Writing a Woman's Life Part 3
Rose Wilder Lane
In Part One and Part Two of this series, I told you that, in 1993, I found William Holtz’s outstanding biography, A Ghost in the Little House. That book introduced me to the resources in the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, where Roger MacBride, Rose’s literary executor, had deposited her work. McBride chose that site because Rose wrote the earliest (1919) biography of President Hoover.
When I visited that library the next year, I knew what I wanted: the diary Rose kept during the 1920s and 30s—a Line-A-Day five-year diary. Reading it closely, I could begin to see the amount of work she put into her mother’s books. But it was only after I transcribed all 83,000 words (!) into a searchable computer file that I could see what Rose’s life was really like at the Wilders’ farm during the difficult days of the Depression. She constantly worried about making enough money to support her household and that of her parents; about sandwiching her rewrites of Laura’s manuscripts into her already jammed writing schedule; and about her relationship with her friend Troub (Helen Boylston). Even more, I gained a sense of her vexed relationship with her mother—and the difficulties that created it, on both sides.
When I sat down to write the novel, it was Rose’s diary that was my guide. I used it to create the story’s timeline and anchoring themes, establish the characters, develop Rose’s voice, show the family relationships, and solve (at least to my own satisfaction) the long-kept mystery of Rose’s participation in the writing of the Little House books. Laura would give her draft manuscript (those yellow tablets) to Rose. Rose would read it, then ask for more information or suggest a different approach. Laura would argue or apologize, but she usually came up with additional details (clothing, landscape, theme). Rose would rewrite the manuscript, using Laura's draft as the starting point, revising, expanding. Laura sent Rose’s finished manuscript to George Bye, their literary agent, with a cover letter that Rose had written and Laura recopied in her own hand. Bye would forward Rose’s typescript to the Harper editor, under Laura’s name. Rose’s professionally written text led editor Ursula Nordstrom to remark, “None of the manuscripts ever needed any editing. Not any. They were read and then copy-edited and sent to the printer.” Nobody outside the family knew about Rose’s interventions.
What led Rose and Laura to conceal Rose's part in this decade-long process and beyond? The complicated reasons have their root in a troubled mother-daughter relationship, the Wilder's desperate need for money, and the challenges of publishing fiction during the era of the Great Depression. For a full answer to that question, you'll just have to read A Wilder Rose.
As you can see, all this research work took quite a few years—in the cracks and crannies of my other writing work (all those mysteries you’ve been reading). I began writing in 2011, did several rewrites, and published the book in 2012 under my imprint (Persevero Press). Later, I sold second edition rights to Lake Union Publishing.
In recent years, the myth of Laura-as-sole-author-and-untaught-literary-genius has been (mostly) dispelled, replaced by a grudging acknowledgement that well, yes, after all, it seems that her daughter might have done some editing of the books. I'm glad to see that this much progress has been made. But I'm waiting for the time when Rose's essential, indispensable role in the planning, the writing, the marketing, and the publishing of the Little House books is fully acknowledged.
But something else grew out of this long process, for me. I became interested in women who lived in the shadow of someone else. My next project (2015) was a novel about Lorena Hickok, an important friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. In 2017, I wrote about Kay Summersby, Dwight Eisenhower’s wartime aide. And later this year (November 2024), you can read Someone Always Nearby, a novel about Maria Chabot, whose friendship made it possible for Georgia O’Keeffe to live and work in the remote and inhospitable New Mexico desert during the 1940s and beyond—and who built O’Keeffe’s stunning Abiquiu house, which you may have visited.
Four hidden women . . . and for me, they all began with Rose.