My Genealogy Hound

Rose Wilder Lane, tombstone and grave, Mansfeld, Missouri, photo

Rose Wilder Lane, tombstone and grave, Mansfeld, Missouri, photo

The grave and tombstone of Rose Wilder Lane, the only daughter of Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder of the Little House book series. Rose was born on December 5, 1886 in De Smet, South Dakota (then Dakota Territory). The Wilder family moved from De Smet to Rocky Ridge Farm at Mansfield, Missouri in the summer of 1894, when Rose was eight years old. After graduating from high school, Rose learned to be a telegraph operator working in Mansfield and later in Sedalia and Kansas City, Missouri and still later in San Francisco, California. In 1909, Rose married Gillette Lane. Later that year, Rose gave birth to a premature and stillborn son. It was to be the only child she ever had although she did later take on the support of several other children. The marriage to Lane was an unhappy one which led to their divorce in 1918. She never married again and retained the surname of Lane for the remainder of her life.

At near the same time as her marriage to Lane, Rose began a career as a freelance writer of short articles for local newspapers. This later expanded to the writing of serial romances for newspapers and also of biographies of noted individuals in book form. Demand for her writing expanded to articles for many of the most popular magazines of the time including Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal and Harper's. During this time, Rose encouraged her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, to record her memories of her own childhood which later were developed into the Little House book series. Rose gave her mother valuable editing advice and was responsible in part in helping to get the first book in the series, Little House in the Big Woods, published in 1932. This later expanded to a total of eight volumes, originally published between 1932 and 1943.

After the death of Laura Ingalls Wilder in 1957, Rose arranged for the purchase of the Rocky Farm Farm where Laura and Almanzo lived and the Little House book series was written. A new museum on the Rocky Ridge Farm opened in the Spring of 2016, dedicated to preserving the history of the homes and presenting the lives of Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder and their daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.

Rose Wilder Lane died at her home in Danbury, Connecticut on October 30, 1968, at the age of 81. Lane is buried next to her parents, Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder, in the Mansfield Cemetery, Mansfield, Missouri.

Numerous Laura Ingalls Wilder related photos including her birth place, the homes where she wrote the Little House book series, the graves of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder, Charles "Pa" Ingalls, Caroline "Ma" Ingalls, her sisters, and Rose Wilder Lane can be viewed here:
Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House related photos

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