Shannon Costello

The FDA pyramid site has just made me grumpy.

They list all those fine dairy products that will provide calcium to keep my bones from becoming dangerously brittle.  Fine.  They recommend using low-fat yogurt, cheese, etc.  Fine.

About the cheese and yogurt.  If you don’t use low-fat, the extra fat calories come out of your daily discretionary calories (somewhere around 250 for a 2000 calorie diet).  Ok ok.

Oh, and, about that yogurt?  If you use sweetened dairy products like yogurt, the extra sugar calories come out of your daily discretionary calories.  ARRRRRGGGHHHH!

I’m just going to give up and re-name this category "The Well-Rounded Me". 

Like the Little House books, this biography is aimed at young people.  And like the books, it is still very interesting.

Laura certainly simplified her family’s moves.  For example, the family lived in the little house in the woods of Wisconsin, moved out to Indian territory, and moved back to Wisconsin after they were nearly forced out of their house.  It helped that the people who were going to buy it wanted out of the deal.  Later on they headed west again.  Do you remember the scene where Pa takes Mary and Laura to the deserted Indian camp and they find all those beads?  That was the day Carrie was born- they spend all day away from the house and when they come back, there’s the baby.  I read that and all of a sudden that scene made sense in a new way.  Ma and Pa needed Laura and Mary out of the house.

So Laura was actually much younger when they were in Indian territory.  Her Pa and Ma had told her all those stories and she remembered them and later made them into a book.

I’ve got to speculate just a bit about Ma.  She always sounds so perfect, but two photographs of her appear in this biography.  The first is in 1860, just after her wedding.  You can see her hair, nicely arranged over her ears in smooth dark wings- no surprise there.  Her features seem thicker than I expected, though.  She doesn’t look so thin that Pa could have spanned her waist with his hands…but the shadows in the portrait make it tough to tell.  Ok, now skip ahead to 1894.  Ma is now matronly , positively plump!  I’m not sure that Mary isn’t a little larger herself.  But best of all, Ma’s ears are showing.  It is clear from this picture (a family portrait) that the style involves pulling one’s hair back but leaving lots of short tight curls in the front- everybody from Ma to Grace is wearing their hair like that.  Well, not Pa.  He continues to have that amazing beard- it juts out at least six inches from his face- quite scary-looking, really.

Further speculation about Ma.  She allowed Laura to write the following poem:  We remember not the summer/ for it was long ago/ We remember not the summer/ in this whirling blinding snow/ I will leave this frozen region/ I will travel farther south/ If you say one word against it/ I will hit you in the mouth.

Shock.  Shock.  Laura?  Really?  Well, maybe.  But Ma?!

Laura went back to De Smet in 1902 to see Pa before he died.  She was there a month or so and then went back to the Ozarks.  She didn’t get back to De Smet until after 1924, when Ma died.  The last 20 years of Ma’s life, and they didn’t see each other at all.  Same with Mary- Laura never saw either one after 1902.

The move to Missouri was done by wagon.  Later on Laura and Almanzo owned a Buick and then they drove all over- several times to De Smet…they even went to Yellowstone.  I wish that, when I saw Old Faithful, I’d known that Laura had been there once and seen it too.

I love the pictures of Laura.  As a teen she looks like her personality- prepared to tough out whatever comes.  (I find myself looking at the pictures of Mary and comparing them to Garth Williams illustrations- he makes her look blind.)  Her hair is completely white when she is old, and she looks beautiful.  And there is a picture of her all dressed up, with a very nice hat, signing books in a book store, surrounded by girls.

General Mac Arthur pushed for Laura’s books to be translated into German and Japanese after WWII.

A word about schooling.  The first school Laura mentions is the one where Laura meets Nellie Oleson (not her real name- she appears to have been a combination of two people…and Laura only changed the names of the really unsavory characters- the Brewsters appear to have been the other ones who got a name change.)  Laura has a story similar to Almanzo’s about a teacher who was threatened by students.  This student tripped the boy who was coming up to his desk to cause trouble and whipped him (ruler?) while he was down.  The kid left and never came back.  Triumph and tragedy right there.

I had read this before but had forgotten:  You weren’t allowed to teach school if you were married.  Wait a minute.  I think I know of a certain Christian romance novel writer who missed that little fact.  :)   (Shannon, ranting:  Well, what was a woman supposed to do instead….sit home and KNIT?!)

I feel like the unknown little kid who wrote on the last page of a well-thumbed library copy of one of the little house books:  "I love you, Laura."

