Past Issues

(most recent at top)

Summer 2006, Volume 5, Issue 1

• The history of name cards and how they're integrated into Little Town on the Prairie
  
• Editor and publisher's note of how the Homesteader came to be
  
• An update on the second volume of Little House® music from Pa's Fiddle Recordings
  
• A new column: Wilder Possibilities, an opinion column by Laura fans for Laura fans. This one explores what might have happened to the china shepherdess.
  
• A new DVD offered by the Laura museum in Mansfield, Missouri documents uncovering a possible path Laura and Rose lived to visit one another when Rose lived in the Rocky Ridge farmhouse and her parents in the Rock House she built for them.
  
• Twenty-five little-known facts about Laura, her family, and her life
  

Winter 2005-2006, Volume 4, Issue 2

• Uncle Tom Quiner's journey into the Black Hills is revisited using non-Little House® sources, and the resulting article contains a newly discovered photo of Uncle Tom.
  
• musicologist Dale Cockrell tells how "Happy Land," essentially a soundtrack to the Little House® books, came to be.
  
• a Laura fan and essayist ponders her life in terms of what Ma Ingalls would do.
  
• references to the Little House® series by Lemony Snicket.
  
• an interview with The Wilders, a contemporary old-time acoustic band that plays songs from Laura's time.
  
• a review of De Smet's Laura-related event from Summer 2005.

Summer 2005, Volume 4, Issue 1

• a Laura fan who is also a doctor offers her best medical guess as to what ailment was truly responsible for Mary's degeneration into blindness.
  
• a full-color pictorial of the daylong annual Prairie Days Festival in Independence, Kansas. See the celebration in full at the setting of Little House on the Prairie.
  
• a review of "Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie," which aired on ABC in Spring 2005, from the point of view of a Laura fan. What went wrong?
  
• the story behind the bra named after Laura Ingalls Wilder—and a telling photo of said undergarment.
  
• what you need to know about all the newsletters offered by Laura's homesite museums across the country—and how to subscribe and to become a member at each.
  
• review of The Children's Blizzard, a book about 1880s blizzards in South Dakota and surrounding areas.
  
• whatever happened to the bell Pa paid for in On the Banks of Plum Creek? A Homesteader editor investigates.

Winter 2004-2005, Volume 3, Issue 2

• a factual look at the "Hard Winter" of 1880-1881, as part of our continuing series on Laura's life in a historical context
  
• photographs and description of a pre-restoration visit to the Wilder home in Malone
  
• a feature on Laura's visit to San Francisco (told about in West from Home)
  
• a heartwarming story of organ donation at a homesite museum
  
• Cap Garland—did he really save DeSmet?
  
• a look at Walnut Grove's 30th Anniversary Celebration

Summer 2004, Volume 3, Issue 1

• a historical look at the grasshopper plagues of the 1870s Midwest that Laura recounted in On the Banks of Plum Creek
  
• an interview with renowned LIW biographer William T. Anderson
  
• an LIW children's entertainer shares her experiences performing with a real pig's bladder
  
• the history of an annual Gingerbread Sociable in LIW's honor at a library in California
  
• a review of Prairie Girl, Anderson's new juvenile biography on LIW
  
• a farewell to Burr Oak, Iowa's longtime director

Winter 2003-2004, Volume 2, Issue 2

• a feature, including photographs, on the Almanzo Wilder Farm in Burke, New York (setting for Farmer Boy)
  
• an in-depth look at the South Dakota tornadoes in the 1880s that lend credence to the storms in These Happy Golden Years
  
• a synopsis of Ingalls Homestead's first "Teachers' Day"
  
• a review of Old Town in the Green Groves, a controversial "new" book about Laura's years in Burr Oak, IA
  
• FAQs on Laura's manuscript "Pioneer Girl"

Summer 2003, Volume 2, Issue 1

• an article all about Little House Site Tours, escorted trips to the homesites
  
• a feature story on June Silliman, "Dear Laura" on the Web site for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum
  
• a review of the compendium of letters between Rose Wilder Lane and Dorothy Thompson, 25 Years of Friendship
  
• the latest seasonal events at each homesite
  

Winter 2002-2003, Volume 1, Issue 2

• an interview with the young man who plays Pa's fiddle at events in Mansfield, Missouri
  
• groundbreaking research on Mary Power
  
• a look at the latest grant-funded changes and updates to the Independence, Kansas homesite
  
• the story of how one Laura fan tracked down a log building in Colorado that was dedicated to and named after Rose Wilder Lane
  

Summer 2002, Volume 1, Issue 1 - premier issue

• advice on how to avoid eBay scams on LIW merchandise
  
• a news story recounting a conference on current, brand-new LIW research from a conference held in DeSmet in 2001
  
• a feature on Walnut Grove
  
• an extensive look at Ingalls Homestead, Laura's newest "homesite" in DeSmet, and an interview with its owners, the Sullivan family