Laura Ingalls Wilder

Pioneering Journeys of the Ingalls Family
Grace Ingalls

Return to the Burr Oak page

Birthplace of Grace Ingalls --Photo courtesy of Laura Ingalls Wilder Park and Museum, Burr Oak, Iowa http://www.lauraingallswilder.us

Grace Pearl Ingalls --Photo from the collection of the Hoover Library, photo RWL #4

Laura's youngest sister, Grace, was born in this house on May 23, 1877. The family had left the hotel to live over a grocery store before renting this house on the edge of Burr Oak. Pa started working at a feed mill and did odd jobs around town but could not make enough money to support the family. In the fall of 1877 the Ingalls family moved back to Walnut Grove, Minnesota.

In 1930 Laura decided to write her autobiography because she felt her experiences growing up on the frontier were stories that must be told and preserved. She called her memoir Pioneer Girl . In it she told about her year in Burr Oak and how she enjoyed taking the family cow to and from the pasture, walking in the oak woods and exploring the Burr Oak Cemetery. She wrote, "I loved to wander along the creek and look at the flowers and wriggle my toes among the cool, lush grasses." She may have seen these woodland wildflowers.

Wood Anemone	Hoary Puccoon	Wild Geranium