This is the book I am least familiar with…and yet, it comes unedited from Laura’s pen.  Rose’s lawyer ended up with the notebooks it was written in and it was eventually decided to publish it as is, almost 30 years after the previous book.

Laura is an adult now, with adult problems.  She doesn’t want to marry a farmer.  Her infant son dies suddenly.  Her house burns down.  She and Almanzo are in debt.  The Boasts, old family friends (Laura’s family, Laura and Almanzo, and the Boasts celebrated major holidays together- Mrs. Boast is the one that gave Ma the chicks to start their own flock), offer her their best horse in exchange for Laura’s daughter, since Laura will be able to have other children and they never will.  Laura is horrified and tells Almanzo to drive away, but she also feels badly for Mr. Boast, standing there, and Mrs. Boast, inside but knowing that her husband was going to ask that question.  The Boasts don’t get another mention.

The other books tend to cover a year’s worth of time, and they are longer.  This book races through four years.  This different treatment of time and Laura’s adult perspective are two major reasons the books are so different.

There’s another difference I’m not sure I can put my finger on.  It might be how unvarnished the whole thing is (since Laura never edited this the way she did her other books).  There is less apology for herself, for both her good and bad characteristics, than may be seen in the other books, less care for what others might think (Almanzo’s and Laura’s age difference is unedited in this one).

There are similarities.  Laura still writes about herself in the third person and she still quotes a lot of songs.  And Laura is the same- brave in the face of danger, with a mind of her own, a lover of the outdoors.

There exist studies that conclude that a teacher’s expectations for a student can influence that student’s performance.  If I expect my female math students will be less competent than my male students…this is why a necessary quality for every new teacher is supposed to be that they believe that every child can learn.

Laura motivates Clarence when he falls behind by treating him as if he can’t do too much.  Clarence’s pride can’t live with that and he quickly catches up to his classmates.   I don’t know that these are the same types of situations.  Maybe you would have to argue that Laura really did have high expectations and that Clarence understood that.  Actually that makes sense- Laura certainly wasn’t giving up on him.

Laura teaches for a few months and then goes back to school herself.  She technically never graduates.  Her teacher could have graduated her but he waited so he could graduate the whole class together and by then it was too late- Laura was getting married.  A teacher who is also a student who never graduates…such an interesting tension there.  And of course these days teachers are required to take so many classes every few years in order to maintain their certificates.  Laura never gets a permanent certificate, by the way- she has to re-test every so often.  It appears that bureaucracy got an early hold on our education system…

One day the superintendent visits the school.  Laura is upset because two of her students return to their seats without first asking permission- what a terrible demonstration of Laura’s discipline.  It took me a surprisingly long moment to realize that this was an observation.  Even then…

I am, by the way, very glad that I have never had to board somewhere in order to teach.  Of course the Brewster situation is over the top.  I wonder if Laura ever told Ma and Pa about the scene with Mrs. Brewster and the knife…

I’m always curious about Laura’s faith.  Sometimes she seems to revel in her hatred of Nelly.  There’s a line somewhere about the hot wickedness bubbling up inside her- pretty expressive.  But there is also a certain acknowledgement of the depths of sin.  Laura knows her thoughts are wrong.  In a scene that has lived in infamy in my mind for quite some time (I thought Ma was a little too repressive) she tells Laura that “wooden swearing” is just as bad as swearing out loud (though she ambiguously says she knows Laura would never swear, as if it were too horrible to contemplate).  (I’ve known older relatives that swore out loud as their minds began to go…I’m sure that will be me some day…there’s something to dread.)

Anyway!  Laura and Mary are having a walk before Mary goes away, and Mary confesses her tendency to show off as a child.  Laura realizes that she had known that all along.  But then Mary (after she uses Job to make clear her theological stance on human depravity) goes on to say that we shouldn’t worry so much about our ourselves, but should instead be sure of the goodness of God.  ”You are sure, aren’t you?” asks Laura, and Mary agrees, quoting Psalm 23.

I like that!  And, hey, I can be quite sure of the goodness of God, that I’ll still be His child, even when I’m 103 and am cussing up a storm ’cause I can’t keep my own hot wickedness properly hidden anymore.

I just finished re-reading Fire by Kristin Cashore and Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt.  They both made me cry again.  Different as they are, they both feature women who give up the possibility of ever having children and still manage to embrace their future in spite of their pain.  Very powerful.

