Rose, on the other hand, had acquired extravagant habits, chafing under the poverty?stricken circumstances in which she had grown up

For a family that had never accumulated very much in the way of material possessions, the Great Depression was less traumatic than it was for those who had never known want. Laura and Almanzo Wilder had experienced adversity on the Dakota prairies during their early years of marriage in the 1880s and had been driven in desperation during the depression?wracked and drought?plagued year of 1894 to try their luck in the more hospitable climes of Missouri. But eeking out a living on their Rocky Ridge farm just outside of Mansfield and for a time in town with Almanzo’s draying business and Laura’s cooking, had not been easy. What modest prosperity the couple had come to enjoy by the late 1920s, as Laura entered her sixties and Almanzo his seventies, was due largely to the concern and solicitude of Rose, who provided them with an annual $500 income subsidy and who, in a not untypical spendthrift gesture, built them an $11,000 English?style rock cottage across the hill from the sturdy two?story white frame farmhouse that they had lovingly built and expanded over the years with their own hands and the assistance of some local carpenters. After they moved out of their old dwelling, Rose moved in, remaining at Rocky Ridge until 1935, when she moved back East, first to New York City and then to Danbury, Connecticut.

The Depression pinched the family’s finances

The strain showed itself more in Rose than in her parents. They had always managed to live on little, although as old age descended upon them, they increasingly worried about how they would be able to take care of themselves.Continue reading→