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Recently Read: West from Home: Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, San Francisco, 1915
A short but packed collection of letters Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote home to her husband Almanzo in 1915, West From Home details her train ride from Missouri to San Francisco, the stay with her professional writer daughter, Rose, and their frequent visits to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
This book, also containing relevant photographs from the era, will appeal to those interested in San Francisco history, those interested in the 1915 world's fair, and those interested in the further adventures of Laura. Her descriptions of the fair and beyond are captivating, and they're mixed (never intending to be published) with recommendations to Almanzo about the upkeep of their farm, her descriptions of Rose's working life, and an under-the-surface concern that Rose and her partially out of work husband may not be able to pay back a major loan to her and Almanzo.
West From Home compels me to want to read more of Laura's writing, more of Rose's work (she hobnobbed with violinist Fritz Kreisler, Henry Ford and other famous artists and celebrities) and biographies of both. The family's upward mobility, from Laura and her family barely surviving the deadly 1880 "Long Winter" to Rose being a successful author in one generation is astonishing. In 1915, the "Little House" books were in both author's futures and it will be fascinating to learn more about the collaborative process that enabled them to be written and published.
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