Wow!  This is the best book of them all.  I’m thinking of little things like how Laura doesn’t say that Grace never stops asking questions, but there is a whole page of a conversation between Grace and Pa where Grace scarcely says anything other than, “Why, Pa?”

More good food here.  I am sooo hungry.

There are some horrible school stories in here.  Eliza Jane Wilder is a fascinating character.  The boy Almanzo did not get along well with his sister Eliza Jane, but then, Laura wrote that story!  She is certainly portrayed as bossy and snippy in Farmer Boy, and she is just as bad here.  Actually, she has no idea how to manage a classroom.  The students test her as a matter of course, and are astonished when she does nothing.  I wonder how the ox-whip incident from her childhood impacted her view of teachers.  The students, of course, keep pushing.  By the time she is pushed into doing something, she has built up lots of resentment, and takes it out on Laura.

Eliza Jane does not do a good job with Nellie Oleson.  She trusts her, and Nellie betrays her, and Eliza Jane’s most embarrassing story is out for the world to hear.  What a dreadful time that must have been.  Pa and the rest of the school board show up to restore order, but Eliza Jane leaves after that one term.  Wikipedia has no article on her, apparently, but it does appear that Laura’s daughter Rose lived with her for a year while in high school, so I’m hoping there was some redemption in that relationship.

I’ve been in that position, though…you don’t deal with a discipline issue, and it keeps wearing at you, and finally you snap in unfair ways.  Eliza Jane did teach more elsewhere…I’m glad that wasn’t her last term.

As a further Eliza Jane footnote, I found out recently that her line about “birds in their little nests agree” is not originally her line- it’s from some proverb that is hundreds of years old.  Laura, however, comments that it shows Eliza Jane knows nothing about birds!

Willie Oleson is an interesting story.  He started, apparently, acting as if he were retarded during Eliza Jane’s term, and the next teacher assumed he really was retarded.  By the time the next teacher whips him (er, not with an ox-whip) Laura isn’t sure if Willie can learn or not.

At a school exhibition Laura recites a big chunk of history of the US and brings down the house.  There is an interesting appreciation for history in this book.  On the 4th of July a man who doesn’t speak in a very cultured manner still gives a pretty detailed run-down of what America has done against European tyrants (his word, not mine!), including the situation with the French and Maximilian in Mexico.  And Laura and Carrie have memorized the entire Declaration of Independence.

Laura also does long division out loud, without writing anything down.

Then there is the whole matter of the teaching certificate.  Laura gets one at 15 because everybody keeps quiet about her age.  The examiner had seen her at the exhibition, but still gives her a cursory examination.  Laura at 15 quite possibly knew more grammar than I will ever know.  It is a one-on-one exam, not multiple choice.  Nowhere to hide.  The examiner cuts her grades a little because he can’t give her more than a third grade certificate until the next year (perhaps because of her age?).  I’ve never understood the 62 in reading…and only an 81 in English Grammar?  Eeek!

One of her teachers, Mr. Owen, comments on the need for a bigger,  “graded” school…

Meanwhile, Mary is at college studying political economy, literature, higher mathematics, sewing, knitting, beadwork, and music.  A seven-year course.

A note on Almanzo.  His family left NY after a crop failure…surprising, given how prosperous they were- three big barns, most respected man in the area…

I read this yesterday when I was by myself and home and sadly suspecting (last day of school has now been delayed by one day…) that I would get the day off today because of winter weather.

School is closed for two reasons.  One, the dangers of traveling the few blocks between home and school.  A blizzard strikes while they are in school and a group of them just miss ending up frozen on the prarie because they almost walk by a building without seeing it.  Second, no trains can get through and the town runs out of coal and therefore has no way to heat the school.  This closes school for the remainder of the winter.

After the first couple of blizzards- still early in the winter- Laura gets discouraged because she thinks not being able to go to school will hurt her education.  Ma says about her studying that “you can do as much as you want to.  Nothing keeps you from learning.”  There’s a powerful statement.

Later on they entertain themselves with recitations from the fifth reader- the speech of Regulus and poetry.

Later still their physical deterioration shuts down any attempts at education.  Laura is tired all the time.  Pa can barely lift a 125-pound of wheat- Almanzo helps him without saying anything- he doesn’t want to embarrass Pa by mentioning it.

Wikipedia suggests that Laura’s daughter Rose had a pretty big hand in helping Laura with these books, saying that Rose is the one who made them into powerful stories.  There is a certain neatness of plot that makes one wonder, though I’m not sure that’s fair.  Almanzo and his brother get plenty of attention.  But then, Laura does know the ending there!