Our Family Trip 2015 - The Ingalls Homestead!

"I've got some news.  I've found our homestead," Pa announced.  

"Oh where, Pa? What's it like? How far is it?" Mary and Laura and Carrie asked excited.  

Ma said, "That's good, Charles."  

"It is just right in every way.  It lies south of where the lake joins Big Slough, and the slough curves around to the west of it.  There's a rise in the prairie to the south of the slough, that will make a nice place to build.  A little hill just west of it crowds the slough back on that side.  On the quarter section there's upland hay and plow land lying to the south; and good grazing on all of it, everything a farmer could ask for.  And it's near the town site, so the girls can go to school."

-excerpt from By the Shores of Silver Lake

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

In the late afternoon, we stopped by our trailer at the RV Park that was located on the road that runs from town out to the Homestead.  I liked to think of Laura and her family walking right by where our trailer was parked on their way into town.  We got our snacks for the afternoon and then drove out to the homestead.  None of the buildings on the homestead are original.  They are all reproductions or historic buildings that have been moved onto the property for preservation and historical display.  Some of the trees that are still standing were planted by Pa many many years ago...

Below is the entrance of a dugout in the hillside.  The family lived in one of these when they were at Plum Creek...

Here is a replica of the claim shanty the family lived in when they first moved to the homestead...

"The little claim shanty was as full as it would hold.  Everything must be carefully fitted into the space.  Laura and Carrie and Ma lifted and tugged the furniture this way and that, and stood and thought and tried again."

excerpt from On the Shores of Silver Lake

Below is a picture of the barn with a slough grass roof...

A brand new baby calf in the barn...

Next we went into the homestead house...

"It was exciting to see the shanty being made into a house.  When it was done they had three rooms.  The new part was two tiny bedrooms, each with a window.  How the beds would not be in the front room any more."

excerpt from Little Town on the Prairie

below is a picture of the front room...

"Then Ma and Laura scrubbed and scoured every inch of the...front room.  It was spacious now, with no beds in it, only the cook stove and cupboards and table and chairs and the whatnot."

excerpt from Little Town on the Prairie

Here is a picture of a bedroom...

"They washed the window curtains and all the quilts and hung them out to dry... Ma and Larua set up the bedsteads in the new rooms all made of fresh clean-smelling boards.  Laura and Carrie filled the straw ticks with the brightest hay from the middle of a haystack, and they made up the beds with sheets still warm from Ma's ironing and with the clean quilts smelling of the prairie air."

excerpt from Little Town on the Prairie

Inside the house making button spinners...

Outside the house doing the wash...

Melita hets her hands wet...

Walking around the homestead...

An old barn that is turned into a museum with old farming implements, etc...

Cute little baby colt...

Onto another building where we got to make corn husk dolls...

And make ropes...

And learn how to twist slough grass into logs for the stove...

Then we took a covered wagon ride across the homestead property to another school house...

Another one room school house that was moved to the property...

Little pupils...

We headed back to our trailer after the homestead tour.  After a quick supper, we headed back to watch the pageant, "On the Shores of Silver Lake."

Watching the play...

Under the Prairie moon...

And that was the end of our day on the South Dakota prairie.  It was a wonderful day and left us with the feeling of thankfulness for all that we have and enjoy, but also a desire of a simpler life.

Side Note: A couple of weeks before we left on our trip, we were at our Wednesday evening bible study and we met a young lady from South Dakota who was in our town for work.  When we realized where she was from, we told her that we were going to South Dakota soon on our trip and that we would be going to De Smet and the Ingalls Homestead.  Imagine our surprise when she told us that she grew up near this place and that she had worked here, at the Ingalls Homestead, while she was in high school.  Sure enough, we asked many of the folks, working at the homestead if they knew "Allison" and they knew her very well and missed her!

De Smet truly is a LITTLE TOWN in a very SMALL WORLD! :)

After a good night of sleep in our trailer home, we had breakfast and headed north...