Disclaimer: This post is simply my pondering thoughts.
After re-reading the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder as an adult, I have a different view of Charles “Pa” Ingalls than I once did.
In my child’s mind, Pa was fun and spontaneous and always looking for adventure.
As an adult, I still see Pa as those things, but also as a little bit irritating and maybe somewhat irresponsible at times. From what we read in the books, he was always looking for the next adventure or opportunity, instead of finding stability for his family. Then again, maybe traveling from place to place was how he was finding financial stability for his family – he had to go where the work and food was.
It had to have been hard for him to stay still, I realize that. He was a person who was always looking for a new experience. When more families pushed into the west to find new experiences, he wanted to join them.
Pa reminds me a lot of a family member of my husband’s who was always seeking a new opportunity that she was sure would bring her riches. Each scheme failed and she was left right where she started. In some ways, this is Pa.
He moves the family to the prairie, but the government threatens to move them out, so he leaves and moves on to Plum Creek. They are there several years, but as soon as Pa is offered another opportunity to build a new life in a new land, he’s gone again, moving his family hundreds of miles across the country.
Living with him must have been hard for his wife and children, more so for his wife Caroline. Even though the books are more fiction than non-fiction, it’s clear that Laura probably wrote some truth in the pages when it came to her parents and her father’s constant urge to move the family. There were many times Laura described her mother as worried or tired, and who wouldn’t be when their spouse is constantly coming home with a new idea, and when they live in unpredictable places where life can change on a whim?
“Laura knew that Ma had never wanted to leave Plum Creek and did not like to be here now; she did not like traveling in that lonely country with night coming on and such men riding the prairie.” – On the Shores of Silver Lake.
When Pa did come back from his trips, he always had some crazy story about why he was delayed or what happened during the trip. The stories were most likely true — except that far fetched one on Plum Creek when he fell in a snowbank/cave and had to stay there for three days, living on the hard candy he bought for his kids, until he was able to dig his way out and then found out he was right up the hill from their house. Come on, Pa, really? You were in town hanging out with the blacksmith or the general store owner. Don’t lie, dude. *wink* (This is a joke, of course. I have no idea.)
He also left his family alone in some dangerous situations where angry Native Americans (I mean, the Ingalls were building homes on their land half the time, so of course they were angry), wolves, rowdy railroad workers, or other threats could have harmed them.
Despite Pa’s propensity to launch the family into an insecure situation, it was clear he loved them. I don’t believe he was always rushing off to something new simply for himself. Sometimes he might have been, but mainly he was taking new jobs, trying new things in farming, and moving to new places to help provide a better life for his family, not gain riches and fame for himself.
Even if he was doing it for his family, it couldn’t have been easy never knowing when he might come home and suggest they move again.
Luckily, Pa sacrifices his desire for adventure more than once for Caroline and his girls, something Laura touches on in The Shores of Silver Lake.
When Laura’s cousins leave to go further West, both she and Pa look after them wistfully, wishing they could follow them into adventure. Pa, however, says he won’t continue into the west because a town is being built where they are now, and with a town will come a school. Caroline always wanted her children to attend school and Pa says he promised her he would settle down so the children could be educated.
In the end, the love of Caroline and his girls kept him grounded.
There are a variety of different stories out there on the internet and in books about Charles Ingalls. Some of them paint a rather unpleasant picture of the man and accuse Laura of romanticizing her father for the books. Well, duh, if she did. Her books were written for children. She wasn’t looking to write an expose on Charles Ingalls.
In 2014, the Laura Wilder Trust gave permission for The Pioneer Girl, the Annotated Biography to be released. Some of the stories there, such as Charles Ingalls taking off in the middle of the night to avoid paying rent, upset readers of the Little House books. I understand that in a way, but the Little House series was fiction with some truth mixed in. Of course, there were some truths that were painted over for the sake of a lovely story. Not all of those stories were lovely if you read between the lines, anyhow.
What all of us fans of the children’s books need to realize is that life wasn’t easy back then. It wasn’t what we see inside the pages of a book or a polished Hollywood production. These were real people struggling to survive. They weren’t perfect. They made mistakes and took risks and judged harshly, like any of us are prone to do.
Decisions weren’t, most likely, made out of selfishness but for survival and to protect family members.
Pamela Hill Smith writes in her blog post Charles Ingalls: Driving Away in Darkness that after the grasshopper plague in Minnesota, which lasted four years (!!) (I think readers of that part in Laura’s book think it was only a short time), the Ingalls family was hit extremely hard. They lost everything. At one point a neighbor offered to adopt Laura and raise her as her own to help raise the economic burden off the Ingalls.
“With no opportunities left except the unthinkable—giving Laura up for adoption—Charles and Caroline decided to move west,” Pamela writes.
She continues to write about how Charles asked for an extension on their rent until they could move West but the landlord refused and then threatened to take their horses as payment.
What choice did Charles Ingalls have? His wages in Burr Oak didn’t cover his family’s living expenses, his landlord wouldn’t agree to an extension on the rent, and if the Ingalls family lingered, they’d lose their team of horses—and still face the prospect of homelessness in the future. There weren’t eviction moratoriums or rental assistance plans or unemployment insurance for victims of natural disasters in that time and place.
To keep his family together, to try again to build a new life for themselves, Charles Ingalls did what he had to do: “Sometime in the night we children were waked to find the wagon with a cover on standing by the door…. Pa put our bed in the wagon and hitched the horses on; then we climbed in and drove away in the darkness.”
I highly recommend reading her articles and others to help give a more rounded picture of the man many say Laura Wilder “romanticized.”
Have you ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series?
What is your impression of Charles Ingalls based on these books?
Was his desire for adventure a detriment or a benefit to his family?
Did he drag them all over the country too much, even if he did do it for the right reason?
Additional resources:
Charles Ingalls: Driving Away In Darkness by Pamela Smith
Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Charles Philip Ingalls from Laura Ingalls Wilder.com
