The last four books Laura wrote were set in the town of DeSmet, South Dakota.  Their family had finally settled down, and Pa and Ma became pioneers of the little railroad town.  The first winter spent in DeSmet was spent in this house, called "The Surveyor's House" by Laura.  This was the house they were fortunate enough to borrow from the railroad surveying crew, complete with a full pantry and more rooms than any of their little houses had ever had.

Come with me as we tour the "Surveyor's House" before pictures were not allowed to be taken.  This pre-1970 photo is on the main floor, and shows a chest of drawers that Pa hand made for his youngest daughter, Grace, when she married a neighboring farmer, Nathan Dow.  Pa did not use any electrical tools such as saws, routers, screwdrivers or drills.  He bought the boards from the lumberyard and completed this four drawer chest, complete with whittled handles and a keyhole and lock for each drawer!  The item in the jar on the top is an apple, preserved with whole cloves pierced into the skin of the apple.

Despite the poor lighting on this photo, you can see I am standing in a very small bedroom.  In fact, the hand toward the outside of the photo was almost touching the wall, and the chair behind me was touching the wall.  This is Pa and Ma's bedroom in the Surveyor's House.  The room is on the first floor, so when Laura describes their house being used as a "boarding house", Pa and Ma were the only ones on the same floor as the sometimes rowdy travelers.  The red shawl on the bed was knit by Ma (Caroline Ingalls).  She was well-known for her knitting and crocheting abilities, and, in fact, some of her articles appeared in a magazine for knitters!  All the other items are from the late 1800s, but did not belong to the Ingalls.  Laura briefly describes this room in By the Shores of Silver Lake, page 130.

This was the room Laura first entered when she ran ahead of the rest of the family to see what their "new" house was like.  She was so amazed she let out a "squeal of excitement".  Here she found what she termed "a little store".  On these very shelves were rows of canned goods her family had never had the luxury of eating before.  Canned peaches amazed her, as well as pickles and there were even soda crackers!  There were other staples such as flour, corn meal, salt pork, salted fish, dried apples, potatoes and beans.  The pantry also held all the pots and pans, dishes and tubs they would need to make, serve, and clean up from every meal they made!

Now that the Surveyor's House is a museum, they have moved this pump organ from the original church in the town to this location.  It's not just any organ, however, this was the one that Mary played for church, and even sometimes Ma.  I was very fortunate to be allowed to play the organ, and it was hard to play with my hands and pump with both feet at the same time.  And to think...I played the same organ Mary Ingalls played!  The pantry is behind my head.

The pantry door and the door to Pa and Ma's bedroom are on the same wall, but there was also a door between them.  This door opened to a steep set of stairs, leading to the attic.  The attic was as large as the entire downstairs, but, as you notice, there is no insulation in the ceiling or in the walls.  Imagine how hot it must have been in the summer, and how cold in the winter!

This is the South Dakota prairie just southeast of DeSmet.  The trees in the distance are cottonwoods, planted by Pa Ingalls, since that is where their "claim" and home was.  The place from which I am taking the picture was "The Big Slough" before both the slough and Silver Lake were drained.  Pa was tracking two "buffalo wolves" that had frightened Laura and Carrie when he found this lovely site.  There is a historical marker on the site where the house used to stand.

In Laura's next-to-last book, Little Town on the Prairie, she describes how Mary, now blind, was fortunate enough to go to a special school for the blind.  The only problem was, it was in Vinton, Iowa.  This is the school, and it is still in operation.  In order to travel that far, Mary, Ma and Pa, rode the train.  But Mary's opportunity also left Laura very lonesome for her older sister, even though she was happy for Mary's good fortune.

After Mary left, Laura met Almanzo Wilder, a young homesteader who loved Morgan horses, and fell in love with Laura.  In These Happy Golden Years Laura describes taking buggy rides to these "twin" lakes, Lake Henry and Lake Thompson, which have now been turned into a wildlife preserve. 

In the same book, Laura describes the visit of Ma Ingall's brother, Tom, who told of his adventures with the first party of white people who traveled, in 1874, to the Black Hills of South Dakota in search of gold.  You can read it yourself in the chapter, "Springtime", but there is a bit more I can tell you.  This is a replica of the "stockade" Laura's Uncle Tom helped to build.  Tom describes travelling through the Badlands, and then finding their camp on French Creek.  He also told of their eviction by the cavalry, since they had chosen to camp on Sioux land.  While living in Rapid City, South Dakota, I learned that one of Uncle Tom's traveling companions was the first school teacher in the Black Hills area...Anne Tallent.  

After Laura and Almanzo were married, Pa built this nice home in "town".  This is where both he and Ma passed away.  Mary never married, and lived with her parents until their deaths.  She then lived alone for some time, traveling to see her sisters now and then.  She was actually at her sister Carrie's home in Keystone, South Dakota, when she died, 

Here is Mary's bedroom in Pa and Ma's house.  It is small, but probably had all that Mary needed, especially because she lived with her parents.  (I was not supposed to take this photograph, but I turned off the flash, and now you know what at least one of the rooms in Pa and Ma's home looked like.)