From the Archives: A Wilder Rose by Susan Wittig Albert first posted on 8/27/2016

I knew that Laura Ingalls Wilder had a daughter Rose Wilder.  I figured that Rose grew up and with her husband and children continued the family tradition of farming.  Then in her middle years, inspired by her mother, Rose might have tried to get something published but as we all know her mother was the talent in the family.

Or do we?  Because in her splendid novel, A Wilder Rose, Susan Wittig Albert
(best known for her China Bayles mystery series) raises the question was Rose Wilder the real author of the Little House books?  At the very least should she have co-authorship with her mother based on the amount of editing and rewriting Rose may have done?

Mainly though A Wilder Rose introduces us to a fascinating woman who led an extraordinary life.  Born in 1886 Rose Wilder was a woman ahead of her time.  In her 20's she was a reporter for the San Francisco Bulletin.  After World War I Rose travelled through Europe as a reporter for the Red Cross.  Her short stories and articles appeared in The Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, The Saturday Evening Post.  A few of her stories were nominated for the O'Henry Award.  Rose Wilder's personal life equally as interesting.  She was married but she and her husband Gillette Lane eventually split up.  Her other serious relationship was with Helen Dore Boylston (who would go on to write tbe popular Sue Barton Student Nurse series).  Rose and Helen lived together for six years, two of which were spent  in a country house in Albania that Rose fell in love with during her reporting for the Red Cross.  Rose never wanted to leave.

But then in 1929 the stock market crashed and the money Rose had invested, her life savings earned from writing, was wiped out.  Her parents farm was also failing and since her father's health was not good Rose moved back home to try to support herself and her parents the only way she knew how, by writing.  It was during this time according to the novel that Laura Ingalls Wilder who had never published a book before conceived the Little House series and asked her daughter for help.

A Wilder Rose has been described by Kirkus Review as "pitch perfect"  and Publisher's Weekly gave the book a starred review.  I recommend a Wilder Rose and an added bonus is a good part of the novel is Rose recounting what it was like living through the Great Depression and how she and her friends in the literary world got by in those years after the magazine and book publishing industry  dried up.  Living in the Midwest, Rose also tells us about the dustbowl and the devastation that wreaked on farmers.  We learn about the romanticized view The Little House books and the TV series gave with regard to what the Ingalls family faced as they tried to eek out a living on a Kansas farm in the 1870's.

After finishing A Wilder Rose I decided to read Little House in the Big Woods, the first book in the Little House series.  It's a children's classic but I would recommend it for all ages.  It's a wonderfully written and all the more reason that Rose Wilder if she was the co-author should have her name on the cover.