At the age of sixty-five, Laura Ingalls Wilder began writing a series of novels for young people based on her early experiences on the American frontier. Born in the state of Wisconsin in 1867, she and her family were rugged pioneers. Her father was Charles Ingalls who liked to play his fiddle after a whole day of hard work in their field. Laura's mother was Caroline Lake Quiner who was a teacher. She stopped teaching after she married Charles. She liked to work at home raising her children. Seeking better farm land, they went by covered wagon to Missouri in 1869, then on to Kansas the next year, returning to Wisconsin in 1871, and traveling on to Minnesota and Iowa before settling permanently in South Dakota in 1879. On Sundays, the Ingalls went to church. Because of this constant moving, Wilder's early education took place sporadically in a succession of one-room schools. From age thirteen to sixteen, she attended school more regularly, although she never graduated.

Laura Ingalls Wilder had two three sisters Mary Amelia, Caroline Celestia and Grace Pearl. Her brother, Charles Frederick (also called Freddy) died at the age of nine months. In 1879, Mary suffered from fierce pain in her head called "brain fever." Her eyesight was getting dimmer after that. She became blind when she recovered from the fever.

At the age of eighteen, she married Almanzo James Wilder. They bought a small farm in the Ozarks, where they remained for the rest of their lives. Her success in poultry business attracted the attention of other farmers. They invited her to share her experience in a meeting. Because she could not attend the meeting, she wrote a speech to be read in her absence. One of the participants of the meeting was John Case, an editor of The Missouri Ruralist. He asked Mrs. Wilder to write articles for her weekly paper. It was the beginning of her career as a writer. Her first article, "Favors the Small Farm," was printed in February 1911. As a matter of fact she had always liked to write compositions in school. Most of her articles were about the country life. She interviewed her neighbors and conducted research for her articles. 

Their only daughter, Rose, who had become a nationally known journalist, encouraged her mother to write. Serving as agent and editor, Rose negotiated with Harper's to publish her mother's first book, Little House in the Big Woods. She was more than 60 years old when she sat down to write her childhood story. She had never planned to become a writer. She only wanted to record her childhood memories and to portray American pioneer life that was disappearing quickly as the result of rapid development and modernization. It was published in 1932 with illustrations by Helen Sewell. Her second book about her husband's boyhood, Farmer Boy, got good reviews but did not receive as much publicity as her first novel.

Seven more books followed, each chronicling her early life on the plains. Written from the perspective of a child, they have remained popular with young readers from many nations. Her books clearly describe the pioneers ways of life which were an important part of American history and culture. Twenty years after her death in 1957, more than 20 million copies had been sold, and they had been translated into fourteen languages. In 1974, a weekly television series, "Little House on the Prairie," was produced, based on the stories from the Wilder books. Laura died on February 10, 1957 at the age of ninety. Her books are still read by children all over the world. She's known not as Mrs. Wilder but still as a little girl named Laura Ingalls.

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