Frank Carlson Library

In 1894 Laura Ingalls Wilder, her husband, and her seven-year-old daughter Rose leave the Ingalls family in Dakota and make the long and difficult journey to Missouri to start a new life.

In 1884, when Laura, Manly, and their daughter Rose come from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, looking for a better life, Laura's outspoken articles against a local timberman cause some problems.

When drought and fire afflict Rocky Ridge Farm, eleven-year-old Rose Wilder and her parents temporarily move to Mansfield and try to adjust to a new life in town.

In 1905, Laura's assignment to write an article for the Mansfield, Missouri, newspaper about the new school teacher leads her to start an unpopular crusade to get the farm children into school.

As she gets to know and like the reclusive woman healer whom some in town consider a witch, Laura realizes that Mansfield, Missouri, faces a much greater threat from a self-proclaimed religious leader.

When Rose Wilder and her parents arrive in Missouri, they must work hard to make a rundown farm into their own home.

"Will Hartman's sons and daughters were a fierce and determined American family, with a legacy of honor and a bold dream to build new lives on the Missouri frontier. But long before America declared itself at war over the issue of slavery, Kansas and Missouri were in pitched battle. John Brown's bloody raids into Missouri were answered with retaliatory strikes at the homes of the abolitionists. The Hartman family was caught up in the division on opposite...