History

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society was founded within weeks of Laura’s death in 1957. The first project of the Society was to erect a memorial plaque on one corner of the original Ingalls homestead. Mr. and Mrs. Edward May donated the plot. In order to fund the other costs of this, their first project, the Society sent a letter to every school in South Dakota with information about the project.Each school that donated $2 received a certificate. “The response was electrifying,” said Alice Kirchmeier, a founding member.

In the next years buildings of Wilder lore were marked with plaques. Then in 1967 the Surveyors’ House from Laura’s book By the Shores of Silver Lake was purchased and restored.It has been open to the public since 1968. In 1972, the home of Laura’s parents from 1887-1928, now called the Ingalls’ Home, was purchased and restored. Restoration of both buildings was a project for both the newly formed Society as well as the De Smet community.In both restorations Society members worked together with local businesses as well as clubs such as Jaycees and Jaycettes to complete the projects. With this new attraction in town even the attitudes of local merchants and townspeople changed.Locals made a point of becoming better acquainted with the stories written by Laura so they could answer visitors’ questions.

Attendance to the homes grew from a few hundred visitors in 1968 to 17,000 in 1977 and is still strong today at 25,000 visitors taking the tour of the homes each year. As attendance has grown so has the Society’s collection.When the Society began in 1957 they had no more than the knowledge of where Pa’s homestead had been and a love for Laura’s books. Today it has grown to a collection of 2000 items, two historic homes, and the school Laura attended, but not without some hard work.

At the time that the Society began there were still many people in De Smet who remembered the Ingalls family. One of the memories that made Society members realize what hard work they were in for was that of the day the Ingalls home storage room was emptied. The Ingalls’ home was the last move for both Charles and Caroline Ingalls and their daughter Mary. After their deaths the house was left to Laura’s younger sister Carrie who lived in Keystone, South Dakota.Carrie had her family’s entire collection of belongings put in one upstairs bedroom so that the rest of the house could be rented out. Her intention was to come to De Smet and look through the items to decide what she would keep. Unfortunately Carrie passed away before this could happen. After her death in 1946 a truck was backed under the storage room window and everything was thrown out.Laura’s books had not yet gained the popularity they have today.

The search for Ingalls artifacts had taken many forms and some have shown up in the most unbelievable ways. In the early years many people from town simply brought things in. Some had taken souvenirs from the emptying of the storage room while others were friends of the family who had been given some of their possessions. In one case a friend of Laura’s sister Grace called local historian and newspaper owner Aubrey Sherwood and asked that someone come and get the chest of drawers that she had been storing for Grace before her death. Upon further research it was found to filled with books that belonged to the family including schoolbooks used by Laura and her sisters.

Another great asset to the Society during the late 60’s and 70’s was the research of a young student named William Anderson. Today Anderson is known throughout the world as a Laura Ingalls Wilder scholar and biographer. He began his career in De Smet interviewing the friends and neighbors of the Ingalls in De Smet and searching out artifacts one at a time. Anderson is currently the editor of The Lore, the Society’s newsletter.