Visitors take in Laura Ingalls Wilder home during annual festival

MANSFIELD, Mo. — Hundreds of people visit Mansfield every year to visit The Historic Home and Museum celebrating the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, famous author of the Little House series, following her life as a pioneer.

The Museum and Historic Home on Rocky Ridge Farm are a big draw for fans of the books and the “Little House on the Prairie” TV series, including one woman who came to visit from Indiana.

“I’ve been a lifelong fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” said Linda Krevda who toured the house and museum.

Krevda said the historic Wilder home and museum has been on her list of places to visit since she was a child.

“Life kind of got in the way. And raising my own kids and doing all of that,” Krevda said. “And now we’re retired and have the opportunity to do some traveling. And this was on my list and we decided to just come over and do it.”

Museum director Nicholas Inman said many visitors have fond memories of reading the “Little House” books inspired by Wilder’s life or watching the TV series based on her books.

“It takes people back to their childhood when either they were reading the books themselves or they were read to in their elementary classroom, or maybe they sat around the television set with mom and dad or family time or with grandparents,” Inman said. “Mrs. Wilder has a way of pulling at our heartstrings and taking us back to a simpler times in our life.”

People who come to visit Rocky Ridge Farm can tour the museum filled with artifacts from Wilder’s life and the two homes on the property where she lived and wrote her books in the 1930s and 40s.

“To walk into her home and to realize it depicts a great deal of what it looked like, of course, when she was living there,” Inman said. “It’s fascinating to people and they really enjoy that.”

The farmhouse was built by Ingalls Wilder and her husband Almanzo and they added to it over the years. The rock house was a Christmas gift from her daughter Rose Wilder.

“We actually did go up and tour the white farmhouse,” Krevda said. “And I think what stood out to me the most there was the scene, her writing desk where she, you know, probably wrote, sat and wrote all these books out by hand, these manuscripts on lined paper.”

The Museum and Historic Home tours are available from early March to mid-November. Tickets are $18.00 for adults, $8.00 for children ages 6 to 17, and children 5 and under are free.

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