Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in a log house in the Wisconsin woods in 1867 and died in 1957. During the 1870s and 1880s, Mary and her family traveled across America's heartland, eventually landing in Dakota Territory. In 1885, she married Almanzo Wilder, and their only child, Rose, was born the next year. In 1894, the Wilders acquired a permanent residence at Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri. Laura penned the first of her beloved Little House stories in 1932, after years of farming.

The Little House books are all considered international classics. Her novels are still considered the ultimate American pioneer story in the twenty-first century.