Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, Inc.- De Smet, SD

Introduction

The Little House books of author Laura Ingalls Wilder have touched millions of lives since they were first published in the 1930s and 40s. They have captured our hearts and minds and taken us back to simpler times. Laura’s writings also record history. Each chapter tells the story of her family but her detailed descriptions give examples of how families made their food, created their homes, and spent their time. In the telling of her families’ story Laura tells the story of survival for many pioneers. These are the stories that continue to be told by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society.

Thank you for taking time to hear about our initiative and realizing that your participation with the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society will impact the future for many generations.

Who We Are

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and education of the Ingalls Wilder heritage in De Smet, SD. The Society provides guided tours of three historic structures, including the Surveyors’ House, the Ingalls Home, and The First School of De Smet. Each of these buildings had great significance in the life of author Laura Ingalls Wilder. The Society also preserves a collection of over 2,000 artifacts relating to the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family.

The Society also offers an interactive hands on discovery center where children of all ages can learn about history in a fun way.

Our Mission ~ Bringing the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy to life today while preserving it for the future.

Our Vision ~ It is the vision of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society to reach out to the region and the world with a realistic understanding of prairie life and its lessons for everyone, building, in part on the early depictions by the author in her internationally renown writings.

What We Do

Education

We educate all interested people of Laura ‘s heritage through guided tours of the original homes and school of Laura Ingalls Wilder and through meaningful exhibits of original artifacts

We provide group-based educational programs for children through partnership with schools in the region.

Preservation

We procure artifacts that are directly related to the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and use safe museum practices to preserve original artifacts of the Ingalls Wilder families

We preserve and maintain the two original homes and school of Laura Ingalls Wilder

Restoration

We use the Secretary of Interiors standards and regulations, work towards restoring the two homes and school of Laura Ingalls Wilder

How We are Funded

We are funded by:

Private Donors

Grants

Board Donations

In-Kind Donations

Gift Shop Revenue

Admission from Tours

How We Use Our Resources

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society is committed to stewardship of our donor’s dollars. Each year the money that is raised through guided tours and gift shop sales help fund regular operations of our organization. The Society also relies upon donors to complete the funding as well as fund special projects.

In the past, special projects have included purchasing and restoring the First School of De Smet, making buildings and sites more accessible to visitors with mobility issues and upgrading collections storage areas to better protect artifacts.

Key Accomplishments

1957 One acre of original land of Charles Ingalls was donated to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society and Memorial Rock is placed on acre of original land of Charles Ingalls

1967 Purchase of the original Surveyors’ House from the book By the Shores of Silver Lake.

1968 Surveyors’ House opened to the public

1972 Purchase of the original Charles Ingalls Home on Third Street. Restoration begins

1973 Ingalls Home is opened to the public

1986 Purchase of the Vincent home for office and Gift Shop

1997 Purchase of the First School of De Smet

1977 City donates Sigrid Anderson school to the Society

2002 Board of Directors invited to Washington D.C. to meet First Lady, Laura Bush

2003 Addition to the Gift Shop is built-new office space, inventory room, board room and artifact storage

2007 50th Anniversary of the Society

2007 Moved First School of De Smet to Society grounds

An Illustrating Opportunity

“Mary, Laura and the folks live again in these illustrations.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder upon seeing Garth William’s work

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society has been presented with a unique and immediate opportunity. Original illustrations created by Garth Williams used in the second editions of the “Little House” books are being sold at auction by William’s estate.

We need your help to bring the Little House illustrations home to De Smet. You can become a part of our mission to preserve Laura’s legacy with your financial support. In order to purchase illustrations from the “Little House” book collection we need to raise $30,000. Please consider joining us in making these illustrations part of our collection.

Until 2010 all of the original illustrations had been in the hands of Garth Williams family. In early 2011, the illustrations began to come up for auction. The Society was successful in purchasing two illustrations from “Little House on the Prairie”, but unfortunately lost all bids to “Little House in the Big Woods” illustrations. But there are still six more books to go! Over the next few years each set of illustrations will be sold. The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society would like to take this opportunity to share some of these illustrations with our visitors by purchasing them and putting them on exhibit.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society has a unique ability to share the Garth Williams illustrations with “Little House” book fans. Visitors come from all over the world to see the treasures of the “Little Town on the Prairie.” Adding the Garth Williams illustrations to the collection that we preserve and offer to visitors would be a huge and positive addition to our collection.

So please help us bring the illustrations home to De Smet, the site Laura lived and wrote about in her Little House series of books. Every gift makes a difference!

Garth Williams, Illustrator

When Garth Williams was first offered the job of creating new illustrations for the Little House books he declined. The books were not fanciful or about animals, a style Williams had become known for, but in the end he took the job and went on to create the images that today’s “Little House” reader’s know and love.

In 1947 when Williams received the commission to illustrate new editions of the Little House books. Ursula Nordstrom, publisher and editor in chief of juvenile books at Harper & Row, initially intended for Williams to produce eight oil paintings for each book, sixty-four in all. This proved to be not cost-efficient and consequently Williams illustrated the Little House books with the simple pencil, charcoal and ink.

Williams, who had never been west of the Hudson River, traveled the Midwest to the places the Ingalls Family had lived 70 years before, photographing, and sketching landscapes, trees, birds and wildlife, buildings and towns. Years later when he returned to De Smet and in 1987 he remarked, “Now it looks more civilized. There are more trees. The trees are the most developed thing.”

Williams described his approach to illustrating books in a 1980 interview. His initial reading of the material usually would suggest thirty or forty potential pictures. "'To compose the pictures is very hard...I look for all the action in the story; then I arrange forms and color. I always try to imagine what the author is seeing. Of course, I have to narrow down my ideas to the number of drawings I'm allowed, which might be as few as ten per book. I make a list of illustrations. When I see a picture, I write down the idea and a page number while I read the manuscript.” Garth Williams drew few straight lines. He used charcoal and graphite pencils, from fine to very soft, to illustrate the Little House books.

Garth Williams illustrations replaced the first editions illustrated by Helen Sewell and Mildred Boyle.

Helen and Mildred are cited as collaborating artists but the art work is predominantly that of Miss Boyle.

Rightfully, the publishers decided new uniform editions were needed. With Laura’s last book in 1943, Garth Williams was contacted to re-illustrate the entire series of eight books. In 1953, the newly illustrated, Garth Williams illustrated series became available.

“Bringing the Laura Ingalls Wilder legacy to life today while preserving it for the future."