me. I was looking for a link to share – everyone uses different systems for podcasts so it can be difficult to pick out the best one – and Christopher Czajka shared this link on Facebook. So I’ll share this one.

Mo’s Mobituaries

Mo Rocca is most well-known for his Mobituaries. The Mo part comes from his name and he talks about famous or less famous, but interesting people on his podcast, Mobituaries. He also appears regularly on CBS Sunday Morning and for 10 years hosted Innovation Nation with The Henry Ford museum with short history segments that always circled back to items in the Henry Ford collection and historians from the site.

Laura From the Books

Rocca has written 3 books. The one just out is called Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks and Triumphs. It’s a collection of stories of people who started something great late in life and Laura Ingalls Wilder is one of them. Rocca has recorded the audio version of his book and he just dropped an episode of his podcast specifically about Laura. He says it’s an excerpt from his book. It’s about 20 minutes so enjoy “Literary Frontierswoman: Laura Ingalls Wilder.”

Although Rocca says he’s talking about the real life/book Laura, he sounds like he mostly knows the TV show version. He pronounces Al-MAN-zo Al-MON-zo as they do in the TV show and he inserts a nice plug for the show, especially giving Alison Arngrim a shout out. Laura is no stranger to this kind of collection having appeared in this kind of book before and being a frequent subject of roundup articles of late bloomers.

Detour to Antiques Roadshow

Rocca also was featured in the great Antiques Roadshow podcast Detours. Mostly it tracks down the what happened next? stories of pieces that were featured on the show with lots of added information and some surprising turn arounds. In this episode Rocca appears as the owner of a bust/statue of Grover Cleaveland who turns out to be someone else. The whole thing is hilarious because ironically I thought Rocca was the host of the show because he sounds just like him and I never looked it up. Then Rocca shows up on the show as a guest and he clearly isn’t the host. Adam Monahan is. (No, I don’t know who that is either.) The host isn’t Rocca. The bust isn’t Cleaveland. Who is it? You’ll have to listen and find out. (I just picked one podcast system to link to, find the same podcast on your favorite podcast system. Highly recommend the whole series.)

Sarah S. Uthoff is a nationally known Laura Ingalls Wilder authority and has presented at five of the Wilder homesites, many times at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, many conferences and numerous libraries, museums, and events around the Midwest. She is the main force behind Trundlebed Tales fighting to bring the History, Mystery, Magic, and Imagination of Laura Ingalls Wilder and other greats of children’s literature and history to life for a new generation. How can you help?  Attend one of her programs,  schedule one  yourself,  watch her videos,  listen to her podcast,   look at  her photos, and find her  on   Facebook ,   Twitter ,     LinkedIn ,     SlideShare,   and  Academia.edu . Professionally she is a reference librarian at Kirkwood Community College and former director of the Oxford (Iowa) Public Library.