When much of the country is celebrating the harvest, solstice,
and new year and year-end, I am in Southern California wishing for colorful
leaves and snow. Fortunately, I can vanquish my jealousy by reading The Long Winterby Laura Ingalls Wilder. The long winter lasted for seven months on the Dakota
prairie in 1880-81. During this winter Laura’s family faced the risks of
freezing or starving. Laura worried that her father would be lost in a snowstorm
and grew tired of brown bread made from wheat milled in a coffee grinder and
froze her hands twisting straw into fuel to heat their home. This book was
enough for me to forgo autumn leaves and fields of sparkling white snow.From 2018:
After reading the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Prairie Fires), I read her book The Long Winter. The biography included most of the plot of this book from the large events like the train getting stuck in the snow and Almanzo Wilder risking his life to get wheat to prevent starvation, to small events like the Christmas Turkey, frost on the nails, and twisting straw for fuel.
The original title was “Hard Winter,” and this phrase is used many times in the book.
I was interested in how the book might reflect the authors’ (LIW and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane) far-right Libertarian politics. They invested money and energy opposing FDR’s New Deal and supporting subsequent Libertarian causes.
Generally, the book was anti-government and anti-Easterners.
“But the politicians far away in
Washington could not know the settlers.”
”If’n there’s a worst pest than grasshoppers it surely is politicians.”
The train superintendent was a buffoon
who said things like, “Snowstorms don’t stop us from running trains in the
east.”
Generally, everyone was expected to be self-sufficient. The children were regularly castigated for complaining or using bad language. They memorized Bible verses and prayed. When Almanzo Wilder was lost in the snow, they prayed for him.
Everyone took care of themselves. Only one person in the book expressed empathy for others, and no one was encouraged to care for their fellows.
“Nobody’s responsible for other folks that haven’t got enough forethought to take care of themselves.” The response? “Nobody thinks you are.”
If there were ever people in a situation where outside support would be helpful and justified, this was it. They didn’t ask for help and didn’t get it.
This is a book with a strong message about self-sufficiency and none about compassion.
It is interesting that Laura married the one compassionate person in the book, but even his selfless heroism is characterized as a way to save his seed.
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