Biography

There's not a whole lot written about Caroline Quiner Ingalls, the mother of famed Little House on the Prairie author, Laura Ingalls Wilder. And I always wondered why. So I set about looking for her. . .in family letters, bits of biography and, mostly, through the words she spoke throughout the Little House series. The Ma I thought I’d find wasn’t the one I discovered. Would you like to meet her? I think you’ll be happy that you did.

Whether you love her, hate her, or love to hate her, Nellie Oleson is one of most recognizable literary figures of the 20th century. But Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie series in which Nellie appears, had a secret. . .Nellie wasn’t a real person! Instead, she was a composite character created from three girls Laura knew from childhood: Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters, and Estella Gilbert.